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Finding your business's ideal niche in 4 steps

Have you ever felt frustrated and thought to yourself, I don’t exactly know where the focus of my business lies? At some point in the growth phase of your company, you’ll have to decide what your specialty and focus is, so you can differentiate yourself from the competition. That's what we call choosing a niche.
Personal Branding
3 min read
Mirelle Hassler
Last Updated
October 22, 2021

Have you ever felt frustrated and thought to yourself, I don’t exactly know where the focus of my business lies? At some point in the growth phase of your company, you’ll have to decide what your specialty and focus is, so you can differentiate yourself from the competition. That's what we call choosing a niche.

1. Identify your interests

The first step in determining your niche is knowing what your expertise and passions are. A great way to start is by making a list of 10 interests and passion areas.

This doesn't mean that you need to find a perfect fit. If you are passionate about some aspect of your business, you will stick with it. If you don’t care about the topic, you may not be able to find the drive within to persevere.

Here are a few questions to help you determine what your interests and passions are:

  • How do you like to spend your free time? What do you look forward to doing when you aren't doing it?
  • What magazines do you subscribe to? What topics do you like to learn about most?
  • What clubs or organizations do you belong to?

2. Identify problems you can solve.

With your list of 10 topics in hand, you're ready to start narrowing down your options. You first need to find problems your target customers are experiencing, then determine whether you can actually solve them. Here are several things you can do to identify problems in specific niches:

  • Have one-on-one conversations with your target market. Make sure to find or create a framework for asking questions that helps you uncover pain points.
  • Check out forums. Search Quora, or find forums related to your niche, then take a look at the discussions that are taking place. What questions are people asking? What problems do they have?
  • Research keywords. Explore different keyword combinations on Google Trends and Google AdWords’ keyword planner. This can help you uncover popular search terms related to pain points.

3. Research your competition.

The presence of competition isn't necessarily a bad thing. It may actually mean that you've found a profitable niche. But you need to do a thorough "competition analysis".

This will help you to figure out whether there's still an opportunity to stand out in the crowd. Is there a way to differentiate yourself and create a unique offer?

Here are several signs that you can enter a niche and be successful, even if there are already others serving it:

  • Low-quality content. It's easy to outrank your competition in a niche where other businesses are not creating high-quality content that serves the audience.
  • Lack of transparency. Many businesses have disrupted entire industries by creating an authentic, personal and transparent presence in a niche where others are faceless and overly corporate.
  • Lack of paid competition. If you've found a keyword that has relatively high search volume, but little competition in paid advertising, an opportunity definitely exists for you to upset the market.

4. Test your niche

You are now armed with all of the information you need to choose a niche, and the only thing left to do is test your ideas. The most simple way to do this is to create content and try out different things.

Even if you don't get likes, that doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't in a viable niche. It could be that your messaging isn't quite right, or you haven't found the right platform yet. By leveraging A/B split testing, you can optimize conversions and find out whether or not something is stopping your target market from taking action.

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