Choosing your Niche

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One of the most important steps in creating a money-making website is choosing your niche or area of interest.  You will hear that word a lot in blogging and affiliate marketing training and in books on blogging.  Learn what it is here.

So What in the world is a Niche!

The free online dictionary defines a "niche" as follows:

niche (nch, nsh)
n.
1. A recess in a wall, as for holding a statue or urn.
2. A cranny, hollow, or crevice, as in rock.
3.
a. A situation or activity specially suited to a person's interests, abilities, or nature: found her niche in life.
b. A special area of demand for a product or service: "One niche that is approaching mass-market proportions is held by regional magazines" (Brad Edmondson).

Look at the 3.a. and 3.b. definitions.  This is what we are talking about in the case of affiliate marketing and website building.  Choosing an area of interest or target market to write about on your website.

How to choose your niche

Your niche (or area of interest) for your website should be something you have a deep interest or passion for.  It can be a hobby, a problem, a need or a want, as long as it is something you are very interested in and can write about.  This is necessary because you will be required to write lots about it in building the content for your marketing website.

In terms of your marketing website or blog, the niche you choose is basically your “audience” or “target market.”  You want to appeal and draw to your site, those people who are interested in your niche or subject.

Remember, there are billions of people out there searching the internet every day, so you have the potential for a huge target audience whatever you choose as your niche.  But make it easier on yourself by narrowing down what you want to cover in your content.

Pick a Narrow Niche

Also, choosing a niche that narrows the potential market will make it easier to stand out from other sites that are much broader.  This works the same way a news station concentrates on a broad area to report the news.  Whereas another station may select to just report on a specific sector of the news, like fashion news.

The best niche is one that you are extremely interested in and actually have a passion to dig into and become and expert on.  Especially if you intend to “help” your site visitors by answering questions, giving tips and how to information and basically offering to solve any problems that the potential customer might have in relation to that subject or area.

Enjoy your Niche

I’m sure your basic intent, besides making money off your website, is to work at a job at home that you can enjoy.  Getting out of the corporate rat race and doing something that makes you feel good to write about is important to achieving success.

In choosing my first niche, I picked painting since I have a passion for painting, and to narrow it down I picked acrylic painting.

So be sure to pick a niche that you enjoy and will have no problem writing about and researching products to market or review on your website.

Focus on Your Content in Your Niche

Sticking with your narrow niche, you are able to “stand out” from those writing about the broader subject your niche may fit into.  For instance, had I chosen “art” in general as a target market, instead of acrylic painting specifically, then my content could be all over the place, whereas now, I can drill down to specifics about painting with the one medium of acrylics.

Comments

Thanks for looking at my site and coming to this page.  I would love for you to leave any questions or comments below.  Please share this post with your friends who might have an interest in blogging and choosing a niche.

– Shirley