Whether you are experienced and thinking of ways to monetize a new blog or website or a newbie – picking a niche when it seems all the good ideas (or keywords) are snapped up can be a challenge.

Sure, competition in affiliate marketing is fierce and you can be left feeling there is no room or way in for you. If you’re stuck feeling this way, here’s a little therapy.

Why is picking a niche so difficult?

Here’s why – it’s important. You want to make a decision – and you want it be the right one.

If you are stuck thinking “there’s no room for me” or “the good ideas are taken” you are already admitting defeat.

The amount of ideas that can be translated into a successful online business or website are infinite from financial services such as those provided by LeadNetwork, which specializes in payday and personal loans (see https://leadnetwork.com/payday-loan-affiliate-program-network), health such as the dieting niche, to romance and sites dedicated to break-up advice. You can even stand out from the crowd in flooded markets if you take some time to think how you can elbow your way in.

“That’s easier said than done,” you’re thinking. Agreed, it ISN’T easy, but you shouldn’t give up.

Choosing a niche is a long-term investment so it pay to choose wisely.

Here are some hints and tips to help out in the niche selection process that hopefully give you the best shot.

Don’t think about how to reinvent the wheel, think about how to make it better

To be a success online, you cannot do the same as everyone else – that’s when you will just get lost in the crowd.

The problem with this is you could interpret that to mean you have to create something totally new, something that has never been done before, to be a success.

That’s a pretty daunting prospect and it is full of unknowns.

A smarter approach is to forget about finding something new and look at niches proven to work and then think how to make it better.

People are always looking for something better, so give them something better

Forget about how much competition there is – if you think you can offer people something better then go for it.

The question is how do you know it is better?

The answer lies in thinking as a consumer.

Think of what you want as consumer of products or services in that market, think about your experience and then do the market research to get a good idea of the experience of others. Look at the feedback, read reviews, comments, take part in forums and get to know your potential target audience inside out. Glean all the knowledge you need to figure out what needs to be improved.

The key difference between you and everyone else in the market is you aren’t just looking for a solution – you are looking at how to make that solution better.

Specialize

Again this comes back to the competitiveness issue – the thinking all ideas are taken and there is no room for you.

When choosing a niche you can get better results, in faster time, by thinking about how to specialize.

This does not mean thinking smaller.

It means to think specialized.

Start with a market you are genuinely interested in – something you like – and do not think about the competition.

Then start to break that market down into components, even sub-components until you get to the point where you can identify there’s a need and you feel like you can create THE AUTHORITIVE RESOURCE or become THE AUTHORITY for that particular topic.

After a while you will gain traction and, ideally, whenever that topic is talked about you will be too.

Some refer to this as “niching down”, and while that technically is the case, if you think of it as specializing within a larger market that will drive your approach.

You will have a mission, a purpose.

By specializing you become an expert and you gain the reputation that follows making it easier to get your message out there to larger audiences.

And that leads to:

• It will become easier to be found in Google because the more you specialize the less completion there is. When people search for something specific the more specific the search terms they use are.
• It will become much easy to reach your target audience and gain a following.
• It will be easier to gain conversions and actually sell something. Since you are THE authority or your site is THE authoritive resource).

In the digital age we have come to the point where an online business can be successful and make a decent income by specializing. You don’t need to own the market, you just need to own your own slice of it and that slice doesn’t need to be big.

Two things you need to do

Whatever way you come to select the topic for your new blog or website, there’s two important things you need to do:

Actually select your topic. You can conduct all the research you want, but truth be told until you have got something established online and until you start producing content for it, you’re going nowhere. It is a better idea to select a niche you may hold some doubts about then never pick one at all. This is hands-on and you will learn more by doing than theorizing.

Then go all out. You must dress to impress – no crap that doesn’t provide any value – where they may have worked in the past, those days are gone. Work hard to impress your end user, and Google will catch on giving you the place you deserve on the results page.