When starting your online business project, you need to know how to find your niche. Finding the internet business that suits you is most important. When trying to find a new business idea, you should aim for a business theme (or concept) that interests you and that you know something about.
If you have a passion you can build your business around all the better. One good reason for this is that it takes a lot of work and time to build an online business, so if you don't have a special interest for your business concept (niche) it can be hard to persist long enough to succeed. Read on to learn how to find your niche.
Finding Niches
with good earnings potential (enough customers) and little competition can be a challenge, but if you follow this "start online business tutorial" and are willing to do what it takes, you certainly will reach your goal. The supply of startup business ideas and niche markets is almost endless. Learn how to find your niche here, and you're on your way.
No matter what kind of business you are going to start, adding content (information) on your pages about products, services etc. that you will be selling or promoting, will be your main task. So, if you have some knowledge about the online business niche you decide to enter, you have a great advantage when writing about it - and even better if you are dedicated to it.
More on how to write web content.
You must also take into consideration how much demand there is for whatever you are planning to offer - are there enough potential customers to make you a sustainable income? Your niche has to be so wide that there is enough demand, but not so broad that the competition will be too hard.
How to Find Your Niche
You will have to do some niche market research, and Google can be a helpful niche finder. Google can give you an estimate of demand and competition for the web business idea (actual niche) you have in mind.
For niche research you can use Google's Keyword Research Tool to investigate the demand. On that page, type in your keyword (or keyword phrase - can be more than one word), then choose language and what geographical area the search should cover. Then type in the captcha letters and hit 'Search'.
If the word(s) you put into the box isn't too "weird", Google will bring you back a lot of related keywords with average search volum (how many times that word or phrase is searched) per month for each keyword. This will give you a good indication of the demand for the product you are offering (and maybe also a new online business niche idea you didn't think of).
Tip: Try different keywords related to your business idea (try some in the search result) to see if Google brings you some more good niche marketing ideas.
How To Research a Niche
Let's say you have a passion for 'guitar music' and are thinking of building your new online business (and website) around that theme. Type "guitar music" in the keyword suggestion box and click "Get keywords". It brings back a large number of words and phrases related to guitar music. The demand (searches per month) is definitely high enough to build a business around.
However, what about the competition? You don't want too much competition, or it might take a long time before any considerable amount of visitors (potential customers) will start coming to your website.
Check Competition
The bars beneath "Competition" show the supply (i.e. how many web pages are targeting that keyword) - the more of the bar being green, the more competition. Here's another way to check the competition: go to the normal Google search engine and type in your most relevant keyword (phrase) for your niche idea. Again we assume it's "guitar music", so type in those words without quotation marks. The number of pages containing your search query (in this case 'guitar music') is displayed on top of the page. For most queries of this type that number will be very high (usually millions) and it certainly is in this case.
Now do a new search with your keyword in quotation marks (""). Type in "guitar music" and hit the search button. The number of sites (displayed on top) is considerably lower. That's because the search result now shows only the pages with both words in the search query (while the first search showed the number of pages containing either word alone and both together).
Lastly, do a new search typing into the search box the following: allintitle: "guitar music".
Important: 'allintitle' must be without quotes, 'guitar music' with quotes. Now Google returns only the pages with your search query in the title of those pages - a far less number.
Even that number isn't your real competition, though. Many of the pages returned by Google are sub-pages and not necessarily representing the main theme of a site, some are titles in articles at article directories etc. So the real competition is considerably lower than the number shows.
Narrowing Your Theme
However, as for 'guitar music' the competition seems to be too high. Go back to Google's keyword research tool to find a less competitive niche idea that you can turn into your online business theme - like 'spanish guitar music', 'steel guitar music' etc.
It's important to know how to find your niche. However, don't be "scared" if there are a few thousand pages (according to the "allintitle" search you did) in the same niche as you are thinking about. There is plenty of room on the internet for a good new business idea in most niches.
Finding niche markets isn't too difficult. You should really try to come up with an internet business idea of your own, preferably something that you care for and have knowledge about. Then the work will be so much easier for you - it could even be fun!
However, if you haven't got a clue, head over to our Online Business Ideas to see if there might be something for you. Researching niche marketing ideas is the very first step on your business road!
How to find your niche is closely related to finding and using the best keywords on your web pages, so be sure to visit Finding Keywords For Your Website to learn about this very important matter.