The
Internet has been likened by many to the vast frontier
faced by those who took to the wild west in search of gold.
The enormity of its potential certainly draws many a gold
seeker ... but just as the gold diggers of old had to stake
their claim before digging for gold, so too must you. Online,
it's called finding your niche.
Chances
are, your online business idea has already been
done. To death. Does this mean that the market is
saturated and there is no room on board for you? No.
Not by a long shot.
To
be successful in an online business, you need to be
the best. Now, that doesn't mean the best overall, or
even the best in your general category. What it means
is being the best in your specific category ... your niche.
If
the niche you're interested in is already occupied, can
you be better than the best in that niche? If so, go for it.
If not, find another niche!
So,
how exactly do you go about finding your niche? Here's
five steps to staking a claim to your share of the Internet
bounty:
1.
IDENTIFY YOUR GENERAL CATEGORY AND
SUB-CATEGORY
To
start with, you need to have some idea of the general
category you're interested in becoming involved in as a
business venture. It may be something to do with health
and fitness, nutrition, pet care, home-based business,
internet marketing, whatever.
Now,
see if you can narrow down your area of interest a
little. Let's say your general area of interest is health
and
fitness. Can you be more specific? Does your interest
lie
in aerobic exercise, weight training, nutritional supplements,
diet? This is your sub-category.
2.
HANG OUT WITH PEOPLE INTERESTED IN YOUR
SUB-CATEGORY
The
object of the exercise is to identify an unmet need that
you can fill. This will become your niche. How do you
identify
an unmet need? By listening to what the people interested
in
the sub-category you identified in step 1 are saying. A good
place to start is to sign up to various mailing lists and read
newsgroups relevant to your sub-category.
Let's
say your sub-category of interest within the general
category of health and fitness is weight training. You
would sign up for mailing lists and read newsgroups that deal
with this subject. Pay attention to the kinds of questions
people
are asking each other. It is likely that the reason many of
these
questions are being asked is that the questioner hasn't been able
to find adequate information online that deals with the subject
matter. These sorts of questions are good sources of potential
niches.
Continuing
with our weight training example, the results of
this step may suggest that some potential areas of unmet need
exist, such as the benefits of weight training for: seniors, injury
recuperation, weight loss, bone density, mental health, blood
pressure, and so on.
3.
IDENTIFY UNMET NEEDS IN YOUR SUB-CATEGORY
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Elena Fawkner is editor of the award-winning weekly ezine,
A Home-Based Business Online, a down-to-earth publication
containing practical home-based and online business ideas,
telecommuting job listings, original articles, free e-books and
much more. She also runs the A Home-Based Business Online
website at at http://www.fawkner.com.
You can subscribe to her newsletter at the site.
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