One of the biggest challenges we face as online business owners is choosing the right niche, or specialized segment of a market, to pursue. Essentially, there are only three main markets: health, wealth, and relationships. Everything else falls under these categories as a sub-market (we’ll dive deeper into this later).
For example, a new eating plan would belong to the health market. A real estate investing course fits into the wealth market, while a course on parenting skills falls under the relationship market.
While it’s possible to enter one of these broad markets, keep in mind that you’ll be up against some big players with deep pockets. Before pouring all your savings, time, and energy into your new venture, it’s wise to determine whether it has the potential to turn a profit.
You might be passionate about underwater basket weaving and think about it constantly. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it will turn a profit.
Pursuing a niche you’re passionate about can bring emotional rewards. However, to stay in business, turning a profit is essential. Loving what you do doesn’t automatically put money in your pocket.
It’s crucial to assess whether the market you’re entering has real profit potential.
That’s what this post will assist you with.
You’ll learn how to identify niches that have shown a track record of success. These are areas of interest that people are hungry to know more about. They don’t feel that they “want” the products and services offered, but that they absolutely must have them!
Some profitable business ideas don’t have the greatest amount of traffic, but they offer little to no competition. That can be the perfect recipe for profitability. Other niches deliver lots traffic and tougher competition, but there are plenty of buyers for you to get your fair share.
The Beauty of Long-Lasting Niches
In this post you’ll discover the lasting attraction of evergreen topics. These are interests people desperately want to address. They have been hot topics for decades or even hundreds of years and they always will be popular because of human nature.
For instance, people will always look to improve their health, wealth and relationships.
People both broke and rich want more money. How many people look long and hard for the perfect mate? How often have you searched for products to make you healthier? These are excellent markets for profitability, but …
… there’s a problem.
Weight loss is a huge field, and almost everyone wants financial independence, but those massive markets are often too competitive. Focus on finding smaller areas of interest within these larger evergreen markets. Look for niches with favorable competition, strong demand for products and services, and long-lasting appeal.
You’re about to discover how to research a niche so you get that “perfect storm” of potential profitability.
Let’s get started by asking three simple questions.
The Three Question Method for Finding a Profitable Niche
First let’s define niche. As an adjective, a niche is defined as …
“Denoting or relating to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.”
So a niche wouldn’t be weight loss. That’s a massive, billion-dollar market with literally millions of competitors. A niche in that large marketplace could be “losing weight after pregnancy”.
That’s a smaller, more accessible market. Now that we know what a niche is, let’s dive into three key questions that have to be answered with a “yes” to ensure you have a solid shot at making a profit.
- Are prospects in emotional or physical pain?
- Are there people actively looking for an answer to that pain?
- Are people paying for solutions?
Think of a topic, any topic. Can you answer “Yes” to those three questions regarding the topic? If so, you may have discovered a profitable niche. Let’s look at an example.
Jane is 40 and a newly divorced single mom. She has been “heavy” her whole life. Jane has put up with ridicule, name-calling, self-hatred and low self-esteem over her weight problem. Now her husband has divorced her and she wants desperately to get back in the dating game. She feels like her overweight issue is holding her back.
She has experienced emotional pain because of her obesity her entire life. She even has physical pain due to health issues caused by her overweight condition. Jane wants to prove to her ex, herself and potential mates that she can lose the weight, get healthy, slim and sexy, and become the object of desire for so many men.
Ask the questions.
Is she in extreme pain? Definitely! Are there other women like her looking to lose weight for better health, a sexier body, a higher level of self-esteem and respect from others? Without a doubt. Do single moms over 40 pay for weight loss products? You bet they do.
Your research isn’t finished yet, but the first step looks promising. Targeting “over 40 single moms who want to lose weight” could be a profitable niche. There are still several steps to take to position yourself correctly in that market, but so far, so good.
When researching any potential needs, if you can answer yes to all three questions above, you know you have found a potentially profitable market.
How to Choose an Evergreen Market
Do you remember fanny packs? They were hugely popular in the 1990’s. They were so named because they were a belted pouch you wore around your waist that sat above your fanny, or rear end. Men and women alike wore them. They migrated to the front of the waist, just below the belly. People began wearing them just slung over their shoulders.
They were the “cool thing” to be wearing. Now you rarely see them. So while they were easy to sell when they were red hot, you’d have a tough time giving them away now.
The problem is that the market wasn’t evergreen. It wasn’t long-lasting.
Let’s define that term. An evergreen in gardening is a plant or tree that keeps green leaves all year long. It’s always alive and well. So are these “Big three” evergreen niches.
- Health and Fitness
- Wealth
- Lifestyle
These markets are driven by human desire.
People will always desire to become healthier. They want to look and feel better physically. People are always looking for ways to make more money and increase their wealth. They desire the freedom that comes from financial independence. How many different ways are there to improve a person’s lifestyle? Human beings constantly seek out proven practices for boosting their quality of life, the lifestyle they lead.
People search for terms like “how to make money online” all the time. Starting a business, investing and debt management all fall under the evergreen wealth umbrella.
The large lifestyle market includes self-help, dating and relationship maintenance, divorce and dog training. The health and fitness marketplace is self-explanatory. People want to become healthier and get in shape for any number of reasons. The weight loss example used earlier is definitely a subcategory of the evergreen health niche.
If a man wants to lose weight because he thinks that will make him more attractive to potential dates, this falls under both the lifestyle and health and wellness markets. If you ever spot a niche like this that can hit two or more of the above evergreen niches, you are likely going to have a market which will always be in demand.
This doesn’t mean you can’t make money in niches that don’t qualify as evergreen. Buggy whip salesmen sold something that was needed. Back when horse-drawn buggies were a popular mode of transportation, drivers definitely needed these whips to guide their horses.
When automobiles became affordable and available to most people, buggy whip sales disappeared. That’s just one of many examples of a non-evergreen niche that went from profitability to virtually no sales in a short period of time.
Think health, wealth, relationships and personal growth. Then dig down deeper in those huge markets.
Digging Deeper (Niching Down) for Profits
Hopefully, you’ve found a market that answers “yes” to the three qualifying questions mentioned earlier. If not, keep going until you do. Now you’re going to break out your marketing shovel and start digging.
Think about it like this.
- Category
- Niche
- Micro-Niche
The example we used earlier spoke of a 40-year-old single mom that wanted to lose weight. Here’s the breakdown.
- Category – Health and Fitness
- Niche – Weight Loss
- Micro-Niche – Weight Loss for Women over 40
It is absolutely pointless to start a blog where you talk about the entire health and fitness industry. There’s no direction, with too many topics to cover. Competition is massive. The same is true for the niche weight loss industry. However, “weight loss for women over 40” is a smaller market.
These women are still experiencing emotional and possibly physical pain. You have narrowed down the marketplace to not all men and women, not even just women. You have women of a very specific age. This is good for marketing for several reasons.
The big players in the health, fitness and weight loss industries have plenty of money to attack those larger markets. They don’t want to fool around with a micro-niche. They want huge audiences. This is good for you because it allows you to narrow your competition while still targeting a very hungry and driven field of prospects.
You always want to go at least three levels deep when choosing a topic to start a business. To recap …
- Choose an evergreen category.
- Choose a smaller niche in that category.
- Choose a micro-niche or sub-category of that niche.
At this point you want to find out if there are profitable keywords related to the niche you’ve chosen. With the right keywords and phrases, you can create blog posts, social media updates and other content that drives a lot of free, relevant traffic to your website. When you don’t have to pay for most of your traffic, that definitely improves the profitability of your business.
Be cautious about narrowing your niche too much. While some experts suggest targeting a micro-niche, this approach has its risks. If you niche down excessively, you might find that there aren’t enough potential clients to sustain your business.
Let’s cover a few keyword research techniques to help you identify a successful niche.
Get Google to Do Keyword Research for You
Websites like SpyFu let you spy on your competition. SpyFu uncovers the most profitable keywords used in Google AdWords advertising campaigns. This is valuable information. Knowing what keywords and phrases make the most money for your competitors can turn your ads from money wasters to profit makers.
There’s another way to perform keyword research that uncovers the potential profitability of a niche. Put the world’s largest search engine to work for you.
Google gets more than 90% of all searches made on the World Wide Web. That’s huge. It means if you can get Google to show you keyword search data related to the niche you’re researching, you’ll understand what most of your prospects are looking for.
Fortunately, you can do this, and it doesn’t cost a penny.
Here’s the step-by-step process you’ll want to follow.
- Go to www.google.com.
- If you have an account, sign in. You can alternately click on “Create account” to get started.
- Once you are logged into your Google account, head to this URL.
Don’t worry, this is free. You don’t have to pay anything or register a credit card. You’re going to let Google’s billions of dollars’ worth of search data go to work for you. Select “Tools” from the left side tool bar. Click on the “Keyword planner” button.
Choose “Discover new keywords” button in the middle of the page. Enter your search term. We will stick to our example. Enter “weight loss for women over 40” and click the blue “GET RESULTS” button.
A recent search turned up the following results.
There’s a lot of information here. Where you want to look is the information listed under “avg monthly searches”. In the example, “weight loss for women over 40” was searched for between 100 and 1,000 times every month.
You generally want to focus on search terms that generate 5,000 or more searches each month. If searching in your niche reveals several relevant keywords that attract 5,000 or more monthly searches, there’s definitely some interest in the topic.
You can scroll down the page to see the other search terms related to the core term you used. Immediately to the right of the average monthly searches is the “Competition” field. This tells you how tough your competition is going to be for a particular search phrase.
This is a free profitability checker offered by the Google AdWords planning tool. Google used to give very specific monthly search figures. Now they just give broad ranges. While this is still very valuable information from Google, there are a couple of ways to get more detailed numbers.
To get even more detailed insights and improve your research, consider using Insight Analyzer. This tool offers advanced keyword analysis and competitive insights that go beyond what free tools provide, helping you refine your strategy and boost your chances of success. Check it out to give your business the edge it deserves.
Want to learn to start taking massive action on finding your purpose? My mentor, Connie Ragen Green has a free challenge she calls the Action Habits Challenge. And did I mention it’s FREE???
I’m online entrepreneur Richard Rawlings (Rick) Smith. Who else wants to join me in creating an online business that allows them to enjoy the lifestyle they want and deserve?