The niche you choose to get into is one of the main determining factors of your success online. It’s important to choose a profitable niche where you will be able to set yourself apart, build up a loyal audience, and ultimately make money from your marketing efforts.

Below I will provide a step-by-step process you can use to help you choose the right niche. 

1. Does the Niche have Commercial Relevance? 

It’s crucial to choose a niche that has commercial relevance. This means that your niche should have people who are willing to pay for your product or services. 

You can make money from any subject you can imagine, from “tips on raising owls” to “Christmas sweaters for dogs”, and everything in between. 

 But, before you choose your niche, you first want to make sure that other people are making money in the space. 

The quickest way to determine whether or not your niche has commercial relevance is to simply check product marketplaces like ClickBank and Amazon to see if there are any product categories from your niche. 

You can also Google some main keywords associated with our chosen niche, and then look at the Google search results to see if there are any ads. If they are, it’s a pretty good sign that the niche has commercial relevance.  Understanding how to make money blogging can be a challenge for beginners, but understanding this is crucial to creating an online business. 

If not, it may be a good sign that no one has been able to monetize that niche, so you must continue your search to find a more commercially relevant niche.

2. Is There a Market? 

When choosing a niche, you must determine if there is an actual market for that niche, otherwise, you’ll waste a lot of time building a website that no one will be interested in. 

You need to check that the niche you want already has an audience of people who are not only willing but also able to spend money on the subject. 

For example, Neal Taparia, a serial entrepreneur, wanted to explore how classic games can help with brain training. After researching and learning that thousands of people searched for these categories, only then did he launch his platform Solitaired.

Keep in mind that the more people you serve, the easier it will be to make money from your website. But, the broader your market at the start, the less likely you are to succeed since you will be competing against a lot of other people (something that we’ll look at in more detail below). 

So, the trick is to find that sweet spot where your niche isn’t so broad or too narrow. There should be enough people in that segment for you to compete and build an audience, but not so many people that you’re competing for their attention with large websites/brands.

There are many different ways you can do this.  You can use keyword tools like LongTailPro to do research, use Google autosuggest, see what sells on Etsy and make content around that, examine what competitors are writing about and create something better, etc.  

3. What Competition Exists?

Once you’ve determined if your niche is commercially relevant and whether or not there is a market, your next step is to determine the level of competition you’ll be facing. 

As previously mentioned, if you choose a broad niche, you will be competing against well-established websites. For instance, if you decide to blog about sports in general, you will have to compete with popular sports blogs like ESPN and Marca.com. 

But, if instead, you focused on a smaller niche, such as “basketball sneakers for women”, then you can see how much easier it will be for you to build an audience of people interested in that topic since there will be a lot less competition to deal with. 

So, before you decide on a niche, make sure you understand how much competition there is from those who are already ranking for relevant keywords in that niche, including:

• Direct competitors
• Indirect competitors
• Influencers
• Large websites/brands 

4. Review Trend Data 

All industries experience trends that eventually die out or become the norm. Once you have a list of possible niches, take time to review trend data in each niche so you know not only what’s currently happening in that niche, but also what the potential future trends are. 

When you know where current trends are headed, it helps to determine the future profitability of your new website. 

One of the easiest ways to find out what the current trends are in a niche is by using Google Trends, a tool that allows you to discover what is (and isn’t) trending by looking at what people are searching for – almost in real-time. 

Pro tip:  Once you have created your website, make sure that you use SEO Tracking software to monitor your keywords that you’re trying to rank on search engines for.

5. Is there Plenty to Write About? 

Yet another factor to consider when choosing a niche is whether or not there are plenty of topics you can write about. 

Before making a decision, do keyword research to determine what there is to write about in that niche. You want to choose a niche that has a lot of keywords to work with so that you never run out of topics to discuss with your audience. 

For instance, a niche like Digital Marketing can be broken down into over a dozen categories, including social media marketing, email marketing, mobile marketing, etc. Each of those can be further broken down, in turn, giving you endless topics to focus on for a digital marketing blog. 

The same goes for sports blogs, food blogs, fashion blogs, religious blogs, music blogs, and virtually every other type of blog you can imagine. 

Also, you want to give yourself many opportunities for ranking on Google and other search engines, and the more keywords you have to work with, the better your chances of ranking for your main keywords, as well as long-tail phrases.

6. Link Building Resources Before Launch

Max, the founder of Boxmode, believes that before you launch your new site, you have to figure out at least 3 to 4 link-building resources you can create. 

Look at other websites in your chosen niche to discover what types of resources they use, and then choose the type of linkable assets that will resonate the most with your target audience. 

Examples of great resources you can use include resource pages, link pages, and various types of link-building content, such as skyscraper posts. 

There are, of course, many other different types of link-building resources you can use, including images, infographics, videos, etc. 

7. Monetization Strategies 

Before launching your new site, you must have at least three blog monetization strategies figured out. 

The good news is there are tons of ways you can make money from your blog, including:

• Affiliate Marketing
• Google AdSense
• Offering Consulting Services
• Selling Merchandise
• Sponsored Posts
• Online Courses (Self-Published or PLR)
• Email Marketing
• Patreon

… and many more. 

Depending on your chosen niche, you may be able to discover tons more ideas by looking at what others in that niche are doing to monetize their traffic. You can then choose at least three methods that will work well for you so you have a plan for when you start generating traffic for your blog.

8. Are You Passionate about the Niche?

Although passion isn’t really a requirement for building a successful blog in 2021, it’s important to keep in mind that you will be writing tons of posts on this topic for a very long time. 

If you are not into the subject, it will probably come through in the quality of your writing, which will make it hard for you to attract and maintain the attention of a targeted audience over the long term. When you are passionate about your business like Russell Jeffcoat, founder of Legends Lawn Care, it is easy to create valuable content for a specific niche.

So, to make your blogging efforts more sustainable, it does help to be passionate about your chosen niche. Or, at the very least, you should have enough of an interest to be willing to continue to learn more about the subject in the months and years to come.

Summary 

There you have it. 8 easy steps to find a website niche in 2021. Here’s a quick recap of what you need to do:

• Choose a niche that has commercial relevance in the market of people willing to spend money on the subject. 
• Gauge the level of competition and review trend data before making a choice. 
• Also, do keyword research to make sure there are plenty of topics you can write about, and look at other blogs in the niche to see what type of link-building resources and monetization strategies they use, so you can prepare your own. 
• Finally, make sure you choose a niche that you’re either passionate about or very interested in learning more about. 

By considering the factors outlined in this article, you will be able to choose a website niche that is profitable and interesting enough to keep you motivated to grow your business to phenomenal heights.

Have you taken any of the steps in this article towards finding a niche for your website? If so, share your experience in the comments below!

Ron Stefanski is an internet entrepreneur and marketing professor at National Louis University who has a passion for helping people create and market their own online business.  You can learn more from him by visiting OneHourProfessor.com 

You can also connect with him on YouTube or Linkedin.