How to Choose and Research a New Niche – My Simple Guide.

 

When it comes to building an online business your success is mostly based on the research that you do prior to building your business. This rule is simple and applies to any business, both online or in the real world.

There are some aspects to take into consideration when doing your research in the real world and there are some aspects when doing it online. Online world is a little different. It has its own rules.

And there are some tools that can help you in your research. If you do your research the right way it means your chances for success will be much higher.

I will show you how I do my research, what key points I take into consideration, what tools I recommend. I will also show you two programs that I’m a member of.

One teaches you how to build a business from scratch and the other one does all the research for you and you get ready made niche site and then work on it to scale your business. Both programs are great and you can choose one that fits your budget.

 

How I research and choose a new niche – the steps I follow

 

Product cost and commission rate

When researching a new niche within the online space you need to follow few simple steps that will ensure your success. First, you need to decide what you are going to sell or promote.

If you plan to sell your own product and the price is let’s say $50 it means you will keep all or most of the profit. It’s because you own the product.

If you don’t have your own product and plan to promote someone else’s product then you need to choose a product that will cost at least $200 provided the payout is 10%.

This means you earn $20 from each sale which is pretty good. Anything less than that is not so promising in terms of income in my opinion.

Because if you promote such a product for let’s say 5% commission it means you will earn $10 from each sale. I think it’s not worth the effort.

Because you need to make a LOT of sales to earn enough. This in turn means you need to bring a TON of traffic to your website which is not so easy.

The higher is the price and the payout the better is for you. Some companies pay 50% commission which is awesome.

If you promote a product that costs $50 and the payout is 50% it means you will earn $25 from each sale. It’s well worth the effort.

Remember, when you promote a product as an affiliate you need to pay attention to its price. If you get 1000 visits a day then you can promote cheap products.

But if your traffic is low, around 200–300 visits a day then you need to only choose products that pay you $20 per sale at least. So, product cost and commission rate are two crucial aspects that you need to take into consideration.

Note: I also don’t recommend to try selling expensive products like around $500 – $1000. Because people that buy such products don’t do such purchases right away.

They do research, read reviews, make their decisions, change their decisions. I mean this purchasing cycle is too long and many things can change before they make their final decision to purchase such an item.

Especially, if you promote expensive products from Amazon you should know that Amazon cookies work within 24 hours.

This means if your visitor doesn’t make a decision to purchase the product within 24 hours after clicking on your affiliate link you won’t earn a commission.

 

 

Plus I highly recommend to take a look at Amazon commission structure before you decide what type of product to promote. For example, Amazon pays 2% for televisions which is a very low number in terms of commissions.

This means if you sell a TV set for $1000 your commission will be only $20. Imagine how many TV sets you have to sell in order to earn $1000 per month.

You need to sell 50 TV sets per month which means more than 1 TV set per day.

Is it possible? Definitely possible. But in this case you need to get 500/1000 targeted visits a day at least. Keep this in mind when choosing a product you want to promote.

 

Niches we tend to overlook

When choosing a niche people tend to choose products like mobile devices, TV sets, watches, electronics, juicers etc. completely forgetting about accessory market.

Many products, for instance, such as electronics have accessories and this market is huge.

Imagine how many accessories are available for Samsung mobile phone or iPhone. A lot of accessories. Such a niche can make you a lot of money if you do a proper research.

 

Google Trends

Before choosing a niche it would be a great idea to check it on Google Trends. Google Trends shows an interest over time and can help you decide in respect to the niche that you’re passionate about.

 

 

If you see steady demand for your chosen product or service that’s a great niche. If you see a huge drop in Google Trends chart then you better choose a different niche. I’m not talking about seasonal drops which is very normal.

 

Keyword research

Any niches has a lot of potential in terms of traffic and sales and if you know how to research a niche you can build a successful online business. When you do your keyword research you have to take into consideration several aspects.

First, be realistic and then optimistic. Too much optimism can be misleading while too much realism can be discouraging. Choose something between these two.

When checking the main keyword related to your niche you need to make sure that your main keyword has enough search volume.

By enough search volume I mean something around 4000/5000 searches per month. This number will ensure that you will be able to get traffic you need to monetize your online efforts.

But you’ll also find many other related keywords within your chosen niche. For example, if you find related keyword that has a search volume around 1000 searches per month and you will get top rankings for that keyword you will be able to get at least 15% of the traffic for that specific keyword. It’s around 150 visits per month.

And it’s only one single keyword. Some keywords can bring you 100 visits a day and there is a ton of related keywords in any niche. If you write a lot of content for related keywords you will get several hundred visits a day to your website.

If you get let’s say 500 visits a day and make 5 sales ($20 per sale) you will earn $1000 per month.

Remember, I’m talking about a small niche with a limited traffic volume and income potential. There are niches that can make you WAY more money.

 

Competitive niches

If you heard from someone that such and such niche is too competitive and you should choose a different niche because you can’t compete with other sites I think that’s wrong.

You can choose any niche, even one that’s highly competitive. Yes, it’s true that it will be hard to outrank other competing sites but hard doesn’t mean impossible.

Everything is possible with effort, dedication and patience. Competitive niches have WAY more potential in terms of the amount of related keywords, traffic volume and income.

Small niches have way less traffic volume and income potential. What to do then? It depends on your approach to your business.

If you plan to dedicate 5,6 hours per week then you should definitely choose a small niche with the least competition.

If you plan to dedicate 3,4 hours a day then you can tap into highly competitive niche. Competitive niches require a lot of high quality writing, youtubing, social networking.

 

 

When doing niche research you can also check other competing sites using MOZ bar or Semrush tool to see their ranking position of any specific page, check DA, PA and many other metrics of competing pages.

But again, it’s not so important in my opinion. If you treat your business seriously you can outrank any site. It will take longer time but it’s still possible with high quality content.

 

Traffic methods

There are also many other methods other than SEO traffic. SEO traffic is totally free. But there is also paid traffic that can make you a lot of money.

 

 

Below you can see the screenshots of my earnings from one the program I’m affiliated with. I made close to $600 from May to July 2017 while I spent only $61 for the same paid campaign.

 

 

I could make way more but the traffic volume is limited for that keyword. Anyway, my campaign is profitable and you can see for yourself that paid traffic can make you a solid income.

 

Amazon bestsellers

When you do niche research you can also use Amazon bestsellers page to see what type of products are the best selling ones. Sometimes it can be something you have never imagined.

 

 

You can browse Amazon departments and choose the product type you want to promote and join Amazon Associate program for free.

 

Expand your niche research with JungleScout

Also, when doing niche research and especially Amazon products, you can take advantage of the JungleScout addon that can help you find out exactly if your chosen product is worth your time and effort.

 

 

With this addon you can check if your chosen product gets any sales on Amazon and even how many sales. The addon is not free.

 

 

You have to pay for it, but it’s a one time payment, $97 Lite version and $197 – Pro version. Lite is a good option. It’s not cheap, but it’s well worth the price you pay. It can save you from choosing wrong products which is awesome.

 

Two ways to start niche research

If you start a new niche research from scratch and have zero experience then you better choose one of the programs I’m going to recommend below.

Program # 1 – Wealthy Affiliate. A newbie friendly program that will teach you everything you need regarding building an online business from scratch: building a website, niche research, driving traffic through SEO, social media, youtube, keyword research, website optimization, getting sales, improving website conversion rate and more.

The program is task-oriented with all the tools and support. I’ve been a member of it since 2013 and it simply works!

 

 

Program 2 – HPD does all the research and you get ready made niche site. This program is run by a friend of mine, Dom Wells who already helped hundreds of people start an online business.

You don’t need to do niche research or build a site or customize it or even write initial content.

They will do it for you and you will get ready made site, fully customized and pre-written SEO friendly content. After that you will need to work hard to scale your business and HPD team will be helping you down the road.

Both programs are great and I can honestly recommend both of them. If you’re on a tight budget then choose WA. If you can afford spending $500-$800 and want to start with a minimum headache and effort then choose HPD.