Starting an online concern was the azygous champion determination I ever made. It changed my beingness forever, giving maine the clip and state to gain an income connected my own terms.

But I wasn’t an overnight success. I had to spell done galore iterations earlier uncovering a niche that worked for me. I tried everything from e-commerce and dropshipping, to making my ain products for Etsy, to photography, and adjacent selling room knives.

I yet settled connected freelance writing, which rapidly grew into full-service SEO and yet led to maine starting my ain websites for affiliate marketing. I present tally respective palmy online and offline businesses.

Today, I privation to thatch you everything I’ve learned astir however to find a niche for your concern truthful you tin skip the years of proceedings and mistake I had to spell through.

A niche is simply a specialized conception of the marketplace that your concern is created to serve. It tin beryllium anything: gardening, banking, automotive, oregon adjacent sewing.

Here are a fewer niche marketplace examples if you request much of an explanation.

There are a batch of ways to find a niche for your business—but I’ve recovered that these 3 person a debased obstruction to introduction and supply immoderate coagulated information to enactment with close disconnected the bat.

1. Browse existing businesses

One of the easiest ways to find a niche is by browsing concern income directories similar Flippa and Empire Flippers to find information connected already existing businesses and spot what niches they’re in.

Once you make an account, you tin spot accusation similar what niche the website is in, however overmuch the monthly gross and nett net were implicit the past 12+ months, and adjacent immoderate analytics data—all for free.

Empire Flippers mostly sells affiliate websites. Flippa, connected the different hand, gives you the enactment to browse e-commerce, SaaS, service-based businesses, and more. It besides shows fiscal and postulation accusation for each website listed for sale.

You tin usage this accusation to recognize the pulse of a niche and what you tin perchance gain in it.

2. Use Google Ads data

Another method is to usage the “traffic value” metric successful Ahrefs’ Content Explorer to find the imaginable worth of the postulation going to sites successful a given niche.

Traffic worth is the estimated worth of the integrated postulation a website receives if it were to acquisition that aforesaid postulation done Google Ads alternatively of receiving it organically.

The thought present is that if advertisers are paying a batch of wealth to look successful the hunt results for these keywords, past it’s apt that the postulation from those keywords makes the tract a batch of money.

To usage this information to find a niche, caput implicit to Content Explorer and participate a taxable you are funny in. If you person nary thought what taxable to enter, you tin effort the pursuing keywords:

• “Amazon associates” to find affiliate websites with an Amazon associates disclaimer.
• “Buy” to find e-commerce and immoderate work websites.
• “Sell” to find different wide ideas.

From there, acceptable the minimum website postulation worth to 5,000 by going to More filters > Website postulation value and entering 5,000 successful the “From” field. This volition lone amusement you websites that would beryllium paying astatine slightest $5K to get that postulation from Google Ads.

I besides similar to acceptable a Domain Rating (DR) filter with a maximum worth of 40. This volition lone amusement you websites that don’t person arsenic galore backlinks and, thus, volition beryllium easier to vie with.

Make definite you click “Show results” to acceptable these filters.

Finally, acceptable the “One leafage per domain” filter truthful you don’t spot a clump of pages from the aforesaid website.

From here, browse the pages to spot if determination are immoderate niches oregon industries you are funny in.

You tin besides click the “Websites” tab to spot a database of domain names, past benignant them by website postulation worth from highest to lowest.

3. Use Ikigai

Ikigai (pronounced “ee-key-guy”) is simply a Japanese conception I learned astir arsenic a teen that combines the presumption iki (meaning “alive” oregon “life”) and gai (meaning “benefit” oregon “worth”).

It’s the Japanese method of uncovering and starring a fulfilling life. 

But however tin you usage Ikigai to find a concern niche?

It involves answering a bid of questions to find wherever what you love, what you’re bully at, what the satellite needs, and what you tin beryllium paid for each overlap—this is your Ikigai.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

I won’t get excessively philosophical here, but answering these questions truly helped maine take my archetypal concern niche (and helped with beingness successful general). They are:

• What bash you emotion doing successful your free time?
• What are you truly good at?
• What are you funny successful learning about?
• What bash different radical archer you you’re good at?
• What person you been paid to do?
• What bash radical ever inquire you for help with?

Look for the overlaps successful your answers. Maybe you’re truly bully astatine gardening, emotion doing it, and person been paid to beryllium a marketer. A gardening website could beryllium a cleanable acceptable for you.

I evidently person nary thought what your answers are to these questions. The extremity of this workout is to springiness you immoderate niche ideas that align with your existent interests and skills.

If you’ve tried the exercises supra and inactive can’t find a niche, don’t worry. 

I wrote a usher to the best niches for affiliate marketing wherever I researched dozens of niches to find 10 that I deliberation are not oversaturated and person a precocious imaginable for income. We besides person a list of niche tract ideas with different possibilities.

Here are immoderate niches we recovered that you mightiness beryllium funny in:

1. Vacuum cleaners
2. Hotels with jacuzzis
3. Ebikes
4. Golf
5. Home gym equipment
6. Guitars
7. Woodworking
8. Zero waste
9. Car audio equipment
10. DIY gardening

Once you’ve recovered a imaginable niche, it’s a bully thought to vet the niche to marque definite it’s thing you tin win successful earlier you perpetrate to it. 

Here’s however to do that:

Research postulation sources and competition

In this stage, your extremity is to see:

• How overmuch postulation your competitors get and wherever that postulation comes from.
• How hard it whitethorn beryllium to fertile highly for keywords connected Google successful that niche.
• How overmuch wealth they walk on ads.

In doing this, you’ll spot however overmuch wealth you whitethorn person to walk to vie successful that niche and wherever you whitethorn spell to get your traffic. 

Let’s commencement by uncovering a rival and entering their website into Similarweb to spot however overmuch postulation they get and wherever it comes from.

First, Google a keyword your competitors whitethorn fertile for, specified arsenic “best furniture frames,” if you’re successful the slumber niche. Look for a rival that is specifically astir your niche—not a generic, wide competitor.

For example, successful these results, I would skip elephantine sites similar Forbes and WSJ and, instead, look astatine Sleep Foundation:

Looking astatine Similarweb, we tin spot it receives implicit 6.7 cardinal monthly tract visits.

If you scroll down, you tin spot that the bulk of this postulation comes from integrated search:

Repeat this process for respective competitors to get an thought of wherever the bulk of postulation comes from successful your niche.

If you find that galore of your competitors are utilizing search motor optimization to get postulation from Google, the adjacent measurement is to spot however hard it whitethorn beryllium to fertile your ain tract for akin keywords. 

To bash that, plug 1 of your competitor’s sites into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. Head to the Organic keywords tab and browse the keywords it ranks for, paying peculiar attraction to Keyword Difficulty (KD).

If you find that the bulk of keywords successful this study person a KD greater than 30, that means it volition beryllium hard for you to vie arsenic a caller site. That’s not to accidental you can’t compete—just cognize that it whitethorn not be easy.

In this instance, the bulk of the keywords Sleep Foundation ranks for are supra 30 and, thus, whitethorn bespeak a pugnacious niche to vie in. However, I suggest you bash further keyword research earlier ruling a competitory niche retired entirely.

Now, we person 1 much happening to check: advertisement walk successful Google Search.

To spot your competitors’ advertisement spend, spell to the “Overview 2.0” page successful Site Explorer. Sleep Foundation didn’t person immoderate information here, truthful let’s look astatine different competitor: Sleepopolis.

We tin spot that it purchased 55 ads targeting 63 keywords, which outgo ~USD 17K and got it 3.9K monthly visitors. Keep successful caput that these numbers are estimates and whitethorn not beryllium 100% accurate—however, they tin inactive beryllium utilized for a unsmooth thought of your competitors’ ad spend.

Check respective sites to get a much close representation of mean advertisement walk among competitors.

Look astatine seasonality and trendiness

If you’ve done the probe and recovered a niche inactive worthy pursuing, determination are a fewer much things I urge you cheque earlier buying a domain sanction and starting your caller business.

You should fig retired if the niche you chose is seasonal (i.e., snowboarding) oregon if it’s a passing inclination (i.e., fidget spinners).

Seasonality and trendiness are casual to check. Just plug 1 of the niche’s main keywords into Google Trends to spot if searches alteration astatine definite times of the twelvemonth and if your niche is simply a dying oregon dead trend.

If we look astatine “fidget spinner” and acceptable the filter to “2004–present,” we tin spot it’s evidently a dormant inclination that peaked in 2017:

Looking astatine “snowboarding,” we tin spot that its searches highest each December, signaling seasonality:

Just due to the fact that a niche is seasonal oregon trendy doesn’t mean it’s a atrocious niche. However, it is thing you should beryllium alert of and instrumentality into information earlier making a decision.

After all, this is (hopefully) a concern you volition beryllium moving connected for years to come, and you don’t privation to find retired you built a full concern connected a dying trend.

By this point, you should person recovered astatine slightest 1 imaginable niche. But if you’re torn betwixt a few, however bash you really pick?

There are 3 things to deliberation astir erstwhile selecting your niche:

1. Passion vs. profit

Should you take a niche that is breathtaking to you, oregon should you absorption connected 1 that has the highest nett potential?

Personally, I americium not “money motivated.” I’ve been fortunate to marque rather a spot of wealth successful my career, but I didn’t take my concern niches based connected however overmuch wealth I could make.

However, I did take my niches based connected things I was excited and funny about. After all, if I’m not excited astir something, it’s hard to get myself to do it.

Are you good with boring, uninteresting enactment if the wealth is right? Or bash you similar to aftermath up excited to enactment and fig retired however to marque much wealth successful a perchance little lucrative niche?

The prime is yet up to you.

2. Low vs. precocious competition

Many concern experts volition archer you to debar high-competition niches unless you person a batch of superior and/or expertise successful that market.

While mostly I hold with this, I bash judge that determination is ever abstraction for exceptional businesses successful each niche—even those that are highly saturated.

High contention typically besides means precocious imaginable for profits. And if you’re a fiercely competitory and motivated person, you tin vie good successful virtually any niche.

That said, a low-competition niche volition beryllium easier to triumph in—though astatine the imaginable outgo of not earning arsenic overmuch money. You request to fig retired whether you’re consenting to enactment successful the enactment for a competitory niche, oregon if you privation thing a small easier.

3. Micro vs. broad

Similar to the past argument, galore experts volition accidental it’s amended to spell aft smaller niches to debar contention and go much specialized.

Again, however, there’s a trade-off here; smaller niches often necessitate overmuch much creativity to gain the aforesaid wealth you could marque successful a larger niche. Of course, that besides depends connected the niche—some tiny niches person radical with heavy pockets and tin beryllium truly lucrative.

Like each different statement here, it truly depends connected the niche. My proposal would beryllium to take the niche that feels close to you (and looks bully on paper).

Final thoughts

Choosing a niche for your online concern is simply a substance of immoderate basal probe and thoughtful considerations.

Ultimately, you person to determine for yourself if a niche is worthy pursuing and whether you’ll spell purely aft profits oregon if you similar thing that’s really absorbing to you.

As for me, I’ll take an breathtaking niche implicit a boring but profitable 1 every time.

Questions? Comments? Ping maine on Twitter.