subject: Making Money Online: Picking Profitable Online Niches [print this page] Making Money Online: Picking Profitable Online Niches
If you want to make money online you need to pick a niche. You can't simply stick up a Website or attack an area like golf or sex or fishing. There is simply far too much competition in these broad areas. How many Web sites do you suppose there are on golf that you'll be competing with, perhaps millions? And many of them are extremely well established. You'll have an uphill battle all the way and may never see the top, never mind get close too it.
You will have much more success and much more quickly if you pick a sub area, a niche. This niche needs to much smaller and more focused, and will have substantially less competition as rule although equally as enthusiastic people. For example instead of golf, perhaps you start a site on golfing for lefthanders in Zimbabwe. That example may be a bit extreme, so let's give a real life example.
I fish a lot and wanted to start a fishing Web site. Instead of a general fishing Web site, I started a very specialized site, one on "fly fishing for striped bass." If you Google "fly fishing for striped bass" you'll find my site and dozens of people do every day. If it had been on just fishing, or even fly fishing, I wouldn't get as many visitors because those areas have more competition. It would be an uphill battle, one that I might never see success in. With a smaller niche, you have the possibility of dominating it or at least becoming prominent.
In selecting a niche, try to choose one where people are passionate and spend money. I happen to know that people involved in my niche do both because I'm one of them! You can also do online research, for example using the Google keyword research tool to see what keywords and phrases people are searching on and Amazon to see what people are buying.
It helps to be in your niche if possible because you will understand it, and working in an area where you have interest will also seem less like work. If for example, I started a Web site on an aspect of knitting, even though many people are passionate on the subject, much more research would be necessary to develop content and it would certainly seem much more like work!
