Finding Your Niche

I get so sick of reading instructions to start with a keyword search before you even decide what you want to do! The theory is flawed, and the place to start is NOT with research, but with YOU!

You cannot produce a quality website on a topic which you are not highly familiar. You can't do that even if you use someone else's content, because you won't know what is good content, and what is bad.

Someone once said that there is a 90/10 rule. 90% of the stuff available for using as content is pure trash. 10% of it is good, but only a small portion of that 10% is going to be good for YOUR site - that is, if you want to produce a good one! Never mistake, quality is EVERYTHING! So to produce good quality, you have to be able to recognize the 10%, and then to target the small bit of that which is perfect for your winning site.

Ok, so the first thing you have to do is to research YOU. Most people are really astonished when they start to think about it, by how much they really DO know. You don't have to be a worldwide expert, but you do have to be competent in the topic.

Start with a brainstorm... well, a drizzle if that is all you can muster! Get out paper and pencil, or pull up a word processing document (or if you use an organizer, pull out that). Start listing things you have any degree of familiarity with, passion for, enjoyment of, understanding of, etc. For me, the list looks like this:

• Computer operations 
• Building a computer 
• Creating computer graphics 
• Creating websites 
• Using AdSense 
• Administrating Websites 
• Writing 
• Childbirth 
• Childrearing 
• Parenting 
• Home organization 
• Personal Improvement 
• Home improvement 
• Cooking with Wheat 
• Baking Bread 
• Cooking on a Budget 
• Shopping Budgets 
• History 
• Homeschool 
• Purchasing a Mobile Home 
• Living at High Altitude 
• Wyoming 
• Driving a car with high miles 
• Infertility 
• Negative Prenatal Diagnosis 
• Work at Home 
• Business Startup 
• Childhood Cancer 
• Migraine Headaches 
• Diabetes 
• Herbal Supplements 
• Online Marketing 
• Camping 
• Processing meat at home 
• Religious topics 

When someone asks me, what do I know about, I generally tell them computers, websites, and online business - or kids! But when I sit down to brainstorm what I know enough about to teach someone else, or what I enjoy doing that I would like to share, I can come up with all sorts of things. Some of them are just little blips, but enough to build a site around. Others are enough to build an entire empire on if I so chose! The list could be much longer than it is, but you can see from that list that I have a wide variety of interests and knowledge, and that while some if it is interrelated, some of it is not at all connected.

How many of those things can I build a website on? Well, I am mostly limited by time! It is unlikely that I can do it all in my lifetime, so after I brainstorm, I prioritize:

First I look through to see what I have the MOST understanding of, and the greatest interest in. Because that will be the simplest thing for me to either write about or gather information on. Build on your strengths, and you'll have an easier time of it, and your potential for success is much higher - Less Work, More Return.

Then I narrow down the options to just one. This is usually more a personal decision than an academic one.

Once I know what I want to do, then I find out whether it is a crowded market or not. For example, I know a lot about diabetes, but diabetes is a HUGE arena, VERY crowded. The big guys like Glaxo have got that market pretty well saturated. But I also know about natural supplements, and quite a bit about how diet effects diabetes. And that market is less saturated. In fact, when I go searching for information on it, I have a hard time finding the kind of information I want. This tells me that there is an opportunity here for me to provide that kind of information for other people.

Look for a creative twist on a common theme. Don't choose a broad category like diabetes, narrow it down, and approach it in a new way. I also developed a site on marketing. But instead of focusing on "internet marketing", or "marketing strategies" or anything else that was high demand and undistinguished, I called it "Bad Marketing Ideas", and aimed at a slightly different market. It gained top positions in the search engines right away, because it hit on something needed, but with a unique twist. Think of a fresh way to approach it that people can strongly identify with.

At this point, if I wanted to do keyword research, I could. I'd go and find out the number of searches on those words. I would NOT go and find out what the keywords pay! In fact, I'd NEVER solely base my decision of whether or not to build a site on the listed price of keywords! Here is why:

1. Keyword prices change daily - sometimes radically. Finding one listing for $50 is pretty meaningless.
2. You only get paid a percentage of the bid price, so your payment is already quite a bit lower.
3. Companies that pay the big bucks can screen where they want those ads to show. They really aren't going to pick a site that is just starting out with very little traffic! You'll get ads from people on the low end of the bidding scale.
4. While some keywords do pay more than others, until you get the hang of targeting them in your content, you may end up with very different ads on your page than what you intended. Also, overall the average keyword price tends to not have a huge range when it comes to payouts - most are under $1, and they rarely go over $3.
5. To make your choices based solely on where you think the best money is, will sabotage your ability to do a good job. It doesn't matter if the term "diabetes mellitus" pays better than "lemon juice for diabetes". My site is about natural remedies, and one page is about lemon juice (which actually gets traffic looking for that exact thing). I am not an expert on diabetes mellitus, but I DO know how lemon juice affects blood sugar, and that page makes me money!
6. You cannot predict how well a site will do from keyword research. You can only get an idea of whether or not the item is in demand, and whether or not it pays a little higher than some other topics.
7. The keywords that pay the most are also the highest competition for traffic. If you are going to optimize your pages for high paying keywords, then you'll be optimizing them for high competition keywords in the searches also. This means that you cannot rely on free and low cost traffic methods if you do that, you are more likely to have to pay for traffic.
8. You can bet that if you spot a good paying keyword, someone is out there mass producing sites on the same topic, which will be put up before yours, and will present additional competition - High paying keywords has so much hype surrounding it right now that there is INTENSE competition for every single one that pays better than average. You'll stand a better chance of competing if you just build based on quality, because the majority of the people producing sites who are targeting high paying keywords are not terribly concerned about quality.
9. If you are going to base your strategy on anything, your best bet is for high demand, low competition keywords. They may not pay as much, but you'll get enough traffic to compensate, because people DO want it! And often, when you do that, Google ends up putting other related but not specific ads on your pages, which may in fact pay better. I have had this happen on two of my sites - they get good natural traffic, and earn well.
10. The power of a site to earn is not solely in the price of a single keyword. Your site will end up with a variety of ads on it, and each one will pay differently. You can't MAKE it show ONLY the highest bid ads - Google will give you a variety. Most of the power of AdSense clicks is in volume. Even at $1 per click (which is pretty high), you have to generate a lot of clicks to make real money.
11. Even in a site with higher than average keywords, low payouts are more common than high ones. I get a lot of penny clicks on ALL of my sites, even when they also have some very high payouts. Most of your earnings will be the result of cumulative pennies, not dollars.

The point here is that keywords are only a nudge, not the determining factor in your choices. Choose first what you love and know, second what, out of that niche, is potentially the most successful.

Next, do your homework. Plan out your site with a full and complete coverage of the topic you chose. If you don't know everything you need to know, then go research. Learn enough to be able to take a stance, and present a cohesive message in your site. Make sure you know your topic well before you start in.

At that point, you are ready to gather or create your content. Your entire site needs to be designed to reflect the message you choose. Each page needs to focus on a specific facet of that topic. This is the essence of niche marketing - getting specific with your site, and then giving each page an even tighter focus on just one element.

Screen carefully for quality. Do not publish anything which does not echo the message you are trying to deliver with your site as a whole. Do not publish any article that is not well written, and that is a lot more than just a glorified ad. Look for articles that have a sense of personality, and which are both enjoyable and informative. If you write your own content, be a real person, talk about personal examples, and keep it lively and fun. Present a distinct conclusion, have an opinion, and show some character. Give them something that they cannot get anywhere else.

Choosing a niche is half work, half intuition. The work covers the details you can research, the intuition is formed around educated guesses and gut feelings about the things you cannot predict.

Don't fret too much about getting just the right thing for your first site. Whatever you choose, you'll learn from it, and you'll have time long term to fine tune, nudge, and improve it. It is just a starting place, and even if it is not the "perfect" niche topic, it will give you something back that is of value.