How to Choose the Right Niche to Start an Online Business
by Herman Drost
The allure of starting an online business is that it’s so easy to make money with just
a few clicks of your mouse. There are countless offers promising immediate riches if you just
sign up for their program. The truth is 95 percent of people who start any business fail in
the first five years so if you want to avoid that statistic you need to be committed for the
long term to give yourself an opportunity to be successful.
Before getting wowed by a professionally written sales letter and buying into the program
do your own research first. One of the biggest problems people face is how to choose the right
niche to build your business upon. If you have no interest in a particular niche you’re not going
to last long and you’ll join the 1000s of people who failed to build a profitable online business.
How to choose the right niche to start an online business.
1. Follow your passion
Create a list of all the things, events and places you are passionate about. For instance
recently I had trouble with knee tendonitis so I started a blog in the knee pain niche.
2. Do keyword research
Use Google’s free keyword tool to find keywords related to your main keyword and see
how many searches those keywords receive every month. For instance if I enter “knee pain” in
Google’s search box I get a list of 100 related keywords displaying how many searches each
keyword received each month. This means people are interested in searching for information
on those keywords.
3. Narrow your niche
Even though your main keyword receives 100,000 searches per month the topic may be too
general for building an online business. It’s harder to build a profitable business on a general
topic because you’ll be trying to appeal to everyone but end up appealing to no one. Narrow
your niche by selecting a sub niche or micro niche. For instance if “knee pain” is your main
keyword, a narrower niche would be “runners knee” because will be less competitors.
4. Engage with your potential audience
The amount of research you do beforehand determines how profitable your niche will be
in the long run. To find what people are talking about in your potential niche engage with
your audience online by visiting forums, blogs, social media sites (Facebook , Twitter, YouTube,
LinkedIn). For example to find forums online simply enter keyword + forum in Google. Do the
same to find blogs. Participate in conversations by asking questions or leaving comments. Connecting
with people in your potential niche will show you what ideas people are currently talking about.
5. Test the waters with Google AdWords
This is a great way to test if your niche will become profitable. It will cost you some
money up front but it’s better to do a short test than to find out months later you didn’t
choose a profitable niche. Open up a Google AdWords account. Create a list of at least 10 closely
related keywords and write 2 ads. One will be your control ad theother your test ad. Rotate
these ads alternatively (called split testing) to see which one receives the most clicks (click
through rate). Promote an affiliate program related to your niche. I suggest searching ClickBank
where you will find thousands of affiliate programs to choose from. If you receive good conversion
rates (sales) from your ads you know you have a winner.
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