Best Niche to Choose for Your Online Store
The whole idea of a niche online store is DEAD!
Although the idea of making some extra “passive” income is appealing, the risk : reward ratio isn’t!
Months of hard work and study to build a niche site and make it rank in the top 10 on Google can fall off the map in a matter of seconds!
Those are only a few of the discouragements one might hear or read when thinking about starting a niche site in 2020. A killer niche idea could be burning in your head for an online store but you’re having second thoughts before investing time and money into it.
Well…
Niche sites are not dead; they evolved, and so did their business model .
Good websites never die.
Content is king . As long as your site provides informative, relevant, updated, SEO-friendly content that interests the right audience you’ll do well.
Take the United Arab Emirates as an example. It is a very digital-friendly country, with almost 100% of its population actively using the internet and enjoying spending time online .
The e-commerce market in the UAE is developing rapidly, and billions of dollars are spent yearly on online shopping.
As a result, niche businesses are doing great in the UAE.
Examples for profitable niche ideas can range from selling cotton towels to fancy, luxurious, gold jewelry for men and women.
The same goes for every country in the Middle East. As a resident, look around you and try to put your hands on the needs to be met or the problems to be solved for the people in your country (or in your area of expertise).
Yet, building and making money out of a niche site is not as easy as it used to be.
Finding an untapped niche idea that appeals to a specific audience is getting harder day after day.
No worries. Keep reading to find out how to choose the BEST niche for your online store in 2020.
Imagine I am your audience ; how can you be of benefit to me? What do you have to offer that no body else can?
Let’s explore more…
How Can Your Niche Make My World Better?
As your targeted audience , I have problems and difficulties in my daily life that need a solution.
I’m no expert in everything. YOU are an expert in at least ONE thing.
Think of how you can solve a problem people in your field of expertise suffer from.
A simple application or a handmade product can do the trick.
How do you know what people are talking about?
That’s easy, social media private groups, Quora, Ask, and many other platforms are gold mines for you to dig and find this particular thing you are good at and others need.
One example of a niche that shows how you can build your brand based on something that’s very personal to you or the people in your circle is StomaStoma website.
With their kid Owen in hospital, father and mother Nick and Darlene Abrams noticed how other families with sick children are wearing inspiring t-shirts in support and compassion for each other.
Nick then started a niche business of designing eye-catching artwork for friends and families, till StomaStoma has become a close-knit community with families raising medically fragile children.
What a narrow segment of audience!
The Narrower the Niche the Better
The more you narrow down the base of audience you target, the better the results you could get.
Souq and Noon can sell anything to every one; you can’t.
After you find the broad niche , the general idea you can pursue, try to become more specialized, hyper-specialized.
Analyze the million products on Souq.com and try to come up with hundreds of e-commerce business ideas for a niche online store ; then narrow them down to tens of smaller niches with specific people searching for them by name.
Do not be afraid to narrow down the niche you chose as far as you can go, go from “products for gardening” to “products for roof-top gardening in Alexandria city;” that’s called micro-niche marketing.
Here is a successful niche store raking THIRD on Google selling dog costumes.
Yes, you read it right, there is such a thing as costumes specially tailored and customized for dogs.
Here, the site owner targeted not pet owners in general, but dog owners in particular who are interested in accessories and clothes for their dogs.
When you choose a micro-niche, you can rank your content for related keywords more easily. Plus, you have less competition and a more targeted audience.
Speaking of competition , do not forget about that.
Learn from the Competitors’ Store
You are not always taking on your competitors, you should be learning a lot by following your competitors on social media or signing up for their newsletter.
Study their marketing techniques , evaluate their services as a user, read their fans’ testimonials and reviews, and know what kind of offers or deals they send.
We do not encourage copying the competitors strategies; make up your own plan based on your business’s specific needs and your market’s potentials.
For example, the service of Careem Bus didn’t support the feature of calling the driver.
After seeing that its competitor’s, Swvl, customers are loving this feature and asking for the same from Careem, they introduced the “call captain” button on its application.
At the same time, Careem maintains its own image, marketing strategies, tone of voice, and personality in the market without copying any of the rivals.
And remember, what differentiates your way of marketing for your business is how passionate you are about it.
Passion and Knowledge in Your Niche
Passion and knowledge are the most essential qualifications for starting a business, whether online or offline.
Knowledge only is not sufficient to maintain a successful business , because one might get demotivated by time and find oneself lacking the energy to keep going.
On the other hand, when you are passionate about a subject matter, you will find yourself energetic, resourceful, motivated, and fulfilled by your work.
Pixiefaire.com is a lovely example for a very specific niche derived by love and passion – passion for dolls clothing patterns.
Because their daughter was fond of dolls and their clothes, the owners of pixiefaire started out a niche site selling patterns for dolls clothes.
And because they are passionate about it, the site makes up to $60K per month.
I’m not telling you to start a dolls clothing site, I’m trying to make a point here: there is no such thing as going “too niche” can hurt your business, as long as you are doing a good job with branding and know exactly the kind of content your target audience wants and searches for.
Do your Homework
You’ll need to dig deep into what terms people are searching for, what phrases they are typing into a search engine, and what keywords they are using.
To do this, you’ll invest a lot of time and effort
- Typing phrases into a search engine , and let it auto-fill terms people have searched for
- And using SEO and keywords tools that generate new keyword ideas from broader ones.
There are a variety of trusted, reliable, smart tools to search for and generate keyword ideas for an online store.
Ubersuggest: a nifty SEO tool that helps inform your content strategy based on things like Keyword traffic volume, difficulty to rank for a specific keyword, and PPC difficulty. It also provides you with a whole bunch of other keyword ideas.
Answer the Public: a keyword tool that visualizes search questions and suggested autocomplete searches.
SEMrush: an SEO tool that does your keyword research, tracks the keyword strategy used by your competition, runs an SEO audit of your blog, looks for backlinking opportunities, and lots more.
When you do your homework well, you know the market inside out that you can fill any holes in it.
Fill the “Hole” with Your Online Store
Now you saw a problem you are able to craft a solution for, found a specific interested audience, studied the competition, are passionate about the business idea, and researched your keywords. It’s time to fill the hole in the market and make your business stand out among the crowd.
Do you best to set yourself apart from the competition.
Target a particular region in your niche so that you guarantee some loyal followers in your local community.
Instead of constantly trying to beat your competitors’ prices, you could structure your pricing in unique ways that give customers more flexibility.
Niche by service model: offer in-person consultation (not only online) or bundle your products in a package.
The possibilities are limitless..
Aim high…
If you’re investing that much time and effort, you’d want to see real cash flow .
That’s why Neil Patel recommends you target selling “high-dollar products” instead of dozens of low-priced items.
“Think of it this way: If you want to earn $5,000 per month, you could sell 1,000 $5 products or just 5 $1,000 products,” says Patel
In conclusion,,
Brainstorm your areas of passion; ask your friends how do they see you or what do they see you doing.
Look around you for inspiration, the best ideas come from the simplest places.
Do your homework: study competition and explore with keywords.
Choose your niche product wisely; it could be your life, and others, changer.
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