What do you truly love? Make it your niche!

By | January 18, 2016

What do I mean by “What do you truly love? Make it your niche!”?

What do I mean when I ask, “What do you truly love?” and answer, “Make it your niche!”? By this I mean choose a niche for your online business that you love and are passionate about or at least strongly interested in. This post will cover how to select such a niche, why to choose a niche you love and are passionate about and have examples of websites dedicated to niches the people who created them are passionate about. If you have ever wanted to know how to make money online for free, read on.

Selecting a Niche

If you know what you niche want for your online business, great, otherwise I have some tips which may aid you in this process. Here are some steps you can follow to aid you in choosing  a niche that is right for you.

  1. Start by brainstorming
    • Take a blank sheet of paper and write down topics that you love, that you are passionate about, that interest you and that you really enjoy.
    • For example, your list may look like this:
    • Passions
      Trail Cooking
      Basketball
      Football
      Jeeps
      Fly Fishing
      Bow Hunting
      Photography
      Travel
      Mountaineering
      Camping
      Hiking
      Indian Food
      Mexican Food
      Canoeing
  2. Prioritize your list
    • The prioritized list may look like this:
    • PassionsPriority
      Hiking1
      Camping2
      Mountaineering3
      Canoeing4
      Fly Fishing5
      Bow Hunting6
      Photography7
      Travel8
      Football9
      Basketball10
      Trail Cooking11
      Indian Food12
      Mexican Food13
      Jeeps14
  3. Define categories and categorize your list
    • Look for themes or categories to see if you can group items on your list into logical components. This helps in narrowing your passions.
    • Your revised list now looks like this:
    • PassionsPriorityCategory
      Hiking1Outdoors
      Camping2Outdoors
      Mountaineering3Outdoors
      Canoeing4Outdoors
      Fly Fishing5Fishing
      Bow Hunting6Hunting
      Photography7Photography
      Travel8Travel
      Football9Sports
      Basketball10Sports
      Trail Cooking11Outdoors
      Indian Food12Cooking
      Mexican Food13Cooking
      Jeeps14Autos
  4. Examine your categories to look for patterns.
    • Examining your list quickly shows that the outdoors category stands out. Since so many interests are in this category, let’s pick that category.
    • Narrowing this to the outdoor category leaves us with the following:
    • PassionsPriorityCategory
      Hiking1Outdoors
      Camping2Outdoors
      Mountaineering3Outdoors
      Trail Cooking11Outdoors

This leaves us with four passions in the same category. They are all connected so this is a good place to start and since they are all things you care strongly about it seems a good fit.

How will I approach the niche?

One idea would be to document your hiking/camping trips giving you and endless supply of material to write about. It also gives you a chance to take pictures for your site indulging your photography and travel passions. You will be able to write about different trails, different national parks and different campsites. You will also be able to have pictures of interesting things you saw, sparkling mountain lakes, the leaves turning colors in the fall, deer grazing in a meadow or hummingbirds flitting about in a flower filled field.

The possibilities are endless. Even if you return to the same general area, the seasons will be different, the scenery will be different, the weather will not be the same. You can write about it all over again from a new perspective.

How about a Domain Name?

Okay, assuming that your categories relate to the outdoors and you are going to blog about your trips, let’s brainstorm some domain names for your site. Below is the brainstorm list:

Potential Domain Names
MyCampingTrips.com
OutdoorExcursions.com
MountainWorldHikes.com
FantasticCampingTrips.com
ExtremeExcursions.com
OutdoorExpeditions.com
HikingProExpeditions.com
CampingProExpeditions.com
HikeandCamp.com
GreatOutdoorExpeditions.com
GreatOutdoorExcursions.com
BestOutdoorExcusrionsEver.com

Next let’s prioritize the list. Which do you like? Ask people whose opinion you value which ones they like. Which ones have a keyword you value? If possible, choose something that resonates with you.

So, let’s see what the prioritized list looks like:

Potential Domain NamesPriority
MyCampingTrips.com6
OutdoorExcursions.com3
MountainWorldHikes.com7
FantasticCampingTrips.com12
ExtremeExcursions.com10
OutdoorExpeditions.com1
HikingProExpeditions.com8
CampingProExpeditions.com9
HikeandCamp.com11
GreatOutdoorExpeditions.com2
GreatOutdoorExcursions.com5
BestOutdoorExcusrionsEver.com4

We have the prioritized list, let’s check to see which domain names are available. The best place to check and buy domain names is here.

Okay, so first up is OutdoorExpeditions.com. We check this and see that this domain name is not available. Bummer. It happens, so let’s move on to number 2, GreatOutdoorExpeditions.com. Woo Hoo, this is available so we buy it. We have our domain name!

Why Passion Not Money?

At this point you have a concept for your site and a domain name and if you follow my recommendation you will have hosting and all the training you need to build your website.

The next step is to properly build out your website with quality content. This means you will be writing about your niche and writing a lot. If you want to have three to five 1,000 words articles a week to get your site rolling, that is a lot of writing and you will need to keep it up for a while. It is incredibly easier to write fifty 1,000 word articles on a topic yo love rather than something that only marginally interests you. Using our outdoors example, you could write about your hiking and camping expeditions indefinitely without exhausting yourself or you source of material.

Also, to do the research necessary to write product reviews and to select products to promote through your affiliate links will be interesting to you and not a tedious job making it more likely you will do more of it and boost your online business.

How can I make money from this niche?

You can sell products related to topics covered on your site through being an affiliate for places like Amazon.com. Amazon will pay you a percentage of sales for items purchased that come from your site. So, lets say in articles you write you talk about specific gear for example tents. You can put in what are called affiliate links to take the person to Amazon to that specific tent and if they buy it you get paid. With Amazon you get paid even if they buy a different tent or anything else in the next 24 hours. So, if the click on your link and go to Amazon and then don’t buy the tent but buy sleeping bags of something else you still earn an affiliate commission. Using the outdoors example, you would have an endless supply of products to promote.

Amazon Affiliate Commission List:

Amazon Product Commissions

Product CategoryFixed Ad Fee Rates
Electronics Products4%
Television Products2%
PC Component Products2.5%
Kindle tablets, Kindle e-readers and Fire Phone4%
Amazon Fire TV and Echo7%
Amazon MP3 Products5%
Amazon Video Products5%
Game Downloads Products10%
Gift Cards Redeemable on Amazon.com6%
Gift Cards Not Redeemable on Amazon.com4%
Amazon Coins10%
Grocery Products (including Prime Pantry)4%
Video Game Console Products1%
Headphone Products6%
DVD Products4%
Industrial Products8%
Products Available on MyHabit.com8%
Handmade Products4%
Jewelry Products **10%
Table of Amazon Product Commissions

Great Niche Sites:

I have selected two fantastic websites to provide you with examples of niches. I have also interviewed their owners of the sites to give you some additional perspective on niche websites. See my recommendation on how to get 2 websites for free.

Feline Personalities

This site, FelinePersonalities.com is a site for exploring, discovering and sharing everything cats. It was developed by a lady, Suzette who is crazy about cats. Unsurprisingly, her niche website is all about cats, in particular their personalities.

Suzette was kind enough to let me interview her and to use her website as an example in this article. My questions and Suzette’s questions are below.

Yes-I-Am-The-Cat-Lady-300x284

This is the Feline Personalities Website

NoMagicWand: What can you tell us about your passion for cats?

FelinePersonalities: We were not permitted to have cats when I was growing up. Dad wouldn’t have it, blamed it on his asthma. I think he just didn’t like them at the time. He was owned by two very spoiled cats before he passed away. My love for cats began when I was 18 years old, after I moved out on my own. My sister lived on a farm and a momma cat had a litter of about 6 kittens. All but one of the kittens were easily given away. I rescued the lonely one because my brother-in-law was going to in-humanely get rid of her due to a birth defect. She was born with only three paws. God Bless her, my sweet Tasha awoken my passion for the feline world. Since her, I have been owned by 11 other cats, six who have since passed away but will forever live in my heart .

NoMagicWand: What do you love about your passion?

FelinePersonalities: I have had many different type of animals both as a child and as an adult. There have been rabbits, birds, fish, turtles, snakes, hamsters, guinea pigs, dogs, and lizards, but my feline kids have always had a very special place in my heart. I love their independent nature. They are very smart and cunning. I love and appreciate their hunting and survival instincts. For the most part, they are easy to care for and although a bit of challenge, they can be trained. They truly are amazing creatures!

NoMagicWand: How does your site help people?

FelinePersonalities: I created my website, Felinepersonalities.com to share my passion for cats with others. It is a place to discover, explore, share and fun! It is a place to learn more about cats as well as about ourselves. I truly believe that my four legged children have taught me more about life than just being a pet owner. It is an amazing feeling to know and to feel that I am the center of their world, and they are mine.

NoMagicWand: What inspired you to create Feline Personalities?

FelinePersonalities: What inspired me – Kyle, He stressed in the training about choosing a passion. It really didn’t take to long for me to figure that one out. I wasn’t sure how I was going to earn an income with a website about cats but I knew they are my passion! I was also very confident that with the training I was getting within WA, I would learn how to earn money as well help others.

NoMagicWand: What advice would you have for someone considering setting up a niche website?

FelinePersonalities: My advice – of course it would be to choose something you are passionate about. You don’t have to be an expert. God knows I am no Jackson Galaxy. But oh how I wished I could meet him!!! I am not a vet but I have had my share of taking care of sick, dying, and injured felines. It makes it so much more “real” when you are writing content from experience and from the heart.

NoMagicWand: What have you learned from visitors to your site that you didn’t know about your feline friends?

FelinePersonalities: Learn from visitors – There really are more men out there that love cats then I imagined. I always thought that men were more dog people but I have had a lot of men visit the site. It always touches me in a different way when a man comments about the love they have for their feline companions. People love to talk and share their experiences they have had with their cats.

If you enjoyed the feline personalities website, leave them a comment and tell them so!

But my niche is too narrow!

I have had people say this to me, that their interests are too narrow to support a website.

Really? There are now billions of people online, which means even obscure hobbies or interests may have many thousands of dedicated potential customers. There is opportunity in some smaller niches because you have less competition.

While you could point out that there are tens of millions of cat owners in the feline niche covered above, there are far fewer people in the very unique niche described below.

Leopard Gecko Land

Leopard-Gecko-picture

Leopard Gecko picture

The next site I have selected to profile is Leopard Gecko Land. This is a great site dedicated to Leopard Geckos as you no doubt could guess from the name. The person who owns this site, Garen Arnold, has four Leopard Geckos he keeps as pets and this site is aimed at other Leopard Gecko owners and people who are interested in becoming Leopard Gecko owners and “herp” people in general.

NoMagicWand: What can you tell us about your passion?

LeopargGeckoLand: Two different lizards leopard geckos and bearded dragons are my passion. It’s like cats and dogs to me. I have a number of hobbies and am always coming up with new ideas for niche sites. My mind never stops.

But back to leopard geckos; people are passionate about their pets. If you think about it there are multi billion dollar industries around animals. This could be anything from dogs, cats, fish, birds, and yes lizards.

NoMagicWand: What do you love about your passion?

LeopardGeckoLand: The thing I love about leopard geckos is they are very easy to take care of. You only need about 15 minutes a week to take care of them. Dogs and other animals take a lot longer to care for.

Also, I love their calm demeanor. They are so lazy and sleep on everything. But, when they wake up at night and get picked up they are very carious little creatures. They like to crawl around on my office desk and every once and awhile will just walk across my keyboard. Really gives you a lot of relief when you work as many hours as I do. It also helps that they are nocturnal since I always find myself working late at night or into the early morning.

The number one thing I like about my passion is it just doesn’t feel like work. This is a big key to success.

NoMagicWand: How does your site help people?

LeopardGeckoLand: Leopardgekoland.com helps lizard owners in a number of ways. Really, you learn any and everything you need to know about taking care of leopard geckos. I’m adding 1 article per week and have plans of adding about 20 more articles up.

But, one of the best things I think really helps people on my site is showing people that you can get live food on eBay. I found this out 2 years ago. I have probably spend $1,000 at Petco or Petsmart before I found out you could buy live food on eBay. You get so much food and it’s a forth of the price.

NoMagicWand: What inspired you to create Leopard Gecko Land?

LeopardGeckoLand: For 4 years I have owned 3 bearded dragons and 4 leopard geckos. One night after looking up information on leopard geckos I realized that there is a lot of false information online about leopard geckos. People are not taking care of them properly. As a result, geckos are suffering from numerous health problems.

I started leopardgeckoland.com to make money, but also because I could spend hours and hours talking about them. Friends come over and have tons and tons of questions about them. I’ve been asked lots about them over the years and really enjoy these reptiles so I figured I would develop a leopard gecko website and make a little residual income off it on the side.

NoMagicWand: What advice would you have for someone considering setting up a niche website?

LeopardGeckoLand: For anyone who is interested in starting a niche website I would make sure you pick a niche that you really like. For instance, sit back and ask yourself what would you do if you didn’t have to do anything at all in life. If you had no worries, financial concerns, etc. What would you be doing?

Then make sure your niche has lots of problems that people want to know about. So many people get into affiliate marketing with one thing on their mind, money. Money is fine, but I have done a number of niches over 7 years and have learned that getting in niches just for the money are a huge mistake.

When the money isn’t there and you really don’t care on what your working on it seems like work, which isn’t fun. A lot of people will just quit because they don’t have the drive to keep putting so much work into something that isn’t making them any money and taking a good deal of their time.

NoMagicWand: What have you learned from visitors to your site that you didn’t know about Leopard Gecko’s?

LeopardGeckoLand: One thing I have learned about leopard geckos is they have teeth. Somewhere I heard they didn’t have teeth so I never really second guessed it. Just the other day someone left a comment about leopard gecko’s and their teeth. I then researched it and found out that they actually do have them.

People used to always ask me are you ever worried about being bitten by a leopard gecko? I told them leopard geckos don’t have teeth so it wouldn’t even hurt if they ever bit you.

Realistically, they are extremely docile reptiles that would much rather run from you than bite you.

People are giving me lots of ideas of content to write about, which I wouldn’t have ever thought about. It forces me to be an expert on leopard geckos because anything I am unsure of I research and then learn about.

 If you enjoyed the Leopard Gecko Land website, leave them a comment and tell them what you liked!

For those interested in where Leopard Geckos live in the wild:

 Leopard Gecko Range:

I hope these examples have inspired you to come up with something you are passionate about as your online niche.

I don’t know anything about building a website.

I didn’t know anything either when I started. However, I can show you where to get all the tools, training and support you need to build your online niche and build an online income at the same time.

<See My Recommendation Here>

Follow a step by step system that shows you how to build your site, how to produce great content, how to promote your site, how to have your site show up at the top of Google, Bing or Yahoo searches and how to monetize your site. I will be there to answer questions as will a whole community of people who are more than willing to answer questions. Believe me, I have asked many as I have developed my first two websites. Truly, I can’t recall any questions that I have had that there was not either a tutorial or someone did not provide me with an answer on how to do whatever it was I was asking. The training and support are very comprehensive and I utilize them all the time, it seems I never run out of questions or new things I want to do on my site.

Why not get started for free?

If you have ever wanted to have your own online business and wanted to know how to earn money online for free, this is your time. There is no cost, no obligation, you can build 2 websites for free and have your online business for free. You don’t even need a credit card to get started. Give it a try today!

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment below.

Plus, many thanks to Suzette from FelinePersonalities.com and Garen from LeopardGeckoLand.com for taking the time to answer the questions for this article!

Sincerely,

Xin

12 thoughts on “What do you truly love? Make it your niche!

  1. Simon Watson

    Really good advice on how to make it your niche. You have explained everything really well and it is laid out in such a way that it is so easy to follow and more importantly to understand what it is, your end goal. You bring peoples ideas in to play and quote good examples ie hiking and camping. This is a great way to engage your audience and I thank you so much for a wonderful post!

    Reply
    1. Xin Zhang Post author

      Hello Simon,

      I am glad you enjoyed my article and found it to be laid out in a logical manner and easy to follow. It takes a lot of thought to come up with examples of what to do at each stage of the journey. I used to enjoy hiking, so the topic was something I could relate to. I try to use realistic examples and to show people what it takes to build a successful niche website. Too often people are misled into believing there is no work involved. My advice is whenever you see things that promise instant returns w without effort, run away.

      Again, thank you for visiting my site and if you have questions, please leave them below or email me at Xin@NoMagicWand.com.

      Sincerely,

      Xin

      Reply
  2. Kevin

    Wow XinZhang, this is a really helpful article.
    I think that many people are looking how to cohose a niche from scratch. (it’s a difficult task by the way)

    Once you have your niche you should be moving to the next step which is website creation (which is another not so complicated but hard things)

    I really enjoyed this article. Looking forward to see more!

    Reply
    1. Xin Zhang Post author

      Hello Kevin,

      I am happy to hear that you found this to be a really helpful article. I try to step though the entire process in a logical step by step manner. I also try to use realistic examples at each stage to aid people in understanding the thought process behind the information presented. I used the hiking and camping example because I thought it would be easy for people to follow and understand, as well as being a topic people can relate to. I hope this helped make the niche selection process less difficult for the readers.

      I will cover website creation in an upcoming article. I have several posts on my website that are targeted at creating content for website. Check out some of my other articles and maybe they can inspire you in that area.

      If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them below.

      Sincerely,

      Xin

      Reply
  3. Jezza

    Hi Xin,

    Fantastic article! I enjoyed reading your article and I couldn’t agree with you more. It is very important to choose your niche based on what you love because you will write content coming from your heart. Mine was all parenting and baby niche because I am a first time mom and would like to share my personal experiences and tips out there to moms like me. The money will always come after. You have proven here that selecting niche based on your hobbies and interests will really go a long way. I bet your article will be of big help to those who just started with WA and struggling to choose their niche.

    More power to your site!

    Jezza

    Reply
    1. Xin Zhang Post author

      Hello Jeeza,

      I am really happy you enjoyed the article on choosing a niche. It is kind of a cliche to say do what you love, but it became a cliche for a reason. It is true, doing what you love is the road to happiness and often success. As you say, it does make it so much easier to write content for your website if it a topic you really are interested in.

      I am glad to hear that you are happy with the niche you chose, which is parenting and babies. Have any tips for those of us with 11 year old boys?

      I hope the example I chose was clear. I thought the hiking and camping example was something many people could relate to in their own experience. I tried to step a complete beginner through the whole process from initially thinking about a niche to evaluating their options, to what type of content they could have on their website to how they could make money from their website. If you have any ideas for tips to include or if anything wasn’t clear, just let me know.

      Again, thanks for reading my article and commenting!

      Sincerely,

      Xin

      Reply
  4. Joon

    I definitely agree on choosing a niche that you are very I mean very passionate about or something you really do love. I’m new to online business (4 months) and still very inexperienced, but I chose a niche that I really do love and have a lot to talk about….I’m not sure how it’s going to pay off later on but it’s definitely been a lot easier to create contents and been having such a great time writing and expressing things that I’m passionate about. In a way I think it was very therapeutic too.

    Reply
    1. Xin Zhang Post author

      Hello Joon,

      We seem to be on the same page with regard to choosing a niche. It is just easier to write lots of articles and to do research on a topic that interests you. I have seen people who are very disciplined and who say they don’t care what the niche is as long as it is very profitable. That does work for some people. For most of us however, I think making what you love your online niche is really the way to go.

      I think it is great that you are finding content creation to satisfying and therapeutic! I am always looking at people’s site to spur my own creative juices. Feel free to send me a link and I would be happy to check it out.

      There are lots of ways to monetize your site and I will be hitting more in future posts, so stay tuned. In the meantime, feel free to read my article on making money with Amazon.

      Sincerely,

      Xin

      Reply
  5. Garen

    Hey Xin,

    Thanks a lot for including me in the interview :). Suzette, I like your cat website. Very good idea and people absolutely love cats. I used to have two Persian cats and loved them.

    For domains I like shorter domains, but descriptive. But, I have always been a fan of domain names that paint a picture in someone’s head, or sparks an emotional trigger. I tend to think of about 30-50 domains in 1-2 days before starting a new website. Ask around try to come up with some off the wall ideas too. It helps :)

    I have been using the eBay Partnership Program because Amazon doesn’t do business with Missouri residents. They also have a decent affiliate program. It can be kind of tough to get into their affiliate program. I tend to wait until the site has 8-10 articles. You do have to disclose that your affiliate links go to eBay.

    Your website is on the right track and remember to keep working at it and will be the best decision you ever made.

    Reply
    1. Xin Zhang Post author

      Hi Garen,

      I really appreciate you participating in the interview and talking about you website. I think you have a very unique and interesting site and I hope the readers enjoyed seeing it as well.

      Your perspective on choosing domain names is interesting. I have had a much shorter brainstorming list and a much shorter deliberation period for the few domains I have purchased. Perhaps, I should learn from your example and analyze things more before purchasing my next domain.

      I have not really looked into the eBay Partnership Program, but perhaps I should look at it sometime so if the need arises I can use it.

      I am glad that you liked the article and my website. I have a long way to go but I am trying to always be moving forward, adding content and making improvements.

      Sincerely,

      Xin

      Reply
  6. Suzette

    Hi Xin, what a great article! You have really shown how important it is to truly love your niche. You broke down the brainstorming for both niche selection and website title exceptionally well. You make it sound so easy. I love the method you described.

    With the two website owners that you interviewed, I can see how being passionate about your niche can be very important. I couldn’t imagine writing a 1,000 word article on something I had no knowledge about or something that wasn’t all the important to me.

    You mentioned in your article that there are new things you want to do on your site. What are some of the things we can come to expect in the future? I ask because, I will be back to read more!

    Reply
    1. Xin Zhang Post author

      Hello Suzette,

      I am very happy that you liked the article. I hope you get lots of visitors to felinepersonalities.com to check it out and see all your great information. We are both on the same page with our opinions that you need to really like your niche to keep interest over the long term. Something that interests you is just so much easier to write about.

      What do I want to do with my site moving forward? The first is to add more product reviews to help people differentiate between the good and the bad and avoid the seemingly countless scams online. The second is to add a lot more content on building websites and promoting your online business. Last, but certainly not least I want to showcase some additional great niche websites to highlight things I am talking about in my articles.

      So thanks for being a ground breaker in this regard. In six months we will have to do another article to see what’s new!

      Sincerely,

      Xin

      Reply

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