How Do You Come Up With Worthwhile Niche Ideas?

[Samwise89]

When everyone was all about micro-niche sites, it seemed like you could get an EMD for any product and rank it with spam. So coming up with niche ideas was as simple as browsing Amazon or walking through K-Mart.

But now ranking isn't as easy so you have to choose more carefully, and because of all of this it makes more sense to go for an authority site, right?

So how in the world am I supposed to come up with an idea for a site that's not too low on the totem pole where it's not worth all of the ranking effort, and how do I come up with one that's not too hard for me?

I'm not spamming and I'm just one guy trying to do traffic leaks and outreach.

Do I just choose one of the big niches like health, fitness, finance, cars, or something like that and just start building and not worry about specific keywords as much? The biggest niches have the most potential but the most competition. They are easier to traffic leak for it seems like but what about with SEO? Will I ever rank? If I'm traffic leaking all day, I might as well have a day job. Will that eventually turn into rankings? I know I can build up an email list and social pages to help the whole thing grow.

I got off target there. I just have no clue where to find or come up with niche ideas. I feel like I know how to tell if they are too hard but I don't know how to tell if I'm aiming so low that it won't be worth the time. I can't scale white hat style link work at this point so I need to be getting this right. Help!

 

[Sutra]

I don't think aiming low is the problem. The problem is if it's a niche that's to specific (too small a market), or if it's a niche people won't spend money on (or can't spend money on if the audience is comprised of people who make little income).

In my experience, people get caught up in defining the perfect niche. I've found it's better to go after a market but start with a segment. Own the shit out of it, then move on to the next segment. It's all relevant so it builds on itself. Eventually you've built out enough segments that you end up with an authority site.

For example - Weight loss. Rather than going for Losing Belly Fat for Men over 40 - a very specific niche, it would be better to go after Men's Weight Loss. That's a niche within fitness/weight loss but it's still very large. A market in itself. Within that there a million different segments; nutrition, routines, eating habits, muscle building, fat loss, etc. etc. Start with one of those and build it out. Then move on to the next. Repeat. Eventually you have a ton of content covering a variety of aspects your readers care about.

Don't worry about perfect.

Focus small, build it, grow, repeat.

 

[BootstrapBill]

I've always thought that if there are print magazines for a niche then there's money to be made.

 

[Dankovich]

Looking at forums about people selling websites helps me come up with a lot of ideas for some decent niches. Also checking out big authority websites in Semrush gives me sometimes some nice smaller niches. You can also look at e-books that sell good and look at the subject and see if you can build a website over it.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I've always thought that if there are print magazines for a niche then there's money to be made.

Argh, nothing is worse than a big vertical with ANCIENT print magazines who got smart and uploaded every single one of their pieces of content from day one to their website. Those guys dominate so hard! I'm up against a handful of old print magazines like this with my new site. Fortunately they all suck at SEO. But they still have a ton of content and a ton of links. But their on-page SEO sucks

 

[emp]

Yeah.. unbelievable how much a lot of them suck.

One of my clients was a mailing newletter (events, alternative news, etc..)

They had a backlog of hundreds of newsletters stashed away neatly.. and not online.
We are talking restaurant reviews, personality portraits, interviews, local news bits, articles, film reviews even.

I just stared at them in disbelief.

So one big part of the SEO effort was to make these accessible online.

Frigging dominated in no time.

::emp::

 

[contract]

You can run with pretty much any niche.

Fitness, gaming, health, automotive, wood working, pets, finance, etc. There are thousands..

Doesn't matter which one.

It all comes down to how much YOU spend working on it.

People said video games would never make kids money. Look at them now, making millions on YouTube uploading videos.

People said a poop niche was ludicrous! Poopori didn't give a shit, literally. They made a viral video in the most unappealing niches ever, and made bank $. Hell, there are toilet paper subscriptions too. Even Charmin runs ads on TV with bears.

Just choose a niche you are passionate about/interested in.

Otherwise six months from now like 99% of people, they'll get discouraged, bored, change to another project, etc and eventually accept failure.

Don't even look at a niche based upon search or ease of ranking to decide for you.

That's fucking nonsense.

Either you are going to be the authority/committed or you are not.

This shit takes time, it takes commitment.