Welcome to the second part of this guide on choosing a profitable niche! In the last post, we covered the basics of narrowing down your options and identifying a niche that aligns with your passions and expertise. Now, it’s time to dive deeper and get more strategic. In this post, we’ll explore how to validate your niche idea, analyze market demand, and ensure long-term profitability.

How to Discover If People Are Spending Money in a Niche

Amazon

Amazon is one of the largest search engines in the world. In fact, it’s the largest search engine used for e-commerce. That means when people search for something on Amazon they have a very high desire to make a purchase.

This makes it the perfect place for us to check if a niche topic can be profitable or not. Try this quick and simple profitability check.

1. Head over to Amazon.com.
2. Search for the phrase, “food addiction”.

Here’s what we found with a recent search.

More good news. A search for “food addiction” on Amazon reveals more than 1,000 results! That means people are buying products to help them control their addictive eating habits.

You can use Amazon this way to check profitability. With a quick search you know if there are companies and individuals selling products in a particular market. There wouldn’t be over 7,000 food addiction-related items for sale on Amazon if there were no customers.

One thing that you discover as you are looking through the results is that most of the items offered are books. This gives you a good idea of what people are willing to spend money on. They want audiobooks, e-books, paperback and hardback books that tell them how to beat a food addiction.

This is great information you can put to use later. It shows that people want to read about what they need to do to solve this problem. That makes content creation simple. You pay a freelance writer to create a high-value e-book or PDF that solves some big problems in this niche.

Amazon is telling you exactly what your market wants, all you have to do is give your audience what they are already looking for.

There’s another web destination that can help you check the possible profitability of any niche. Seasoned Internet marketers use it to do market and keyword research all the time. We’re talking about …

Your next step is to see if there is any social media support for the niche you’re researching. The only logical place to start is the largest social networking site in the world, Mark Zuckerberg’s baby.

Facebook

Facebook is far and away the biggest and most influential social media site. There are more active monthly users on FB than any other social network, and 3.48 billion active users on all social media sites combined.

This means it’s important to check Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networks for niche profitability. Head over to FaceBook and perform a search for “food addiction”. Here’s what a recent search uncovered.

You can filter your results using the search features on the left sidebar or at the top of the page. You can search for photos, people or posts that mention food addiction. You can check posts from anyone on Facebook or just you and your friends, and food addiction mentions for a particular timeframe or geographic location.

The information we uncovered here continues to make the niche “food addiction” look like it has a lot of profit potential.

People on social networks like to talk. These are not stuffy, business-oriented hangouts. Folks are there to talk with other like-minded individuals and with their real-world and online friends.

They speak what’s on their mind. They talk about things that interest them.

The fact that there are thousands of mentions of the term “food addiction” on Facebook means that people are concerned about this topic. There are support groups and events, videos and photos, people, posts and pages all dedicated to addressing addictive eating habits.

Combined with the research we did earlier, this is great news.

It looks like food addiction is an area where there is a very hungry audience (pun intended). What better way to make money in an online business than to help people beat addiction and become healthier? This allows you to do a lot of good while also making sales and profits.

Perform the same type of search on Twitter (now X) and Pinterest. When you discover a niche or market that’s trending on social media, you can definitely find a way to profit from it.

There are other online gathering places you can draw valuable input from. Chat rooms and forums are hotspots of niche research information.

Search for “Niche Topic” + “Chat Rooms”

I’ve mentioned a couple of times that Google controls the search engine marketplace. They simply are the biggest and the baddest search engine on the planet. When more than 9 out of every 10 searches are performed on Google, a lot of relevant search information is being created.

That’s why we’re going to turn to Google once again for help.

In a Google search bar, type “your niche topic” + “chat rooms”. Place the term “chat rooms” in quotes. This tells Google that you want the phrase chat rooms to be listed in that specific order. This keeps your results filter to actual chat rooms and no other webpages that may have both of the words “chat” and “rooms” somewhere on the page.

It makes your results more relevant.

Chat rooms have existed since the beginning of the Internet. They were the precursors to the big social media sites. When you think about it, a site like Facebook is really just a huge chat room. People are hanging out and talking about the things that interest them. They are commenting on, liking and joining posts, pages and groups.

Communication is the key to Facebook, and that’s really all a chat room is … a place online to communicate with others.

I performed a recent Google search for “food addiction chat rooms.” Unfortunately, Google has changed their algorithm. They no longer display the total number of web pages for a given phrase. However, when I performed that search Google displayed a lot pages.

Now perform the same type of Google search for “your niche topic” + “forums”. This is a simple and speedy way to access the data accumulated by the world’s most efficient and popular search engine, and all it takes is a little bit of your time. This is a powerful and free tool that can help you check the possible profitability of any niche or topic.

Perform a Google Competitor Quality Search

Sticking with Google, now you just need to do some competitor quality research. This is going to be very easy. Search for your potential niche in Google. Keeping with our example, we would look for the phrase “food addiction”. Remember to enclose that term in quotes so you get that exact phrase as a search term.

Again, Google doesn’t display the total number of pages. It just shows many pages of results.

This is further proof that there is a lot of interest in overcoming food addiction.

Your step now is to simply take some time and go through the first two or three pages of results. Skip the advertisements. Look through the listings and pretend you are someone who is struggling with a food addiction.

What do you feel? Are there a lot of images that are used to drive emotional responses? Do the websites have lots of posts and articles or videos? If many of the results on the first few pages look and feel about the same, this is a good thing. It tells you a couple of things.

It shows you what’s working for business owners who achieve high rankings for terms people frequently search.

It also tells you that you can set yourself apart from the competition by making your site or blog look a little different. Offer a unique sales proposition. Improve on what’s being offered. While this is not a lesson on content creation, this is a simple way to discover what everyone else is doing. Then you can create a hook that differentiates yourself from your competitors.

How to Research Profitable Niches – Conclusion

You now have some proven methods for identifying niches where you have a hungry audience. This is important. You have to have people buying what you are offering for you to make a profit. You want them “hungry” for your products.

Think about the following situation.

You have a mobile hot dog stand. You have been able to make a little bit of money, but you really want to take your business, sales and profits into the stratosphere. Think long and hard about your business and your prospects.

If you could have just one thing, one competitive advantage, what would it be?

Would you like to have the recipe for the best tasting hot dog of all time? That would certainly be something good to have. Would you like to know where you can get the most traffic, the street corner where the most people are walking by? Maybe you would prefer to know the exact times when people are more likely to buy a hot dog from you.

All of these desirable qualities make sense. They could indeed help you run a more profitable business. However, successful marketers will tell you if they were forced to choose just one competitive advantage in this scenario, they would choose …

… a starving audience!

You don’t need to have the best tasting hot dog to feed someone who is ravenously hungry. You don’t have to have the best-looking hot dog cart, the lowest prices or any of the previously discussed business advantages.

You just need a starving audience.

That’s what this report will help you find. Let’s recap the steps you should take to determine if a niche is profitable or if you should choose another.

Can you answer “yes” to these three questions?

1. Are prospects in emotional or physical pain?
2. Are there people actively looking for an answer to that pain?
3. Are people paying for solutions?

Is the market evergreen, or is it a fad?

You can make a lot of money in a short period of time by marketing to some current trend. Unfortunately, trends and fads can die out virtually overnight. Stick to the following “Big 3” Evergreen niches for proven demand and sales.

• Health and Fitness
• Wealth
• Lifestyle

Now niche down.

Choose a smaller niche in one of those three evergreen markets. Then select a micro-niche or sub-category. Here’s an example.

• Health and Fitness
• Weight Loss
• Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss

Do keyword research.

Is there enough web traffic to support your business? We discussed earlier how the following keyword tools can uncover just how many people are searching for keywords and phrases in a particular niche.

• Google AdWords Keyword Planner
• Keywordtool.io
• Moz.com

Your niche topic should revolve around keywords and search phrases that deliver a decent amount of traffic. Remember, with the best hot dog recipe in the world you will never make a sale if you don’t have traffic. The keyword research tools listed above can show you how many people are searching for important words and phrases in your niche.

Check Amazon for products.

Are there products and services in your niche being sold there? If your topic has been validated for profitability, head to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Check all the social networks. Are people talking about the niche you have chosen? What are they saying? Does it sound like people are passionate about solving problems in that marketplace?

Now you want to check out chat rooms and forums.

The big social media sites are not the only places online where people talk about topics that are important to them. There are chat rooms and forums that revolve around very specific niches and micro-niches. Can you find anywhere people actively talk about issues that surround the niche you’ve chosen?

If so, it’s time to do some simple competitor research.

Type your niche term into a Google search bar and browse the results. Check out the first two or three pages of web results. What do the websites look like? What products are being sold? Can you think of some way to make your site, blog or web property stand out from the competition?

The steps above make up a proven recipe for discovering profitable niches.

Sure, you are still going to have to learn how to generate leads and drive traffic. Content creation, list building and running webinars are other essential skills for building a strong online business. Even so, you have to begin from a potentially profitable starting point, or all those skills won’t mean a thing.

Take the time to work through this proven system. It can speed up your path to success, no matter what type of products or services you’re offering online.

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?