This is Why Newbies Sturggle to Find a Good Niche

I think knowing how to monetize a niche is another problem. I started off with a niche that I knew about and loved. But it gets no traffic and has no clear monetization option.

So just looking in the mirror is tough to figure out what to do. I think tahts why you see a lot of "health" "losing weight" and "fixing your credit" IM niche attempts.

Most people need to improve something about themselves. I have plenty of hobbies, and aspects of my life that could make interesting niches and I could write about, but don't have any experience with upgrading or buying additional third party objects to support/upgrade/modify them.

Case in point, I have a rolex, a porsche and $600 headphones.

I could easily write about watches, but I only have ONE so I can't very well compare my rolex to every other brand. Furthermore, how do you monetize on rolex watches. Upgrades? Repairs? They all go direct to rolex.

I could write about my porsche. It has a customized fiber optic stereo that makes it nigh impossible to DIY with anything in the car. There are no inexpensive IPOD installation kits, and even though there are some, many people are not going to want to take a putty knife to the wooden dash to slide the head unit out.

I have $600 headphones. There are a small segment of people who want to buy nice headphones but this is my only pair. I can only talk about these particular headphones. Also, outside of linking directly to amazon affiliate for THESE headphones, how do you monetize THAT subsect of the market?

I'm legitimately asking these questions because I think that understanding HOW to monetize a niche is a real stumbling block.

You guys have struck on another important piece of the niche hunting puzzle. Before you put too much time and effort into something, you need to determine if there is money in that niche. Then you will need to determine what makes money in that niche.

One way to do this is to figure out what type of niche it is. Is it product based, service based, or information based?

Product Based Niches

A product based niche is one which focuses heavily on a certain type of product. The products in this niche are a major part of the entire market and, in many cases, the market wouldn't exist without the products.

Computers are a good example of this. It is a very product heavy niche. People buy computers, laptops, monitors, mice, keyboards, and software. They also purchase hardware such as RAM and graphics cards. This market is very product focused and will be interested in a great variety of related products.

Anything which someone collects is also a product based niche. Collecting, by its very nature, requires you to amass a large number of a certain type of product. Comic books, trading cards, Pokemon, antiques, vintage cars, books, guns, all of these are great examples of product based collections.

Service Based Niches

Service based niches rely heavily on a service of some type. This service is an important part of the niche, it's a necessary element in what the members of the market do.

Let's take stock investing as an example. If you want to invest in stocks, you're going to need a stockbroker. This is a requirement for anyone who wants to buy or sell stocks. Investing in stocks simply can't be done without this service.

The most obvious way to capitalize on this is to offer the service the niche is based on. This works for web designers, writers, SEO specialists and anyone who can actually provide that service. If we zoom out, however, you can also see there are a number of other options such as CPA, affiliate offers, and even a book on how to choose the best service.

Information Based Niches

These are niches which are focused on information. People visit a website in this niche to read, watch, and learn. They are looking for information and that information is generally, thanks to the web, freely available. This can be one of the trickier niches to monetize but you can still do it.

Education is a perfect example of an information based niche. People spend tens of thousands of dollars on education every year. It's one of the most expensive things people spend money on. Now, you may not be able to open your own University but you can promote things such as CPA or affiliate offers.

You can also become the teacher. If there is a market for a certain kind of information then there is a chance you could sell a book, video course, or even collection of podcasts which all teach something.

You could also simply create a website which offers freely available information on this niche and simply let the visitor numbers and relationship grow. Once you've become a bit of an authority on that information, you'll be able to promotes or create something relevant. At the very least, you can host Google ads and let them do the work for you.

Just imagine if Wikipedia sold link space, there would be huge money in that.

Finding a profitable niche

When you look to yourself to find niches, you need to ask yourself a few questions. How much do you spend on this? What do you spend the money on? What have you purchased repeatedly?

This is one of the first criteria by which I judge one of my ideas. I love learning about history too but, if I ask myself these questions, I can see I've never spent more than a few dollars on it. It isn't really a money heavy niche, it's more about freely available information. I could write a book about the Crusades, for example, but that will only appeal to a small minority of people.

Hobbies are a great niche. Let's say you're into model railroads. That is a big money hobby. People buy such a great variety of different items for this hobby that there is virtually no end to the monetization options. If you were a member of this niche, you would know precisely what people spend money on, when they spend the money, and what products constitute a repeating purchase.

So, in the end, you are still the key. If you spend money on something, other people do as well. If you don't spend money on something, other people probably don't either.