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In Part One Of This Series We’ve Discovered :
Why planning your business is important.
Steps of planning your business.
How to start working on your mindst.
Finding your why.
Learning about your personality type.
Finding out your unique motivating factor – UMF.
If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend you do before you start reading this part.In this part we will continue our journey while focusing on:
Your Niche,
Before we dive into finding your niche let’s find out What is a niche market at the first place. According to Wikipedia a niche market is:
“The subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines as the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact. It is also a small market segment. For example, sports channels like STAR Sports, ESPN, STAR Cricket, and Fox Sports target a niche of sports enthusiasts”
Since defining the Why behind every action step you take is crucial to your success let’s answer this key question:Why choose a niche ?
To answer this question we need to look at the benefits of having a specific niche instead of a vague one. You might be asking yourself:
Why Should I Be Specific ?
Having a specific niche in place helps you to:
- Find your ideal reader easier and faster.
- Determine the topics to write about.
- .Design your content strategy.
- Craft a promotion strategy.
- Target industry blogs to keep an eye on.
- Build a community of loyal fans.
- Have a growth plan.
Let’s discuss each one in a bit more details,
Find Your Ideal Reader Easier and Faster:
Having a specific niche makes it far easier for you to determine who is your ideal reader which is your potential customer down the road as well.
This is because you will know exactly the problems that your reader faces and how you can help them to solve it.
We’ll explore how to find your ideal reader in the next part of this guide so, stay tuned.
Determine Topics To Write About:
Solving your reader’s problems should be your main priority.
As you come to know what issues they face and what goals they desire to achieve, you’ll be able to come up with content ideas to help them out.
Design Your Content Strategy:
Once you have a clear idea about the topics you want to write about, you’ll want to have a strategy for your content.
This is because the more strategically you approach your business, the more chances you’ll have to achieve your goals.
Remember Brian Tracy’s quote that we mentioned at the beginning of this guide?
It says:
“Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000 percent Return on Energy!”
We’ll discuss how exactly to create a content strategy for your platform in a later part of this guide.
Craft A Promotion Strategy:
Now let’s speak out a truth,
If you created the best content in the world and didn’t back it up with the required promotion,
It won’t mean anything
You know why?
Not because life isn’t fair to you,
But because no one will KNOW about it.
So, what would you do to make sure that your content is seen with the type of reader it was created to help?
You want to market your content,
In fact you want to spend twice as much time it took you to , create the content marketing it.
In other words,
If you spent 2 hours creating a blog post, you’ll need to spend at least 4 hours marketing that same piece of content.
Anyway we’ll explore that area in a separate part of this guide.
Now let’s continue,
Target Industry Blogs to Keep An Eye on:
You might be asking :
What exactly are industry blogs?
Why would I want to keep an eye on them?
Industry blogs are the most popular within a niche. They are the ones that seems always ahead of their game. They provide massive value and stay fresh always.
They are either owned by a professional blogger or a professional company that is in the niche with a decent following.
Build A Community of Loyal Fans:
Another benefit to have a specific niche is having a group of fans who are interested in this niche which helps you build a community of loyal fans and potential customers.
Have a Growth Plan:
Growth of your business can largely depend on the niche you select at the early stages of starting the business.
Weather growth is related to content you publish, promotion strategies you apply, products you create, having a clear niche will make it far easier for you to take informed and data driven decisions in your business.
Now that you know the importance of having a niche,
Let’s explore how you can actually find a niche :
First you need to know that there are Two main approaches you can take in finding your niche, I’ll show you both and then I’ll recommend a unique approach to take which I use myself.
I’ll follow that with the Step by Step process you can take – following a unique approach – to choose your niche
Sounds good?
Let’s continue,
Approach #1 : The Pure Passion Approach.
Approach #2 : The Pure Money Approach.
Let’s find out how the passion route look like?
The Pure Passion Approach:
This approach basically means that you find what you’re passionate about and build a business around it without testing if there is a demand in the market for what you do.
According to this approach , the process of finding a niche is closely related to your unique motivating factor which we discussed earlier in Part One of this guide.
Remember the “Solo Feedback” exercises that you did and the questions you answered?
These questions were:
- If money isn’t an issue , what I would be doing with my life?
- What would I do even if I’m not paid for it?
- If failure isn’t an option , What would I do?
- What I want to learn more about?
These Questions can reveal a niche that you actually enjoy.
It’s totally fine to follow this approach but as you can see that the market testing factor is missing from it.
Let’s move forward to the next one,
The Pure Money Approach:
On the other hand the money approach means you go find out the most profitable niche in the market and start building a business in that niche regardless of your interest in it.
Again , it’s totally ok to follow it but still something is missing which is “your interest”. This missing element can quickly lead to “entrepreneur burnout”
I can hear you asking yourself:
What would be a solution then?
That’s why I suggest you follow a third solution which is a blend of the two previous ones. I like to call it:
The Profitable Passion Approach
I recommend a third unique approach which I like to call:
The Profitable Passion Approach
This approach means that you follow your passion while do your homework in terms of evaluating whether or not It could be profitable for you.
Now let’s go do that Step by Step,
We’ll be using the “Weight Loss” niche to demonstrate the idea as it holds a special place in my heart.
You might be wondering : but why this exact one?
this is because the “weight loss” niche is where I made my first $495 online.
Here is the group of websites we’ll be using :
- Amazon.com
- Dummies.com
- Magazines.com
- Clickbank.com
- Google Trends
Let’s explore each one in more details,
Amazon.com:
Amazon is the biggest marketplace in the world. As a result , if a product is a bestseller there you can be sure that the demand is more than enough.
Step.1: Go to Google.com and search for the term :
“amazon best sellers weight loss books”
Step.2: click on the first result as shown above
You’ll see a page that looks like this:
Step.3: Take note of at least 10 products that are bestsellers. I use Google Sheets to do so but feel free to use what seems more comfortable to you.
You want to pay an extra attention to popular products because not every bestseller is popular in amazon.
You can tell how popular a bestseller is in amazon by the number of reviews it has. The more reviews it has , the better. This is because more reviews means that there is a large group of people talking about the subject online.
See this example:
Now that you have your amazon list, let’s move forward to the next website in our list.
Dummies.com:
Step.1: Search google for: Dummies.com store
Step.2: click on the first result as shown above
You’ll this page:
Step.3: Search Dummies.com store for “weight loss”
Step.3: Take note of the topics you see in this page using your “Niche Finder Worksheet”
After doing this step you’ll have your topics list from dummies,com.
Let’s continue with the next website
Magazines.com:
Step.1: Search for: magazines.com health and fitness in Google
Step.2: Click on the second result that comes up and you’ll see this page:
Step.3: Go through a group of magazines about diet, nutrition and weight loss and notice the topics that appear of their covers.
Step.4: Take note of these topics in your “Niche Finder Worksheet”
let’s move forward to our next website.
Clickbank.com:
Step.1; Go to Google.com and search for: clickbank.com marketplace
Step.2: click on the first result as shown above
You’ll see a page that looks like this:
Step.3: Scroll down to choose “Diet and Weight Loss” subcategory within “Health and Fitness” main category as shown below:
Step.4: Go through a group of products that appears in the marketplace and notice the topics they cover.
Step.5: Take note of these topics in your “Niche Finder Worksheet”
By taking this step you’ll have a better data about your chosen topic.
Google Trends:
Next, let’s measure how interested web searchers are in our topic using our 5th tool Google Trends
Notice that we’re going to find interest rate of a topic and not a search term.
Step.1: Search Google.com for google trends
Step.2: click on the first result as shown above.
You’ll this page:
Step.3: In the search box type: weight loss and choose the “Topic” option
You’ll be presented with this graph:
The graph shows the interest level in weight loss topic over the last 12 months. As you can see it’s almost steady.
But wait a second,
What’s the meaning of the numbers on the graph?
According to Google Trends the graph shows topic interest over time which means :
“Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. A score of 0 means there was not enough data for this term.”
Bonus Tip:
In addition to interest level over time, Google trend also provides you extra valuable data about:
Interest by region: shows you where exactly in the world your topic is popular.
Related topics: to your chosen topic which enables you to extend on your content in the future.
Related queries: which was searched by web users and related to your topic.
Using these five websites should give you a better picture about your chosen niche and wheather or not it could be profitable to you.
Conclusion:
What exactly is a niche.
8 benefits you get when you choose a niche.
The 2 main approaches to choose a niche
The unique and recommended approach I use to choose a niche.
5 effective yet easy to use sites to help you evaluate the popularity and profitability of your niche.
Here’s What To Do Now:
Step.1: Decide on your approach to choose a niche.
Step.2 : Choose your niche.
Step.3 : Assess the profitability of your niche.
Remember to share with us your progress in the comments section below.
What’s Next:
In the next part of this guide we’ll explore how to find your ideal client so,
Stay Tuned , Talk Soon
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Omar,
This is great advice! When I re-launched my blog back in July, I still had a hard time finding my focus between writing about personal experiences and providing advice for professional women. However, in the last month or so, I’ve found I can tie the two together because I’ve discovered many young professionals share the same thoughts/experiences as me. Making this change in my blog’s content definitely helped me attract more readers and relate to more people! Thanks for sharing another great post! 🙂
I want to start a blog; I’m in the process of learning about how to start it up, creating your unique name and figuring out your niche. I’m having the hardest time figuring out what the purpose of my blog would be (ex: am I self-help blog, lifestyle or just unique?). I’ve narrowed down my niches or passions to: relationships/love, college struggles (subcategories would be handling money, balancing school, work, and social life, etc) and maybe throw in my passions for traveling and fashion. I feel like I’m everywhere and so, I’m not really sure what category my blog could be put into.
I’ve read much about finding a niche and felt very frustrated about this. I stopped building my blog because I knew I lacked that clarity, but this post put it together so clearly. Thank you for not saying to “find your tribe” but saying it by illustrating the concept. This is the most helpful advice I’ve found. Thank You.
your blog posts are seriously so helpful and you are so generous with your wisdom! thank you for sharing!
Thanks Omar! Great tips here (as usually, I’m coming to learn). I started my blog in November and in just a short period of time, I’ve come to see that it will be best for my blog if I try to shave it down to just a few topics. Right now, I’m grouping kids/parenting/homeschooling/missionary/life abroad together as one sort-of-related category, but I’ve also recently been thinking of adding another category for helping mom bloggers with their writing. I feel it’s still connected as my target audience is moms, and these days many moms are trying to make a go at blogging or other at-home work that may require strong writing skills. Still working out the details, but I’m excited! Thanks for this!
I know mine is probably so lame. But Mine is being a mommy and getting through those hard things as a mom. Such as doing research on baby products, getting through pregnancy, making it through the first day alone with baby or babies. but also providing and sticking to a schedule and how important it is to spend those moments with your kids. I guess my big chip in the bag, is providing information to mom’s so they don’t waste more time doing it themselves.
This has honestly been one of the hardest things for me to do for my blog. I’ve been blogging for over two years now, and I have such a hard time giving up some of my passions. But now I’m finally going to try to commit to creating a niche for myself. Thanks for the tips!
Hi Omar,
I’ve been reading a lot of your blogs tonight to help me brainstorm on my info product. Great, super helpful content – thank you!
I wanted to ask your opinion. My blog focuses on feminine lifestyles, personal growth and marriage. (Feminine lifestyles including home decor, some beauty, easy recipes, etc.) My main purpose with my blog is to promote healthy relationships and getting to a happy version of yourself so you can put your best foot forward in all you do. I loop in lifestyle because I feel self confidence and empowerment can stem from the lifestyle you live.
My initial info product I’m thinking would be about getting to happier place in your marriage. However, I’m wondering if my topics are too broad, and if I should stick to only writing about relationships/personal growth on the blog? Since that’s what my info product would be? Am I going too far off topic by writing about home decor hacks and the like?
As I prepare for an info product, I just want to ensure my efforts are efficient and will all go towards selling my product. Certainly don’t want to create “fluff.” I gwt overwhelmed quickly when I think about the product and how not all my blog posts could promote it.
Thanks so much in advance for any thoughts!
Cheers,
Lauren
I’m really struggling with this, but I think I’m making things more complicated than they actually are. I know I want my blog to focus on enriching my life by trying new things as a cool nerd and a single person, but I also want to discuss things like society & culture (pop culture, current events), arts’n’crafts/DIY, budgeting, and creating a home although I’m single (if that makes sense).
I’m not sure how to narrow all of this down, but if I’ve read your post correctly, would it make sense to have a blog with main focuses like Society & Culture, Lifestyle, and Creativity?
Thank you for sharing so much insight though!
I am originally from the Philippines but work and live in Qatar (Middle East). My top 5 page visitors are from the Philippines, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, USA and Singapore (not in order). I blog about family, finances and travel (cuts across all nationalities, right?).
Should I focus writing for the Philippine nationals (in and outside the country)? But, some of my topics will be related to living in Qatar.
Should I focus writing for the “expat audience”? This would mean Philippine nationals living outside the country (not necessarily in Qatar) and other expats living in Qatar.
Should I continue writing for a broad audience? Won’t there be “focus”? I am doing this right now
Wow, just wow! Thank you so much for writing this post! Right now I’m struggling with my blog because I realized I didn’t have a niche and I felt very demotivated about it… I decided that I really need to find my niche, in order to get back on my blogging feet. I’ve been reading some post about this, most of them very inspiring, but until now your post as been the more useful. I was feeling completely lost, even reading those others posts.. I was telling myself “yeah, they sure have a point… but how can I find my niche?”. While reading your post, instead, I’ve already started to feel like I can actually get out of this mess in my head… I’m excited because through your words I feel I may be finding myself… I still have some thinking to do, but you made that a lot more easier!
This has been the hardest thing for me. Because everyone says your topic should be a topic that combines both passion and experience. So Some topics I would love to write about are blogging, video marketing, being a stay at home working mom, online marketing, social media marketing, productivity/time management, self care and beauty tips. The beauty tips is the random one… but I’ve been a hair and makeup artist for over 10 years. So that is where majority of my experience comes in. But I don’t really want to be a beauty blogger where I talk only about hair care and hair styling. I do have a lot of experience in the online marketing space too. But Basically I am a beauty pro, who is now a stay at home mom, who is starting a blog, who is turning that blog into an online business.
Hello Omar,
Thank you for this post. I really don’t know what my miche is. Since I don’t know so much about traveling, make-up,recipes, or fashion.
I love writing stories (novel kinda) and just writing about my day or week in a very creative way, or just coming up with any random stuff. I’m not sure who will be interested. I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s a big struggle.
Omar,
This is great advice! When I re-launched my blog back in July, I still had a hard time finding my focus between writing about personal experiences and providing advice for professional women. However, in the last month or so, I’ve found I can tie the two together because I’ve discovered many young professionals share the same thoughts/experiences as me. Making this change in my blog’s content definitely helped me attract more readers and relate to more people! Thanks for sharing another great post! 🙂
Wow, just wow! Thank you so much for writing this post! Right now I’m struggling with my blog because I realized I didn’t have a niche and I felt very demotivated about it… I decided that I really need to find my niche, in order to get back on my blogging feet. I’ve been reading some post about this, most of them very inspiring, but until now your post as been the more useful. I was feeling completely lost, even reading those others posts.. I was telling myself “yeah, they sure have a point… but how can I find my niche?”. While reading your post, instead, I’ve already started to feel like I can actually get out of this mess in my head… I’m excited because through your words I feel I may be finding myself… I still have some thinking to do, but you made that a lot more easier!
This has honestly been one of the hardest things for me to do for my blog. I’ve been blogging for over two years now, and I have such a hard time giving up some of my passions. But now I’m finally going to try to commit to creating a niche for myself. Thanks for the tips!
I want to start a blog; I’m in the process of learning about how to start it up, creating your unique name and figuring out your niche. I’m having the hardest time figuring out what the purpose of my blog would be (ex: am I self-help blog, lifestyle or just unique?). I’ve narrowed down my niches or passions to: relationships/love, college struggles (subcategories would be handling money, balancing school, work, and social life, etc) and maybe throw in my passions for traveling and fashion. I feel like I’m everywhere and so, I’m not really sure what category my blog could be put into.
I am trying to figure out what my focus for my blog should be but I am kinda all over the place. I know I am good at taking nature shots, and I like being photographed (fashion), but then I am also into decorating (planner decorating and scrapbooking). However, I don’t know how I can make a blog that will be useful for my audience. I’m a graphic design major so I love anything artsy…not so much explaining how I came about doing my art work. What and how should I narrow down what my blog is about and how do I know what my audience needs or who my audience is?
your blog posts are seriously so helpful and you are so generous with your wisdom! thank you for sharing!
I know mine is probably so lame. But Mine is being a mommy and getting through those hard things as a mom. Such as doing research on baby products, getting through pregnancy, making it through the first day alone with baby or babies. but also providing and sticking to a schedule and how important it is to spend those moments with your kids. I guess my big chip in the bag, is providing information to mom’s so they don’t waste more time doing it themselves.
I’m really struggling with this, but I think I’m making things more complicated than they actually are. I know I want my blog to focus on enriching my life by trying new things as a cool nerd and a single person, but I also want to discuss things like society & culture (pop culture, current events), arts’n’crafts/DIY, budgeting, and creating a home although I’m single (if that makes sense).
I’m not sure how to narrow all of this down, but if I’ve read your post correctly, would it make sense to have a blog with main focuses like Society & Culture, Lifestyle, and Creativity?
Thank you for sharing so much insight though!
Thanks Omar! Great tips here (as usually, I’m coming to learn). I started my blog in November and in just a short period of time, I’ve come to see that it will be best for my blog if I try to shave it down to just a few topics. Right now, I’m grouping kids/parenting/homeschooling/missionary/life abroad together as one sort-of-related category, but I’ve also recently been thinking of adding another category for helping mom bloggers with their writing. I feel it’s still connected as my target audience is moms, and these days many moms are trying to make a go at blogging or other at-home work that may require strong writing skills. Still working out the details, but I’m excited! Thanks for this!
Hi Omar,
I’ve been reading a lot of your blogs tonight to help me brainstorm on my info product. Great, super helpful content – thank you!
I wanted to ask your opinion. My blog focuses on feminine lifestyles, personal growth and marriage. (Feminine lifestyles including home decor, some beauty, easy recipes, etc.) My main purpose with my blog is to promote healthy relationships and getting to a happy version of yourself so you can put your best foot forward in all you do. I loop in lifestyle because I feel self confidence and empowerment can stem from the lifestyle you live.
My initial info product I’m thinking would be about getting to happier place in your marriage. However, I’m wondering if my topics are too broad, and if I should stick to only writing about relationships/personal growth on the blog? Since that’s what my info product would be? Am I going too far off topic by writing about home decor hacks and the like?
As I prepare for an info product, I just want to ensure my efforts are efficient and will all go towards selling my product. Certainly don’t want to create “fluff.” I gwt overwhelmed quickly when I think about the product and how not all my blog posts could promote it.
Thanks so much in advance for any thoughts!
Cheers,
Lauren
Hello Omar,
Thank you for this post. I really don’t know what my miche is. Since I don’t know so much about traveling, make-up,recipes, or fashion.
I love writing stories (novel kinda) and just writing about my day or week in a very creative way, or just coming up with any random stuff. I’m not sure who will be interested. I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s a big struggle.
I am originally from the Philippines but work and live in Qatar (Middle East). My top 5 page visitors are from the Philippines, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, USA and Singapore (not in order). I blog about family, finances and travel (cuts across all nationalities, right?).
Should I focus writing for the Philippine nationals (in and outside the country)? But, some of my topics will be related to living in Qatar.
Should I focus writing for the “expat audience”? This would mean Philippine nationals living outside the country (not necessarily in Qatar) and other expats living in Qatar.
Should I continue writing for a broad audience? Won’t there be “focus”? I am doing this right now
I have two niche ideas that I’m interested in writing about, but I’m struggling to figure out which one would work best to build a large audience with!
For what I’ve seen, there’s too many blogs on Creative Writing (which is what I studied) and too little online for Studying Abroad (I am Chilean and studied in London and loved the experience).
I’m actually so confused as to which one to choose because I’m scared about working hard and having too small an audience! Do you have any suggestions that might help me choose?
I’ve read much about finding a niche and felt very frustrated about this. I stopped building my blog because I knew I lacked that clarity, but this post put it together so clearly. Thank you for not saying to “find your tribe” but saying it by illustrating the concept. This is the most helpful advice I’ve found. Thank You.
This has been the hardest thing for me. Because everyone says your topic should be a topic that combines both passion and experience. So Some topics I would love to write about are blogging, video marketing, being a stay at home working mom, online marketing, social media marketing, productivity/time management, self care and beauty tips. The beauty tips is the random one… but I’ve been a hair and makeup artist for over 10 years. So that is where majority of my experience comes in. But I don’t really want to be a beauty blogger where I talk only about hair care and hair styling. I do have a lot of experience in the online marketing space too. But Basically I am a beauty pro, who is now a stay at home mom, who is starting a blog, who is turning that blog into an online business.
I am trying to figure out what my focus for my blog should be but I am kinda all over the place. I know I am good at taking nature shots, and I like being photographed (fashion), but then I am also into decorating (planner decorating and scrapbooking). However, I don’t know how I can make a blog that will be useful for my audience. I’m a graphic design major so I love anything artsy…not so much explaining how I came about doing my art work. What and how should I narrow down what my blog is about and how do I know what my audience needs or who my audience is?
I have two niche ideas that I’m interested in writing about, but I’m struggling to figure out which one would work best to build a large audience with!
For what I’ve seen, there’s too many blogs on Creative Writing (which is what I studied) and too little online for Studying Abroad (I am Chilean and studied in London and loved the experience).
I’m actually so confused as to which one to choose because I’m scared about working hard and having too small an audience! Do you have any suggestions that might help me choose?