How to Choose a Niche

As the saying goes, the first step is always the hardest. This is very true for individuals starting out for the first time with market research. We can hear the cries now:”Where Do We Begin?” The question you first need to ask is what type of business are you creating? * Do you want to create a blog that is something you will personally author and become a known name for?

* Do you want to create lots of small niche specific affiliate focused blogs? * Do you want an online store front for your current off line business? * Are you creating blogs to turn around and sell? * And the list goes on and on

You see, if you can not answer the question of “what you want to do”, then you really can not move to the next step effectively. Question for You -> What type of business are you creating?

IMPORTANT: Do not worry about boxing your self in to one type of business. For example, you might want to start a blog on a specific market that you want to be personally known as an authority for. This does not mean you can not later create small niche sites that promote affiliate products, but what it does mean is that can not be your main focus right now. You want to distinguish the two because it influences the decisions in the next step.

We Know the Business… Now What? As you can see from our breakdown of reasoning, there were limitations to the type of market we could select because of the criteria for our business. We would not want to pick an emerging health niche that we had no interest in or knowledge about because the research and testing would be too time consuming. For us this next step was to brain storm all the markets we…

* Already knew there are markets in * We had knowledge about * We knew how to find contacts in * We saw similar “market related” sites selling at sitepoint.com

The last 2 points were the most important in our opinion. First of all by us understanding the market, we knew exactly where the people were that were influential in that industry. Not that this could not be researched and found but we were very limited on time with the challenge and to create the absolutely best results we needed to purely stick to what works… very little room for exploratory research. The second point was critical because we wanted to know that these types of sites were actually selling… which really is the end result we are after. So we brainstormed all the possible markets and 4 immediately came up…

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* Video Gaming * Mountain Biking * Karate / MMA * Online Business

These are four markets we were knowledgeable in and are some what passionate about. So we then broke down this list and gave points to the specific ones that best met our criteria and we came up with the selection being “Video Gaming”. This market has lots of passionate people, we were knowledgeable about it, knew where contacts were easily found and it appeared to have related sites selling.

So Once We Had Our Market We Needed a Map Now we needed to map out our plan and time frame. We knew the goal, but next we needed to map out how we were going to reach that goal in the needed time frame. This is where we absolutely LOVE dry erase boards. Since starting full time online we have never been without a dry erase board and the reason is they are perfect for standing up and putting in front of you what you need to accomplish.

Obviously you do not need to go out and buy one… but it is what we use and so we are telling you about it. The first step was to list all the tasks that needed to be done and we designated them into short term

(Urgent Need), long term (Non Urgent but Important) and “Maybe” tasks:

Urgent Tasks: (Need to be done first above everything else) * Decide on specific niche in the “Video Gaming” market to target * Initial content decided on using LSI principals * Domain set up with the blog installed * Design and graphics started * “Link Bait” Content ideas agreed upon * List of sites to contact for joint ventures * Plugins installed and set up * Gmail account created * Feedburner and Aweber account set up * Get legal documents in place (privacy and so on)

Non Urgent but Important Tasks: * Niche specific content for blog and promotions research (will explain difference from initial needed content tomorrow) using LSI principals * Social site accounts set up * Videos planned for promotions * Start Contacting potential JV partners * Start viral marketing engine * Maintenance plan

Maybe Tasks – these were ideas that came up that could potentially be scope creep and so we would look at as time allows.

The above is just a general summary of the tasks that are needed to accomplish for our goal, yours very well may be the same. One thing to note is that because our end goal was to sell the new blog, we had to keep that in mind for all services and accounts we created, they would need to be made available with the purchase.

Task For You -> Create a list of all the tasks you know need to get done and put them into three categories * Urgent & Important * Non Urgent and Important * Maybe

Dividing Up the Work Now that we had brainstormed our list of tasks, we need to break them down and put them on a timeline. If you want professional results, you need to treat this entire process as a professional and that means prioritizing, planning, setting goals and deadlines!

By not setting deadlines, you run the risk of… * Scope Creep: Constantly adding new features, strategies and more. This is killer on time frames and budgets and needs to be controlled. You must look at items that are not immediate needs as “maybes” and once all the important things are done and the blog is published and promoted, you can go back and look at implementing these strategies.

* Procrastination: Give us an excuse to put it off until tomorrow and we will always put it off until tomorrow. Procrastination is a killer on time management and return on investment and you need to always keep this in check and setting a strict time frame can help. This takes self discipline, especially if the only one you answer to is yourself. This is where finding a “business accountability” partner or group is powerful. Two or more like minded individuals meet and review what’s going on, provide each other with third party feedback and review each others goals and help to enforce accountability. If you suffer with procrastination, then stop here and really think about who you can get to work with you on helping you.

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* Analysis Paralysis: With out a deadline you will find yourself spending hours upon hours on tasks that are an absolute waste of time and money. An example is trying to get a plugin to work with your blog that offers nothing but some fun functionality. Frustration and determination kick in and you can get so focused on getting this to work you lose all perspective on time.

Before you know it, the day is gone and all you have to show for it is a cool plug-in that still does not work. Set a deadline and use a timer and make sure you are spending time working on tasks that make you money!