Everyone who dreams of getting started online would love to have a successful business. If that’s the case, then finding an acceptable niche at the beginning can be a crucial factor. In fact, choosing the correct niche market to be in could be the difference between success and failure. The niche that you decide to participate in will ultimately dictate how your business operates. This includes all aspects such as a blog, website, products, content creation, and your target audience. And, your niche will also be a deciding factor for determining how you will make money online. Try and keep this in mind, every niche can be marketed to, but some will obviously be more profitable for you in both the short and long-term.

Define your niche

So, let’s try to define a niche. A niche can simply be classified as something you’re interested in. It can also be classified as a product group. For the first example, let’s make things simple and choose an interest in music as a niche.

• Jazz
• Folk
• Rock
• Reggae
• Heavy Metal
• Theater
• Country
• Blues
• Pop
• Soul
• Classical

From broad niche to sub-niche

Once again, music itself is a niche – does that make sense? People are searching for music every day on the internet. Of course, music is somewhat of a broad topic, and this list can be broken down into what’s called sub-niches. For example, let’s choose Rock and find some sub-categories or sub-niches for it.

-Acid Rock
-Adult Oriented Rock
-Adult Alternative
-Alternative Rock
-American Traditional Rock

I hope you’re starting to see how a niche exists from this example. And, if we’re looking for a product group that is related to this particular niche, we could have things such as CD’s, records, streaming audio, videos and more. Now, could there be information, resources and even products on the subject of music that will help solve problems for people? I’m sure there’s a few ideas out there that YouTube has not displayed.

Most experts agree that one of the best ways to make money online is simply by helping people in finding solutions to a specific problem they have.

Well guess what?

That’s what niche marketing is, sort of.

Help find a solution or solve a problem

You basically want to create a way that can help solve problems within a specific niche or area of a market. In return, you’ll create and develop a means of being rewarded such as building a list and eventually making money.

Within any market, big or small, people are always searching for something that will enrich their life, make things easier, or simply answer a burning question. Believe it or not, these are all paths that can help solve issues within the lives of people or customers. Now, I separated the terms people and customers for a reason. We should all be intelligent enough to realize that not all people searching for something are actual buyers or customers. People will constantly search for information, tools, and other resources, whether it’s to help solve a problem, enhance their present knowledge of some topic, or simply to acquire products or services that can help make their lives more comfortable or rewarding. That’s what the internet provides, and pretty much a fact of life today.

Let’s go to the mall

Now, while I’m on the subject, I’d like to relay a piece of information I picked up from my Dad when he was first explaining niche marketing to me. I will try and keep things simple and basic so you can get a better understanding and for this quick example we’re going to use a shopping mall that is filled with dozens or even hundreds of stores and shops.

From the outside, a shopping mall can easily be considered one giant market or marketplace, and for this example, we will classify it as a general niche or general market (very broad). It’s a place that people visit to browse and shop for items or services that they want or need.

Now, when first entering a mall say from the main entrance, what’s the first thing you notice outside of the people, shoppers, bright neon lights, signs, annoying music playing in the background, and even smells from the nearby food court? Shops and stores! Like I previously mentioned, dozens or hundreds of small shops and large department stores in one area. A mall is a general market or broad market, and the smaller shops inside the mall are niche stores. These small niche stores cater to specific customers or groups of people. Everything from –

• Shoes
• Sporting Goods
• Fitness
• Men’s clothing
• Women’s clothing
• Jewelry
• Health
• Beauty
• Food
• Home
• Kitchenware
• Baby products
• Children
• Toys
• Games
• Gaming
• Pets
• Phones
• Specialty

Now, keep this in mind, even though I’m listing some of the different types of shops that might be located within a typical mall and classifying them as a niche, many of them could still be a broad niche, that is, many of them can be drilled down even further into different categories or even micro-niche topics. However, for this example I’m simply trying to demonstrate how you can use examples such as the mall to help discover a niche market that’s right for you.

What’s a micro-niche?

While staying on topic, you might be wondering, what is a micro-niche? Simply put, a micro-niche is basically a smaller group or subject of a niche. A good example of a micro-niche could be how to lose weight without dieting or outdoor water fountains. These are niche specific subjects that people are searching for, and if you build a blog or website around these subjects, chances are, you’re precisely targeting a specific group of people or customers. The advantages of choosing a micro-niche can be endless, if you find the right one that is not overly competitive.

Of course, because of internet demand, it’s more than likely you’ll run into competition. The prime example of this is internet marketing in general and the MMO niche. Every newcomer to internet marketing begins in this niche. Why? I’m not really sure, but from what I’ve seen over the past couple of years, it seems that people find it easier just to copy what other people are doing.

Yes, the playing field is lot bigger today and more people are entering it each and every day. Discovering your niche is one thing, but keeping up and playing the game is a different story. I’ve said this many times before, you need to differentiate yourself. Brand yourself. Find a niche and carve out a piece of it. Find out what the needs are and provide the market with viable solutions. If something doesn’t work, don’t just give up and stop. Figure out another way, an alternative, a different solution.