Until I started my online business at Wealthy Affiliate, I hadn’t heard of a niche website. Sure I knew what a niche was and had used the word plenty of times to describe a nook or alcove or an ecological niche such as the Tree Frog has in Bermuda.
It makes sense though, to describe a Niche Website using the same terms. A Niche Website is a website for a business that is concentrating all their business efforts on a small, specific defined segment of the population.
There is no point starting up a new business website where you have a multimillion dollar business in competition and you haven’t even got funds for adwords! So the idea of finding a niche business makes perfect sense. If you want to hop straight over to finding your niche website, follow the link.
What Is A Niche Website?
A Niche is not something that already exists, but is created by identifying the needs/wants/requirements of your specific target population. It may be a specific product that your audience is looking for, or a service they need to achieve their potential. The aim is to be a big fish in a small pond, not a small fish in a big pond. That will not achieve the financial potential you are looking for. Whilst a big fish in a small pond doesn’t sound that great either, you become an influencer – an authority – in your chosen niche and that pond is plenty big enough for you to create a thriving business. This is known as Micromarketing.
But Who Is My Target Population?
This is where some niche marketers get unstuck. They get the concept of niche marketing, but don’t really understand who they are targeting…
Start with your target population – your dream audience …… Make up a dream customer, the person who is looking exactly for what you are going to be providing… So lets say you are a Paramedic/EMT and your day job is caring for the sick and injured, be it through their own faults, or by accident. Either way its a stressful, tiring job but you come home and want to unwind, or in your down time you want to earn more and have a few hobbies that you think you can turn into profits.
NICHE SCENARIO : You can turn wood, carve, make artisan olive wood chopping boards, salad spoons….. you get the idea. So you make up the kind of person who would want hand crafted olive wood boards for antipasti or for gifts… This is your dream customer. There are plenty of them out there. Look at Etsy.com
NICHE SCENARIO: Maybe you have furry cheerleaders at home.. (dogs!) and have one that is a diabetic and you have difficulty getting those perfect treats to keep your dog healthy and decide to go into production yourself. Or you want to provide all leather collars/leads or pure Harris Tweed dog coats… This is a perfect niche idea that you can extrapolate into a dream customer.
Key Points For a Niche Website
- KNOW YOUR NICHE INSIDE AND OUT – Understand that you are in that small pond and you aren’t trying to swim in the big pond. If you feel you are, look further into your niche audience and narrow it down. Take a look at this blog – How To Find A Profitable Niche.
- SOLVE YOUR CUSTOMERS PROBLEMS – Alongside your now ‘dream customer’, imagine their problems with the product or service you are proposing to provide. You need to answer their questions…’Where do I get diabetic dog biscuits that are natural and not full of E-numbers for Sheba?’ Or ‘ I want to get a great handmade olive wood board for cousin Evie for Christmas’. Or ‘ How do I find a qualified CPR /First Aider for my airshow?’
- CREATE A SIMPLE SERVICE – Don’t overcomplicate your website and business at the start up. Get things up and running as cheaply and simply as possible. Things are not set in stone, so as time progresses and you become more experienced, you can step up your business. This point comes in close to the next 2 points.
- KEEP TABS ON YOUR NICHE MARKET COMPETITORS – You need to monitor what your competitors are doing, not so much to copy what they’re about but for the useful information for yourself to step up your game.
- KEEP OPEN TO OPPORTUNITIES – Think about your niche website a lot. You have to innovate to keep up with a pre-existing market. Don’t push away any thoughts/suggestions. They may not be appropriate for your stage of business right now, but may well be perfect sometime up the road.
- CREATE YOUR MARKETPLACE – By having a good understanding of your dream audience, what questions you are going to answer, how you are going to supply what they need, you will create a marketplace around your business.
- BECOME YOUR NICHE LEADING AUTHORITY – Be that person, it takes time to build authority in a niche, but with patience and persistence, you get to that point.
- REMAIN SPECIFIC, DISTINCT AND RELEVANT – This can be a stumbling block for niche businesses. You get a good idea, that you will branch into that area too but don’t realise that you have now diluted your original niche brand and are now competing in that big pond.
What Would Class As a Niche Business in 2019?
Im sure you can think of plenty that you’ve seen creep up on us over the last year or so. Some come from fashion trends, others from health or environmental. Coconut oil… I know all about this one because I use it in my natural soap. I refuse to use palm oil because they are cutting down the rainforests in South America to plant palm oil fields. This affects the climate and I refuse to be part of that. What about Bamboo? A hugely rapid growing plant that is used so much now instead of plastic… got to put the flags out for that ! And beard oil ….! Keto/Vegan lifestyles… Matcha tea and Chalk paint ! Who would have thought way back when we used blackboards and chalk in school, circa 1970, that chalk paint would be a thing in 2019!
Check out my other blogs on Website Management and if you want to know more about Wealthy Affiliate, and perhaps start an online business with a website, come over and see how easy it is to do it in WA. Im there and will help you !
I’ve enjoyed reading this article. You have done a nice job of describing a “niche” in marketing. It is truly important when building a website to select the right niche for you. One that you are passionate about yourself and are very interested in studying and research and creating lots of content around the subject. I also agree with you that Wealthy Affiliate University is the best online training in learning all about building WordPress websites and an affiliate marketing business. Nice site. -Shirley
Thanks Shirley for your comments about the blog and my website. Working hard to present the articles well. I think a niche is a tough concept, but hopefully I have explained it well.
Thank you do such an informative post.
You have made me realize that I can further down a get a subniche as I feel I am in small fish in a big pond.
lol I also did not know that I have to monitor my competitors
Thanks for your comments. The further you can go with a sub niche, really the better… lower your competition, improve your rankings with Google, you can always increase your niche once you are making an impact.
Love this article! So handy for trying to brainstorm niche ideas. I always start too broad, but you have done a great job explaining how to narrow down my ideas. I love the articles you linked to as well. I bookmarked this page for future reference. Thanks again for the valuable information!
Thanks for your comments Ashley. Great to know that I have hit the nail on the head with this article!
Hello there, thank you so much for writing this blog post. For the past 10 years I have been developing different skills (ie. sports, classical music, banking, totally different stuff!) and learning about a few different fields, and the advice I hear from people the most is that I can only choose one thing to do at a time. But learning about online marketing I’ve come across the idea of having multiple niches and they can be totally different. I think this will allow me to more fully develop my careers. At the worst case I can ditch the field in real life and still keep it as a side income flow, hopefully. Thanks again for the detailed analysis on niches.
Thanks for your comments Laureen… One thing to remember when choosing a niche is that it needs to be diverse enough for you to not be in competition with a big business… the other thing is not to have yourself spread too thinly. I would recommend if you are wanting to really step forward in your niche, choose one to push. I found it very tough keeping more than one going, so make sure its your passion !
I gave very careful thought when I chose my first niche, and I ultimately went with something I loved, which was nutrition and health. Anyway, now I’m thinking of adding a second niche website, and I am super excited to have come across your article. You know, I agree that we must always be solving our customer’s problems, because that is how we succeed. We have to talk to our customers, our readers, as if they were our best friends, and help them with whatever they need help with. It’s perfect.
Thanks Babsie, I am glad that it was a great help to you and best of luck with your new website !
Hey Quinn,
I read your article on what is a niche website. It’s true fact that one needs to keep in mind the keypoints for a niche website that you provided.
I have some doubts in the part of target population. So, does it mean that I have to target the audience who are absolutely relevant to my niche? I mean if my niche is fitness and bodybuilding, I need to focus my content around fitness enthusiasts, that is my content needs to be inspired by thinkings of a bodybuilder or fitness trainer as such right?
And, the last part titled ‘what would class as a niche business in 2019’, in this part you wanted to say that as of the recent times we should focus our niche on innovative topics relevant to our interests, our expertise area right?
Hi Rounak Thankyou for your comments and your questions. You are wanting to target your perfect audience with your niche… that doesnt mean they are going to be the only ones who will be interested and interact with you. There are 3.2 billion people who are on the internet throughout the world. You have no worries as far as your target audience is concerned. There will be thousands upon thousands of target population out there !