How did YOU pick your first niche?

Found the niche through high traffic forums.

Loved the simplicity of it and how it worked.

Could see that it allowed me to create an online business that never stopped working even if I wasn't at my computer.

Allowed me to communicate with an audience which is what I love to do.

When people listen to you and trust you, there is no better feeling for me personally.

We all want to be heard and respected so list building ticked all the boxes for me.

Choose something that sparks something off within you and run with it!!!

Hope you find your emotional trigger business that you love to do everyday and can't wait for the next day to begin.

All the best and keep us posted with your progress!!!

It was a hobby. Was making nothing for over a year b/c there were no ads on it. Then I heard about something new called Adsense. Suddenly, I was getting checks! My IM career was off to a start. Then I found the old version of this forum and the rest is history.

Spot on Justin. I've been lurking here for far too long.

Justin has said it best. Just think of things you would enjoy selling and find out which of those things are popular. Somebody out there wants to buy it...

I made two lists:

1. Everything that I enjoyed doing and had extensive knowledge in.

2. Everything that I wanted to learn about/how to do in the near future.

First two niches come from list one, the third from list two. I'll keep repeating until I have too many niches, or I run out of things on the lists.

It was a niche I was passionate/knowledgeable about. In my opinion, it's the only way to get started in this game.

My very first try involved a hobby. I like to fish, and I like to watch fishing how-to videos. Back in the very early days of the commercial Internet, I found a source that wholesaled videos to bait shops and sporting goods stores. I also knew that people in some of the newsgroups and other places I hung out were looking for good fishing videos.

So I started buying the videos wholesale and selling them retail online. That particular business crashed and burned when the wholesaler started also selling online, at prices lower than what he was charging me.

well like a dummy i was looking for a credit card at 15 years old. I saw a link that said "make money" and i clicked it. It was to a pay per lead affiliate program for credit card signups. as it happened I knew a lot of other teens who ignorantly wanted credit cards.

thankfully none of us got them, but i did pretty well on the CPA program for a bit. Then we wised up and starting talking to our parents. They could get approved for the platinum cards that paid $25-$55 dollars.

The rest is history.

i went to clickbank and looked at what was already selling and knew i was onto a winner

Started with a hobby, but I knew there was a ton of money in it and the market was hungry. That's important. If your hobby is something like underwater basket weaving you might have a problem. Always do your research!

Hey man.

I think it really depends on the individual. You'll find some warriors who will go into any niche as long as there is profit to be made. Then you will have some (like me) who prefer to write about specific things.

I really enjoy writing, and coaching, so I had to do something where I could use that. So I just teach people about making money online; I enjoy making video content, writing articles and being a part of a massive community where I can help out.

That's why I chose this niche!

5 Quick steps (as stated in How to Choose the Right Niche for You):
1. Listed out some interests
2. Picked the ones which interests you the most
3. Checked whether is it trending or not on Google Insights
4. Found out if there is any scope to make money out of it
5. Finally stuck to the one which met the above criteria.
*BINGO*

I first got started in IM back in 2000 when Pay2 programs were really big. That was back when NetZero was still free and all you had to do was browse with a banner rotator on your screen.

This was how I started out affiliate marketing, by referring friends to NetZero and other Pay2 programs.

Just make a list of things that you are interested in / passionate about / knowledgeable about and then break it down further. The do your keyword research ;-)

Hey I got started with my passion, then it wouldn't sell, but I saw this could be fun so found a niche that would sell

My first niche was just topics I was passionate about. I went with my passions.

I started with wanting to make money online, but soon realized I had the whole making money online mindset wrong.
The making money part came last. I had to know and "understand" how to get there first, so I did a 180 and began "teaching" how to get there after much in-depth learning. I realized that helping people with how to get to the end result of making money online was my calling so to speak and it was the best decision I could have made in this business. The rest of course, is history.

Flyer on a street sign.

I picked my first niche the wrong way. I got into a niche because I saw a sales letter advising me to do so. I didn't do any market research, no competitive analyis, no keyword research, etc. So of course, I fell flat on my arse.

My second niche that I got into, I got into for several reasons: first, it was a strong passion of mine. Two, it was a very competitive market with double-digit growth projected for the next decade. Three, the top 3 competitors were raking it in using paid advertising, but none of them use press releases, none of them did anything beyond basic SEO, and none of them syndicated their content.

Once I performed my market research, I knew I could crush it in this market without having to worry about the top players in the industry.

RoD

My first niche in IM, and still today the only one in IM, is something I had passion and interest in. I started that company to learn IM and to pay for the toys I wanted to buy.

The start is always work, so you better enjoy whatever it is you are working on, or it will very quickly turn into a job you resent.

My first niche was something I was passionate about and interested in. So it didn't seem like work to me. It just happened to be a niche that had commercial intent too. That was more luck than judgement really. That was over ten years ago.

I was a freelancer, providing SEO services to my clients based on automated SEO tools like SEnuke X, Xrumer, Scrapebox etc. Then I thought if I can gather all the services in one website that may help the clients to get all the tool's service under one roof. From that thinking I started building my first niche website.

I picked something I knew about and enjoyed. Why? Because it makes things SO much easier.

My story is very simple. At the time, we were considering working on something else that I didn't really enjoy writing about: I think it was beauty products. Then, I had a discussion with my internet marketing partner, and we decided that there would be more scope, money and enjoyment in writing about weight loss, instead. So, we did that. I suppose, for the sake of relevance, I'll end this post here.

It was a hobby and something I really enjoyed. I was an active member of three vibrant forums in this niche.

Luckily many, MANY others all over the world enjoyed this hobby too, and the forums proved I had a market that was reachable and a community of people who regularly purchased stuff online, as well as openly discussing their purchases, for their hobby. It wasn't a desperate market where people made impulsive and irrational buying decisions, but some people had been known to spend a lot of money in it. Most, who I knew of, spent money every week.

There were other similar products in this niche, but I felt, from my experience, I could offer something better.

The rest is history.

Great thread here btw (kudos to the OP and the other posters), throwing up lots of interesting and insightful info.

Garry.

Clickbank was how I found my first niche. Guess which one...weight loss!

I have ALWAYS picked my niches in-line with an area of my life that I have wanted to improve, learn or expand.

These are not my actual examples, but this will make the point...

1. Let's assume you want to get better at speaking in public, so you research, try and learm from others what works and what doesn't work - now you can share that with the world

2. You struggle with a difficult child - again you must deal with that each day, research ways to get better and learn what works and what doesn't - your product then can save time and effort for the next person who follows in your shoes

3. You love golf, but hate that you can't seem to hit your drive's straight and your short game sucks...again, you synthesize various techniques (technical changes, fitness, mental) and improve by 50% - wouldn't that be worth sharing with all of those who want the same thing as you did?

One of the challenges is that we get so busy, so focused and so overwhelmed living our lives we forget that we are learning things each day...not just theory, but practical trial-and-error stuff that can be worth big money for those who haven't yet been through it.

We have entered 4 different niche markets so far this way...two of them were slam dunks right away, two others we entered more cautiously until we figured them out a little more and then turned them into slam dunks.

Jeff