Choosing A Niche | Research Mistakes

Niche Research Mistakes

Choosing a Niche in your research, or what I like calling it “Market Discovery” is arguably one of the most important steps when starting a new affiliate marketing site. The likelihood of creating a successful site depends heavily on your ability to choose a niche that “checks” √ all the right boxes.

One of the biggest mistakes new affiliate marketers make with niche research is what’s known as ‘paralysis by analysis’. Spending so much time on the research phase.

After awhile you start experiencing information overload and can no longer make a logical decision.

I must admit, that I’m guilty of doing too much research and making a logical decision become a nightmare.Choosing a Niche

On the other hand, I have known people who are too lazy to put in an adequate amount of research. As a result, they’re usually too quick to choose niche and end up with something that will probably fail.

Again…guilty.  I have 3 niches I choose without really looking at all the factors.  The result, I wasted 4 months trying to promote something no one was interested in except ME!

It’s important to strike the right balance.

Finding the right niche does require a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of effort, but at the same time, you have gathered enough information to make the correct decision.

Believe me, it’s this part that will make or break you business.

I never look at it as “too much time,”  “too much effort,” and “to much work.”

This is my business.  What I do today will have a great effect tomorrow, next week, next month, next year and all the years ahead.

To give you some kind of benchmark, the niches I have used took on an average of 4-6 weeks.  My most successful niche took me 5 week to research and another 2 week to really “dig-in” before I finally settled on it.

What Should You Look For When Choosing Your Niche

Choosing a NicheNiche research, “Market Discovery” is essentially about looking at different markets, what the public is looking for, can it make money, is it a fad or here today gone tomorrow and does it fit in my personal interest.

Specifically, these are some of the niche criteria I use in my “Market Discovery”:

Market

Is there a demand for this type of niche?  Socks are always in demand, for instant.  Pet Rocks was a fad…here today, gone tomorrow.  Cell phones is a great niche and highly competitive.  Herbal Tea…good market, fits in a well defined niche, will be here for the long run, somewhat competitive, but low commission.

Personal Interest

I would recommend you have some interest in the chosen niche.  By having an interest, your mine set is positive.  You will show some enthusiasm or excitement.  Having some knowledge helps in describing the benefits of the product.  Plus, if you have a blog, your never in a loss of words to write about.  With a personal interest, you will stay around much longer.

Monetization

Your into marketing an affiliate product for what?  That’s right…To Make Money.  After all, a business will not stay around long if there is no money flowing into it. Making money with a good market demand, personal interest, a good commission is what you and I are looking for.  What products and services are being sold in that niche and how you could potentially offer those too. Things like affiliate programs, training courses, physical product, etc.

Product

Choosing a product to market, as mentioned requires work, time and effort.  People are alway looking for training courses, education, how-to’s, financial, personal improvement and physical products that will help or offer a beneficial reward with their use.

SEO Competition

How difficult it would be to rank for niche related keywords (including keywords with commercial intent).

Commercial Intent

Finding keywords with commercial or buyer intent means you can create content that targets people further along the buying process (resulting in much higher conversions).

The 3 Niche Categories

Although there are countless niches to choose from, they can all be grouped into 3 main categories:

Passion
Niches that people are obsessed with:

  • Making Money On The Internet
  • Weight Loss
  • Health and Wellness
  • Self Improvement
  • Dating and Relationship
  • Pets

Lifestyle
Niches that people identify with:

  • Running
  • Veganism
  • Parenting

Problem
Niches that offer a direct solution to a specific problem or pain point:

  • Beauty Treatments
  • Dating
  • Weight loss
  • Financial

Which Is The Best Niche Category?

Though you can always find a successful niche in either category, they’re not all created equal.

For example, passion and lifestyle niches have an edge because they inherently have a strong community, which is a marketing opportunity that can be leveraged on social media platforms.

Additionally, you’ll tend to find less “experts” and more “bloggers” in these categories, which makes outreach (and link building) so much easier.

Actionable Steps For Finding a Niche

Let’s move away from the theory and give you some actionable steps when it comes to actually choosing your fist niche.

Step 1.. Make a List

Write down a list of niches that your passionate about or spark your interest.  You can do this by using websites or directories such as Dmoz, Alltop and Reddit. At this stage, the only factor you should consider is whether you have an interest in that niche.

Step 2.. Eliminate Niches

Run your list through the niche criteria, and cross off any that aren’t aligned with your passion or interest.

Step 3.. Research

For the remaining niches, you need to actually go out and research the the niche. That means looking at keywords, evaluating commercial, and identifying monetization opportunities.

An Example Of A Niche

Now we’ve broken down the process, let’s put it into context by looking at a niche that falls into a possible interest… Outdoors.

First of all, it’s a passion or a lifestyle niche so we know it’s one that many people get excited about.

It’s a market that has an endless amount of products to sell, whether that’s through Amazon or private affiliate programs.

A good chunk of those products are also high-ticket items like tents, camping gear, fishing, boating, and kayaks, so you can expect a healthy commission on sales.

It’s a fairly broad niche with a huge number of topics and plenty of low difficulty keywords to target, which also makes content creation and link building a breeze.

To top it off, your research also may reveal a TON of other outdoors sites.

Example Of Another Niche

A huge market is Weight Loss.  Hundreds if not thousands of searches are made every hour, every day and every month on Weight Loss.

However Weight Loss is a broad keyword.  Google Weight Loss and you will find about 2,890,000,000 results.  This is way too broad for you to have any credible response.

It’s a good niche but you need to be more specific.  This applies to any niche.

How about Making Money On The Internet?

Google this and you will get:  About 2,130,000,000 results.  Again way too broad.

This can be narrowed by Googling “Making Money On The Internet From Home.”  Again way too broad…About 1,820,000,000 results.

These are mistake many Internet marketers make when looking for a niche.

In these example you need create a long-tail keyword.  For example,  instead of Weight Loss, something like “How To Loose Weight For Women Over 50.” would be much better and more direct for search engine.  “How To Make Money Online With Bird Cages” is now narrowing down peoples searches.

This is time consuming but well worth the time to find a good niche.

For further reading, on choosing a niche and SEO read the article called:  Learn How To Use SEO Keywords For Better Results

Discouraged?  Finding a good keyword that will rank on Google can be much easier when you use tools designed to find keywords.  One such tool is Jaxxy.

Jaaxy

Jaaxy is the industry’s only keyword and research platform that was developed by affiliate marketers FOR affiliate marketers. There are an incredible number of hands on processes that are very time consuming when it comes to your business. Keyword and competition research can now be a breeze!

With Jaaxy you are getting the most advanced, yet useful platform in the world for managing all aspects of keyword, website, competition, and market research.

I highly recommend Jaaxy as your keyword tool.

Click here to see Jaaxy for yourself

What’s crucial to you is that choosing the right keywords, and knowing how to find them, can transform your business and turn your small blog into a money making machine.

Jaaxy is great for newbies because it removes the fluff and delivers only the useful and actionable data.

With Jaaxy, you know from the start exactly what keyword to target for the best search optimization, and whether you can or can’t rank.

Jaaxy is not just a keyword tool but a whole suite of tools needed for successful online marketing.

Jaaxy is a great tool for anyone looking to produce a lot of content. It serves up massive amounts of unique keywords even better than some more well known tools.

Grab-a-hold of Jaaxy, I’m sure you will like it.

Finally

As mentioned:  Choosing a Niche in your research, or what I like calling it “Market Discovery” is arguably one of the most important steps when starting a new affiliate marketing site. The likelihood of creating a successful site depends heavily on your ability to choose a niche that “checks” √ all the right boxes.

When looking for a niche you need to look at:

  • What is the market size?
  • Is the market stable or a fad
  • Can the niche be profitable?
  • Is the niche a passion or of some interest?
  • Is the niche a single product or are there other associated products?
  • Finding the right niche does require a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of effort, but at the same time, you should have gathered enough information to make the correct decision.

To help you in choosing a niche a great SEO Tool is Jaxxy.

About the Author

Bill

Bill Fletcher is a long time marketer and coach. My goal is to help anyone who is interested in building a business through a systematic approach to success. Affiliate Marketing 100 will guide you with the help of some of the best articles and coaching program available anywhere. We train you in all categories of business building and success management.

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