When Is a Niche to small?

Find a niche; pick a niche, niche markets will make you rich

It seemed that every e-book I read and every one I spoke to was telling me to find a niche market or I would never succeed.

What is a Niche?

a.A situation or activity specially suited to a person's interests, abilities, or nature: found her niche in life.
b.A special area of demand for a product or service: “One niche that is approaching mass-market proportions is held by regional magazines” (Brad Edmondson).
A special area of demand sounds easy doesn’t it? Well the real secret is finding a niche that isn’t already served by a million websites.

In amongst all the reading I was doing on niches I read a forum post from a knowledgeable guy, this man is an Internet marketer and from his previous posts he seemed to know what he was doing.

His post was basically saying that unless the “niche” received 18,000 searches a month there wasn’t enough of a market for it, I took his word as gospel and discarded any ideas I had that received less than 10,000 searches a month (ok he said 18k but I thought that was extreme).

I was just about ready to give up on ever finding the “niche” that would make me a penny.

Then I was looking for some help using a piece of software and I bought an e-book.
It was excellent, helpful and thorough, well worth the £9.99 I paid.
I got talking to the site owner and he told me that his niche received only 50-150 searches a month on overture.

In total from the main search engines his site received 50-100 visitors every month, doesn’t sound like much does it?

Out of those 50-100 visitors he had a 50% buy rate!
Yes 50% of people who visit his site buy from him, so that’s 25 sales a month.

At £9.99 each it isn’t worth it I hear you say, He has been selling the same e-book since 2003, he hasn’t touched his site since 2004 and is still earning £250 every month come rain or shine!

I thought £250 a month was nice extra money, pay for holidays and Christmas presents.
Then he admitted to me that he has 6 e-books, in 6 different niches (no he wouldn’t tell me what the others are) each earning him a minimum of £250 a month

6X£250=£1500

He spends an average of 2-3 hours a week checking the sites are still there and no competition has sprung up.

So what am I trying to tell you? Listen when people tell you stuff, but always keep an eye out for the exception to the rule.

That exception could earn you £1500 a month or more.

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About the Author

Paul has been online since 1999 and working full time online since 2004.

Written by: Paul Forcey