How do you get started in a new niche?

I can certainly relate to this situation.

What I found helpful was making it a point to verify everything that I think could possibly happen. So like you mentioned, if I think something won't work, I try to find data to support this line of thinking. If I can justify this line of thought with hard data, I don't work on that particular project.

However, if it turns out that I'm simply 'assuming' that it won't work, I put my head down, and implement the damn thing. Then I let the results prove me right or wrong.

About the part that 'everything has already been written' - Every person explains a particular phenomenon or situation differently. And every person has his/her own way of seeing things. So even if something has already been said, the way you say it might make it simpler for a certain group of people to understand that 'thing'.

So don't fret too much about it. Just do it

You may be to hard on yourself. Just write it. Put it out here. If it is fresh content and SEO optimized at the least you have something in the web. Just keeping writing if you enjoy it.

Pick a niche market you enjoy doing. Like for me I love the weight-loss niche just because that niche is easy for me to market. I myself like to stay in shape.

Determine the buying keywords, create content for those keywords that pre-sells products and promote as an affiliate. By all means add other content, but focus like crazy ranking the buying keyword pages in the search engines. If your conversions are fantastic, consider doing some PPC.

Start building a list at the same time. I've found some niches are better for listbuilding than others so you'll have to experiment here.

At the end of the day traffic and your pre-selling is key. Focus like a laser on the traffic then test your conversion. Again, start with buying keywords and rank those pages!

Alternatively, if you want to dominate the niche, then plan an authority site, but be prepared to produce a ton of content. If you're going the authority site route, focus on that one site for months building it up and networking within the niche on forums, blog commenting, guest blogging, and social media.

I've worked with both models and both work. My larger sites make way more money, but they're more work initially. Small sites can make decent money, but you need to get the buying keyword pages ranking and getting traffic.

Google is deleting sites with bad content lately so , yes , content is very important.
Also your site should be "friendly" to user and everything to be easy to find.
Then you should promote stuff related to your nieche and put an opt-in form , give them a bonus , build trust , a list and give them offers.
Simple math.
But always test things to see how well converts your page and your offers.

So what do you know about people and behaviors?

Before entering a Niche you need to know about the potential customers in that niche. Who are they? Do they have money? Do they buy? How are you going to offer a better solution to meet their needs and wants?

Finally what expertise can you bring to the Niche to set yourself apart so that people will trust you?

For Example: I work a small Automotive Niche. People write me all the time wanting to know specific information about these vehicles, because they trust I can give them the answers they want/need. That and the average person is not very good at using Search to find things... they can look and look and never find what they want online. I can usually find an answer to what they want in a few seconds.

So as long as you can bring real VALUE to the Market within a niche you stand a chance as long as the competition that is already in place is not so entrenched or so much better than you.

I know what you mean about knowing your niche.

The first site I did has lots of visitors but I only choose it because of the searches. I find it hard to write articles or try to monotize it with once they sign up to my list. It was only a first go anyway and I will keep trying.

But the other niches I want to go into, I do know about. I guess I just want them to be inch perfect so it's hard to get anything down.

I'm not so sure I want to go down the road or specific buyer keywords if I don't need to. I guess I'd like authority sites, rather than small sites centered around a product.

I want people to come and find great information, sign up to my list, then buy my products as they learn to trust me.

I might try to put money to the back of my mind for 6 months (I know you shouldn't put a time frame on it), and just build up lots of good content and thousands of visitors each month.

Does that seem like a good way to go?

I'd also like to build big sites for SEO reasons. If i'm working on building backlinks for 2 sites, I don't mind, but it kills me to think about buidling backlinks for 10 smaller sites for some reason.

Once I start making money, I may look at this completely different.

I know exactly where you are coming from, but what I do is, I use scoop.it which collates articles in an instant, which you can use for research purposes, I find that the more research I do, the better my website. I give myself one month to complete my project from start to finish, the first week is just gathering, researching information on my chosen niche, now this is done after I have used Googles Free Keyword Tool to find what people are searching for, (makes sense, at least then you know that you have a hot product or not), then I find out what problems people want solving in that niche, as this then becomes my product, hope I haven't taught you how to suck eggs, as it were lol good luck with your project, if all fails, simply promote someone elses affiliate product, thats what I do :-)

Site Build-It! (aka: SBI) has a great step-by-step process for brainstorming ideas and keywords for finding and getting started in the best niche for you. Their Action Guide slows the process down in such a way that you're progressing very methodically toward building not only your site, but your whole business.

I had the same problem you're having and SBI got me over the hump. I link to them in my signature, if you'd like to check it out further.

In any case, I wish you well.

BF