Following on from Article 2, ‘Create Your Digital ID,’ this third article in the ‘5 Steps to Launch Your Internet Business‘ series guides you through thinking about the type of business – your Niche – you would like to create. This is another concrete step into the limelight from the shadows of your second-hand life.
Note: If there are Internet/Website/Business technical terms you need help understanding, please check ‘Internet and Web Technology Explained.’ I have highlighted those you may need to learn or clarify in bold.
Embarking on a Niche Voyage: Understanding the Personal Touch in Marketplaces
Now, you have decided to step into the limelight and make your dreams of having a successful online business come true. You understand the importance of creating your Digital ID for the future, so it’s time to get down to thinking about the theme of your business. This is called a niche market –
a small specialised market for a particular product or service.
Starting to think about this is one of the most crucial steps of all, so please take your time so that you can get it exactly as you want it. Remember:
It’s entirely your choice, and you’re choosing it for your happiness and fulfilment in your First-Hand Life.
You need to sit quietly and summon up your passion and creativity to choose. It might help to have a pen and pencil or coloured pens nearby so you can capture your ideas. It’s easy to forget when you’re brainstorming, so I write everything in a dedicated notebook that I can keep returning to as daily life takes over.
Your happiness and fulfilment
I have designed a questionnaire you can print out and fill in at your leisure to help you brainstorm. I also show you how to make a mindmap instead of a conventional list. A mindmap is a creative way of arranging your ideas on paper using colour and random spacing. At the centre, there is usually a circle with your niche idea/topic inside and lines radiating randomly. Everyone calls this a spider diagram. You can see some examples below. Your mindmaps may look different from this, but you can get the idea.
- What are you passionate about?
- What excites and absorbs you?
- What are you curious about and would like to learn more about?
- What are you looking forward to when you get up in the morning?
This deep interest could be the beginning of your business niche. So, take your time thinking about it.
For example, you may feel warm and excited when you think of enjoying new cafes and meeting your friends to drink coffee and eat their delectable pastries, cookies, or cakes. Coffee is a great niche, and cafes are also a great niche. Cookies? Cakes? Pastries? They all have great potential.
Another example. You may need to be more sociable but look forward to reading your favourite novel and doing the newspaper crossword puzzle. These two things glow in your imagination as you feel involved. Novelists? Movies made from novels? Certain types of novels? Crossword puzzles? These could well be niches or could be developed into niches.
As you enjoy thinking about what you see, absorbing lots of your time and attention quite soon, remember that authenticity is a vital characteristic of any business. You need to think and feel positive emotions when you imagine it, so it may help to close your eyes. Your happiness and fulfilment come first. But next, think about how others – your customers, website visitors and followers – might feel if they could enjoy and benefit from your Niche, your internet business. This leads to thinking about how profitable your Niche might be.
Download this Nche Questionnaire here, print it out and enjoy filling it in to help you reflect on your exciting new niche for success. Touch or click on the blue button.
Digital Goldmines in 2024: Exploring the Forecasted Niches
Next, to give you some ideas of the most successful and profitable niche areas predicted for 2024, here’s a list:
- Health and Wellness
- Personal Finance
- DIY & Home Improvements
- Technology and Gadgets
- Beauty & Fashion
- Videos and online gaming
- Travel
- Pets & animals
- Educational niches – books, ebooks, self-help videos, online courses, etc.
- Food and Beverages
In-depth Market Research has been conducted to find this information so you can be confident that choosing anything in these niche areas will be viable. Look at the list slowly and carefully and see which area you gravitate towards.
Once you’ve singled out those areas that interest or stimulate you, add them to your notebook and reflect on them. Then go and do something else: the best ideas come to me when moving around and doing other things. Then the lightbulb lights up, and I rush back to write my idea down.
Now, you need to balance your passion with profitability. Coffee and Tea? Perfect. Cakes, cookies and pastries? Perfect? Novels? Mmmmmm. This needs thinking about a little more deeply. Crossword puzzles? Mmmm. And so on. We are looking for an ideal balance between your passion and its potential to attract visitors who will recognise your value and be prepared to trust you and purchase things from you (if you plan an online shop) or the products you recommend (Affiliate Marketing).
Investigating the popularity of your Niche on the Worldwide Internet Landscape
In the previous article, I mentioned Google and Search Engines. These guardians of the Internet create lists of searches people have made and the answers or solutions that can be offered. In Google Search, you can type the keywords of your Niche – e.g. “coffee.” “cookies.” “Crossword puzzles.” In the search bar, press enter, and you will find thousands or even more websites that specialise in that Niche. You will be fascinated by just how many searches are made by 5.3 billion internet users every minute. This is a great way to research what others are doing – your competition, the recent trends or fashions – and get more ideas. Coffee? You may be passionate about a particular type so that you can specialise in Indonesian or Colombian Coffee. I hope you get the idea.
This research stage is also critical, so take your time with it. You need to find a general niche area that is popular worldwide and dive deeply into exactly what each niche website offers. This website viewing will also show you what is possible in the way of website design for your website. You will know your way around websites, navigate them, and just how much is behind the scenes by clicking on buttons and links, etc., and drill down through the many layers.
Zooming in on Your Core Passion: Establishing a Life-Long Niche
You probably have several ideas by now, but to begin with, we need one solid idea that balances your passion with profitability and viability. Later, you can set up a second or third niche – I’ve got 6, and another colleague has 30. Once you have experienced launching your business, it gets easier and easier to do it again.
One way I like to look at choosing a niche is by thinking about your mission in life. What were you, and only you, intended to contribute to life in the limelight in your First-Hand Life? How can you help other people with your passion- offering solutions to their problems (pain points), inspiring them, helping to give a focus to their lives, etc? Your website will succeed and become popular if you want to help others search the Internet for these things.
Others may try to influence or advise you as you get more excited about your first Niche. I never give or accept advice; support and a good ear are much more helpful. We are each unique, so advice from others is like they are trying to breathe for you or digest your food. Prioritise your happiness and fulfilment above everything else. Make your decision inside and turn away from external influences.
Every human has a purpose in living. My hero, Ayn Rand:
“A central purpose serves to integrate all the other concerns of a man’s life. It establishes the hierarchy, the relative importance, of his values, it saves him from pointless inner conflicts, it permits him to enjoy life on a wide scale and to carry that enjoyment into any area open to his mind.”
Once you have connected with your true self and stood in the limelight, your purpose will reveal itself, and your happiness will blossom like a lotus.
Powerful Thoughts: The Importance of Reflective Consideration in Niche Selection
Take the time to complete the questionnaire and reassess your findings. This will help to consolidate your thoughts and feelings. Patience and delving deep into your soul will ensure that you make the right choice of Niche and that it is sustainable.
Envision the future expansion and diversification of your niche interest, using the evidence from your research of other netpreneurs involved in your Niche to see how your contribution will be unique and, therefore, attract your market segment.
Magnetizing your Business Title: Pitching Your Niche to the World
The next task is to create a captivating title that encapsulates your Niche for your business. Choose something that feels comfortable and attractive, and then type it into Google and see if there is anything else similar already in existence. To avoid fierce competition from already established websites, play with the wording and try to find something with a ring to it that expresses your passion.
Once you’ve made all your decisions, this is the point at which it might be good to ask friends or family what they think of your title. Later, we can further research the keywords you chose to portray your idea before we set it in stone. It is preferable to keep your business title the same once you start to create your website because it will confuse the Internet community. However, getting feedback may help you to refine it further.
Visualising Your Clientele: the Ideal Customers in Your Niche
So, now imagine your audience flocking to your site once your articles reach the top search results on Google. What kind of people do you want to attract? What kind of people will openly applaud you and seek your expertise in their comments on your articles? Envision your niche community.
Once you’ve got an idea of your audience, you can begin to get ideas for what they will be pleased to read about and what they may be searching for on the Internet. All your efforts will focus on how to make your audience happy and satisfied and understand them deeply. Remember that everything on the Internet, everything digital, changes quickly, so your audience may change, and you have to be sure you can change with them. This will ensure sustainable growth for your business.
Next, Your Netpreneur Mindset. How to develop a business mind and positive driving stamina to sustain your business journey.
Step 4:
