Starting an Online Business

If you are thinking about starting an online business the first step you should take is to find a niche product or service. A niche is a product or service that serves a highly targeted audience with specific needs. Why is this important? Because with all of the different businesses establishing a presence online it is important to choose something that caters to an underserved audience with a demand for a specific product or service.

Many people who are new to online business make the mistake of choosing a product or service that is currently considered “hot” without thinking about the high rate of competition and the fact that the market may already be saturated. In addition to that, you can end up paying a fortune in advertising with nothing to show for it in the end.

If you choose a niche that serves a highly targeted audience with specific needs you will stand a much better chance of succeeding with your online business. Here are a few tips on choosing a niche that will help to improve your chances of success.

What Are You Passionate About?

Sit down and make a list of things you are passionate and knowledgeable about. The list should include interests, hobbies, professional skills, and any other topics that you would be happy working with on a daily basis. At first, you may find this a challenge if you have been caught up in the 9 to 5 grind and forgotten what you are passionate about. Be patient and enlist the help of some friends if you wish.

It is important that you are passionate about what you do because this will show through when you build a client base. If you are enthusiastic about what you do this will reflect on others and they will return to do business with you time and again. Additionally, if you enjoy what you do it will never feel like work.

Research Your Market

Once you have decided on a topic the next step is to start researching the topic on the Internet. You can begin to find your audience and where your position will be in your market by participating in forums related to your topic, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and any other sites where you can find people discussing your topic.

As you visit these sites listen carefully and take some notes on what people are discussing. This will help you to discover exactly what they are looking for when it comes to your product or service. Listening to the needs of your audience will help you to determine a niche for your online business.

For example, if your topic of interest is landscaping it is important to find out what people are looking for with regard to landscaping. Landscaping is very broad topic with a lot of competition. What about landscaping? What are people specifically looking for? Are they looking for landscaping professionals? Are they looking for landscaping tools? Perhaps they are looking for tips on how to do landscaping.

The key here is to drill down into the term “landscaping” and find a specific niche related to this topic the serves a highly targeted audience with specific needs. Landscaping plans for small backyards would be an example of a niche that serves a specific audience.

Keywords

Once you find your audience and what they are looking for the keywords you choose will help your targeted audience to find you online. Once you get to know your audience you can brainstorm keywords they might use to search for your product or service. You can use one of the many keyword tools that are available online for accomplishing this task. Google has a fantastic free keyword suggestion tool

Just like you had to drill down to find a niche you must find keywords that relate to the niche. Let’s go back to the landscaping example. If you simply choose the keyword “landscaping” you may get a lot of visitors to your website but they will be untargeted. If you are selling landscaping plans and they are looking for tools they will leave your site. If you choose the keywords “landscaping plans for small backyards” you know exactly what the people are searching for and it makes it easy to deliver the solution when they arrive at your website.

Take the time in the beginning to choose your niche and get to know your market and what they are looking for. The time you invest will help you to build a solid foundation for building a business that will last over the long term.

Our marketing team has over 25 years experience in both on and off line marketing. For a professional analysis of your online business plan, contact us today to set up a no obligation meeting.