"Find Your Niche And Own It" has become almost a mantra for entrepreneurs trying to make money online. But, what makes a niche worthy of investing time and sometimes money for months or years? A new online enterprise should only be started when the long term potential is worth the time invested.

What Is A Niche?

A niche, simply put, is a group of people with similar interests or needs. They are usually quite passionate about that topic and they can be persuaded to subscribe to your blog if you truly have something to say on the subject.

When you think of niche markets, you can take this example as a guide:

Motorola is the large market, with all kinds of equipment. Motorola Phones is a large niche, a large part of this market. Now, you can break it down even more. Motorola Satellite Phones is a smaller niche, and the same goes for Motorola Phone Games or Motorola Phone Adapters. How much you want to digg down until you find a niche that you’re comfortable with is up to you.

Below, we take a look at 5 things one should consider before starting a blog in a new niche:

1. Do You Enjoy Writing About It?

Before you start a blog on a topic, take into consideration how much you actually like the subject. Keep in mind that you will have to write on it for at least a few months, if not years, so it should be something you enjoy talking about.

If the interest you have in that niche doesn’t warrant starting a blog around it, you could always build a site, that needs to be updated much less often after it’s launched.

2. Is The Market Small Enough To Be Able To Surpass The Competition, But Big Enough So You Can Make A Good Profit?

If you want to start an auto, technology or gadget blog for example, know that the competition is simply staggering. It would take you a long time to become an authority in this field, but you can make good money once you get there. This is the kind of market that isn’t worth going into with a general topic.

Instead, pick a niche and work hard on owning it. For example, you could make a blog that talks only about LCD monitors, and build up your authority on this topic. Every computer needs a monitor, and people do research online before picking an LCD, to make sure they get a good picture quality.

3. What Keywords Are Searched And How Strong Is The Competition In The Search Engines?

Keyword research is a definite must when picking a niche. Otherwise, you might end up trying to compete with powerful sites, with old domains and a lot of links behind them, or even worse, with university (.edu) or governmental (.gov) sites, which have extra authority in the eyes of the search engines.

You can use WordTracker, Keyword Discovery and the SEOBook Keyword Tool to find out what kind of traffic different keywords have.

4. Are There Enough Money In This Niche?

You want a niche where people are looking to spend money, coming from the search engines with cash burning in their pocket. A product niche is great, because you can use affiliate links and get a percentage of the sale. Niches where companies are looking to spend money online are also great because you can sell ads on your blog.

Take the LCD monitors niche that I previously talked about. People are coming from search engines looking for a review on a specific product or for general advice on how to pick an LCD. If the article is good and you have links pointing to different online stores that sell those LCD models, people might just buy from them, after arriving via your affiliate link.

An example: you get 30 daily visitors from the search engines, looking for reviews on a specific LCD monitor. They read the review, and some might go to the suggested stores, while others might not. If one in 60 people buys that LCD after using your affiliate link, you get a percentage of what they spend. So, for a $500 LCD, you might get 2%, or $10 commission. 15 sales in a month mean $150 in your pocket, from just 900 visitors that wanted to spend.

Just an example and simplified quite a bit, but it shows you why you should look for a niche where people want to spend money.

5. Is It A Permanent Niche?

I’ll take as an example here the Fallout 3 game, due to show up sometime this year probably. There is a strong audience here, that will be interested to read about it, but most people will get bored of the subject eventually. In addition to that, the ads that show up on game related articles are not paid well.

It’s a great topic for a site that has a blog on it, but not that great for a single blog where you have to write for years to come.

There they are, 5 things to consider before picking a niche and putting months or years of work in it to make it big. Got comments or things to add? The comment section awaits.

Tags: Niche Website