Missing a Piece of the Puzzle

What are you trying to find niche for? Are you trying to do affiliate marketing or you want to launch your own product?

If you want to jump into the niche with your own product and you're looking for the niche to do that - that's one thing. If you want to create a website and promote affiliate products - that's another thing. With affiliate products you have thousands of options and niches. If you want to launch some kind of your own product then niche research requires something completely different.

Hi, thanks for the reply. I should have been more clear on that. My plan is to use affiliate marketing; Amazon, ClickBank, Rakuten link share, etc. to monetize the site.

I should also mention I have bought several resources from members on this forum over the last few years. One of the best in my opinion was From Newbie to Millionaire. However, I just can't seem to find a niche I am confident in. Maybe I'm overthinking it? But I feel the original niche choice is the most important part.

I feel like you are probably over thinking it. You've loaded up on the research end and just haven't pulled the trigger (I'm guilty of this myself) what's the worst that could happen if you just tested one of your top few niche contenders right now?

Thanks for the reply. I think you are right. I need to quit reading so much and start acting. I guess I just fear sinking tons of time and effort into a niche that doesn't pay off. If I don't make the right decision, then I will be wasting valuable time. But on the other hand, I guess this is how you live and learn. If I don't take action I will surely fail..haha

Not sure this is where you want to go but disability hit close to home for me as well with a family member years ago and it was the impetus for me to enter this Niche nearly 8 years ago(The Mobility Product Niche) Lots of high CPC and can be very profitable . Something to think about


- Robert Andrew

Do you want to use SEO to drive traffic? Or paid ads?

If you want to use SEO then you should do proper keyword research. That means you should go to Amazon or whatever affiliate products you want to promote and then research keywords related to those products with Keyword Planner. Make sure you go deep enough with your keyword research, otherwise it will seem like all the keyowords and niches are already taken! If you want more help send me PM. There's just too much to describe here.

It sounds like you feel a bit stuck because you're taking into consideration traffic from the point of view of mostly ranking your website.

I understand that you are quite good at onsite SEO therefore it's somehow easier to think of your business from that point of view but there is so much more to traffic...perhaps being a bit more open to other sources could help you:
a. decide on a good niche
b. better penetrate that said niche

Here's a short article on building a business on Instagram for example:
How to Build Your Brand With Instagram: 4 Tried-and-True Tips

Same for YouTube, Facebook...as suggested in the article, you can focus on building a list which you can then monetize through affiliate marketing.

Anyway, I hope this helps broaden your horizons and I wish you best of luck!

Alexandra

Robert, thank you for that suggestion. That will give me a niche to research further. At first glance it seems doable :-)

Andreis, I will need to drive all my traffic through SEO as I currently don't have the finances to pay for traffic. I will definitely take you up on the offer of PM'ing you. I will contact you later as I am just getting ready to go to bed.

Katrim, thank you for sharing your ideas with me. I have bookmarked the article and will read it shortly.

Thanks again for all the replies.

One thing that hobbles a lot of people is thinking that finding a proper niche is solely a matter of keywords and search rankings.

What ends up happening is that the wannabe affiliate ends up plugging the same basic keywords into the same keyword tools as everybody else, and ends up seeing the same results. Then they decide that either not enough people search for a specific keyword, or that there is too much competition.

Sound familiar?

Keyword research should be one of your last steps, not your first. Robert gave you a clue - something in his life pointed him to a group of people with common wants. In this case, mobility products. And because of the personal connection, Robert has insight into what the people in that market want and need. And into the language they use among themselves.

Once you have an idea for a group you can serve (aka, a niche market), use your research time to find out where they hang out - what blogs they read, which forums and social groups they engage with, etc. Then simply lurk and observe. What problems do they bring up again and again? What kind of products do they recommend to each other, and why do they recommend them? What makes them frustrated or angry?

You'll end up absorbing the language of your market, which will make your eventual keyword research more useful.

Now, when you reach out to them, you can provide content (including your affiliate offers) that make their lives better somehow, and do it using their own words and phrases.

While the siren song of "free traffic from SEO" is a tempting one, keep in mind what happened to the sailors who were tempted by the sirens...

Revnobody.

• Forget Monetization, for now.
• Forget SEO & Traffic Plans, for now.
• Forget Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al, for now.
• Forget competition, for now.
• Forget asset-building, for now.
• Forget everything, in fact, except for One Thing.

Holding up my index finger à la Curly from City Slickers,

One Thing.

Will the world give a damn about your intended blog?

"Niche selection" is a complex and extensive subject, and I won't even begin to try and capture even a taste of it in a single forum reply, but it boils down to a few key elements:

• Audience size.
• Monetized Action-Taking Potential.
• Competition.
• Viral Trends.
• Life-Span.
• Entry Costs.
• Knowledge & Skill Requirements (for operation).
• Traffic Potential.

The trouble is, and it's a big problem, you can apply all of that - and then some; the above 8 items scratch the surface - but if you forget about the One Thing, the newbie will fail almost every time. But how about a professional marketer? He or she can certainly setup a professional blogging business by just sticking to the science (above items, and more), but even they will do better if they setup their business, from the get-go, by considering the One Thing.

All of which sounds wishy-washy, so let me explain.

Money.

Let's say you're an experienced marketer, a pro blogger, and you know all about growing traffic, building assets (subscribers, followers, etc), viral marketing, and a hundred and one other elements of the job. That would describe someone like myself.

Question, then.

Should I setup "just another" IM blog OR should I setup a blog that the world will give a damn about? That the TARGET AUDIENCE will give a damn about.

Just to be clear: this is not about me saying to myself, "Heck no, the world doesn't need another IM blog, so maybe I should decide on what they do need or want, that they aren't getting yet, and give it to them."

Not so at all.

This is about me saying, "Okay, maybe I give the world another IM blog, but if I do that, how do I make that blog SUCH that the world gives a damn?"

Off the top of my head:

Blog A: I talk about marketing strategies and use white noise headlines and basically heave-ho dozens of blog posts into the world about writing catchy headlines and growing sodding lists and writing delightful follow-up emails. I'm describing a type of IM blog that has literally been around for almost 20 years now. In many ways, the Guru Blog.

Blog B: Understanding that the majority of my audience is new to the industry, and wouldn't know a contextual monetization plan from viral piggybacking, each week I interview a successful marketer, providing video, blog text, and PDF, and he or she and I break down their success into step-by-steps that anyone can follow. Over time, quite the IM resource.

Blog B has the One Thing. Granted, I just pulled the idea out of my left ear, and were I to setup a new IM blog, it would be a long creative process, likely involving my team, where we'd be looking at science as well as the creative One Thing, looking for domain possibilities, and too much more to mention.

But. Essentially. We would eventually arrive at a One Thing Blog. The type of blog that the target audience will likely give a rat's bottom about. When you get that right, it makes it easier to form content that they also care about: articles, videos, infographics, memes, gifs, everything.

People, I think, forget how it works in the real world. You might get the idea, for instance, to setup a clothing shop in town. That would be akin to getting the idea to setup an IM blog. But, here's the thing, when you setup that clothing shop, you need to lease the land, pay utilities, hire staff, market, and in all, you're looking at seeing a break-even within 18 months or longer. So, what do you do? You make sure - like your life depended on it - that you have a GREAT idea for a clothing shop. One Thing.

Whatever niche you consider - start by thinking this way. The world must care about this blog. The last thing you want is to push MORE White Noise out into the world.

- Tom

P.S: Just adding an edit. I hope the tone of my writing doesn't sound harsh; truly isn't meant to sound that way. Above is important so I suppose the tone reflects how I feel about the importance.

Keyword research is not the main thing in SEO. You can win big competition keywords if you do SEO right. Choose high or mid volume search keyword and go for it, build high quality backlinks, write unique quality content and people will find you.

Never give up. You can look at Google Trends and popular Twitter hashtags on which products or services are trending then you can search your niche from it. Your skills can give highly optimized sites for your niche. You can also sign up for online tutorial classes about niche and marketing your site for 2016.

Wow! Thanks everyone for the great advice. After looking over what you have said and sleeping on it, I feel much more optimistic. I have done much of what most of you are suggesting and had it narrowed down to 4 niche markets that would add value to each of the demographics.

So I pulled the trigger, bought some domains, and started building a site. I have a lot of content that I can start adding to the site, as I have written for an independent news source on this very topic for quite some time. I just need to re-write so that it is unique.

Thanks again for the advice! It is very much appreciated. I will check back in and let you know how things go. :-)

What you should be focusing on is building and growing your email list.

Stop looking at how a niche is saturated or you will never come up with a niche to promote. What you need to do is to list down all of your preferred niches then under each niche, think of possible sub-niches that you can promote. Once you've done that, you can then conduct a research for these sub-niches to check for keywords and to check how huge/in demand the (sub) niche is to its market. Going with a sub-niche website lowers the number of competition and gives you a higher chance of ranking well for that niche.

Take note: almost all niches (and sub niches), are in a way saturated if by definition, saturated means a lot of promoters/competitors for that niche. Personally for me, there is no such thing as saturated or over-saturated. You can get past your competitors in so many ways like for example, the way you market your product. Creating quality content for your website can make a huge difference.

Thank you for the reply. Some great words of wisdom. I do think quality content is important and with a writing background, I am confident in that area. Honestly, I am confident in nearly every area EXCEPT choosing a niche to start..haha. But, I have put that behind me and settled on 2 micro niches. This should give me the experience I need to tackle something bigger in the future.

I own a political news site that gets fairly high amounts of traffic every day. It started as a hobby, but through good content, and multiple stories going viral it has become popular. It's monetized, but makes almost nothing and that was never my intention when I started it.

I think I was just overthinking it. I have put in tons of research and was just failing to act. So forward I go and lessons I am sure I will learn. :-)

I would suggest going with a niche that is a combination of things described above, but also something you have a genuine interest and passion for because that is where you will find your internal drive. It's hard to be motivated an promote something you're not really passionate about. I would suggest checking out The Circle of Profit by Anik Singal. He goes into pretty good detail about how to find a niche and what to look for. There's also good 'ol trial and error. Just keep on keepin' on and you WILL find something that works. In the words of Thomas Edison: "I knew I had to succeed because I had finally ran out of things that wouldn't work." Good luck

Look around at the skills and head start you already have.

I just searched "disabled work at home" and it is a hungry thriving niche that you are already operating in!

Surely you could create a product with your existing knowledge for a free giveaway and start listbuilding.

Become the expert, and good luck.

Pete

go for solo ads bro