Congratulations if you’ve chosen the niche for your online business!
For the purposes of this post, I’m going to assume that you’ll be blogging and/or building a social media presence, and that researching and presenting related content will be a big part of your activities.
If, however, you’ll be limiting yourself to a targeted affiliate campaign supported by paid traffic, you’ll still find this post useful. A niche mini-site and/or email marketing campaign will fare better if you’re well informed about your niche audience and their problems and aspirations.
Either way, you’ve got to discover their pain points and learn what makes them tick. You’ll discover the type of approach they best respond to. People online are coming to you for guidance. That means increasing your knowledge about the niche topic – from the fundamentals to the latest research and potential solutions.
As you learn these things, you can use the info in many different areas of your online business. You’ll be able to create targeted blog posts or pre-sell pages that address precisely what your audience is looking for.
Whether you’re building a long-term email audience or just preparing a series of follow-ups to persuade potential buyers, your emails will address topics they’re eager to learn more about.
If you’re using social media posts, they’ll attract attention and help you engage with other interested people.
Whether it’s part of a long-term content strategy or a single, targeted promotion, your success will depend in large part upon you caring enough to delve into the real needs of your target audience.
Start with Your Own Store of Knowledge
The first thing to do is create a file or directory where all of your research ideas are to be stored. This can be digital or physical. If you love keeping paper journals, then start a new one for this niche.
You’ll be setting up your business for faster results when you put effort into this early on because when it’s time for you to develop content, you can quickly and easily consult your files to see specific topics need to be covered. By keeping it well organized, you can also use it to track the topics you’ve already addressed.
Start off by brainstorming and listing what you already know about the niche topic. Your list can include things you experienced yourself, such as shedding fat, earning a living online, or keeping yourself motivated, for example – it all depends on your niche topic.
Spend some time remembering the questions you had when you first became interested in this area. These same questions will be asked by others just getting started and will come in handy not just in presenting free information, but also for developing products of your own, should you decide to go beyond affiliate marketing.
Next, go over the various trials and tribulations someone may encounter in this niche. It could be confusion over various weight loss theories or hitting a plateau if you’re in the diet niche, or it could never hearing back from potential partners or friends if you’re in one of the relationship niches.
Also brainstorm possible routes to success. Be sure to include overall strategies in addition to specific solutions, including specific products. In a weight-loss sub-niche, for example, think about strategies like caloric reduction and related products like “Eat This, Not That.”
When you consider products, try to find both physical and digital options. If your audience is into videography, be sure to find high-quality digital camcorders AND online video editing software AND editing software instruction courses.
Do you have friends or family members with an interest in your niche? Perhaps they shared their experiences. You don’t need to reveal their personal thoughts in public, but you can tell their story by fictionalizing them—present the experiences by “changing the names to protect their identities.
After you’ve built your list of topics and potential content ideas, you can start looking for information in outside sources.. They’ll help fill in the gaps with things you might not even consider on your own.
Check Out Existing Publications
You can learn a lot by standing on the shoulders of giants—that is, take advantage of the info published by the experts who came before you. Published authors in your niche will already have been through the research process you’re just beginning.
With today’s emphasis on blogging and social media, it’s easy to bypass your local brick-and-mortar bookstore or library. But remember: there are different kinds of publications that you can turn to in order to generate ideas about what you should be covering. And some of them will be evergreen. For example, a fly-fishing book from the 1960’s may have just as much good information as one published last year!
Start out by looking inside a broad variety of books. Look for tips, strategies, stories, case studies, and anything else that might be grist for your content mill. Your local library can be especially helpful here. Sure, it’s great to use the “look inside” feature on Amazon, but by flipping through physical books, you can dig in to get tips, specific strategies or even personal life stories.
For example, you may be in the self-defense niche.
You might find a book about ten ways to de-escalate an encounter or five ways to avoid dangerous situations.
Perhaps you’ll find a book with real life stories about people like Bruce Lee, who not only became famous as a martial artist and film star, but who developed a powerful personal philosophy that he shared in print.
You don’t have to spend a year reading before you even get started online. But make it a habit to keep reading to maintain your “info-consumption.” Even just browsing through tables of contents can give you ideas that you can use to springboard your own content. That’s important if you’re not in a physical library and you only have the time or funds to skim the limited portions of books online.
And speaking of online books research: be sure that you pay attention to reader reviews. Where were they satisfied? What did they find lacking? Especially make note of what they thought was left out—that’s perfect material for you to research and present in your own content.
Don’t leave out popular magazines! Even the covers can give you good ideas, and if you have the chance to flip through some at the supermarket, a quick browse can keep you abreast of what professional publishers are serving up.
I mentioned brick-and-mortar libraries, but also look for used bookstores in your area. Having physical books that you can mark up as you please (or cut up, if you need to) can help a lot in the writing stage, when having a physical “swipe file” of information ready save you time and stimulate your creativity.
While you’re documenting your ideas, consider documentaries! Look for documentaries in your niche on YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other video platforms.
Not only can you get information from within a documentary itself, but you can look at comments and reviews just as you did with books.
Check out RottenTomatoes.com, where you’ll find lots of reviews that give you ideas when you pay attention to viewer feedback, both positive and negative.
It’s surprising just how much info some of the reviews contain. Sometimes, they end up summarizing the documentary and providing thoughtful feedback while they’re at it.
Examine Current Trends and News
Bestsellers lists provide a look at what’s in demand and being purchase, almost in real time. Amazon’s bestselling books list is updated hourly, and knowing which books are popular right now can lead you the right ones to examine, saving you a lot of time.
For example, if you’re in the weight loss niche, you might see a trend for weight loss hypnosis topics in books. But if you also want to discuss fitness with your audience, you would look up fitness equipment, where you’d see fitness trackers and ab rollers selling nicely.
Google alerts is a great tool for keeping on top of your niche. While logged into your Google account, go to https://www.google.com/alerts. In the box at the top, put in the topic you want to follow. The click on Show Options. You can change the type of sites you’ll see, the frequency of alerts, and so on. Click on Create Alert. Now, you’ll get emails with links to new content that matches what you told Google to look for. Talk about having a high-powered research assistant for free!
Google News can give you a broader view of what’s being covered. Go to Google, type in a topical work—say, Mediterranean diet—and click on the News tab. You’ll get a great list of articles to explore. And some might surprise you.
As I write this, for example, there’s an article on Healthline entitled: The Problem with the Mediterranean Diet We Need to Talk About. The diet apparently “relies heavily on foods that are out of reach for many.” If this was your niche, you’d want to be aware of factors like this that could impact many in your audience.
When you look for video information, remember that YouTube lets you filter videos according to the time they were published. You can filter the upload date right down to the last hour.
Be Strategic in Use of Keyword Tools
There are both paid and free (and freemium) keyword tools. A personal favorite of mine is Ubersuggest, created by SEO master Neil Patel. You can do a limited number of searches for free (3/day) without even creating an account. Results are separated into keyword ideas and content ideas.
Both broad and longtail keyword phrases can help in your research. You could start with the broad phrase intermittent fasting. That can result in more phrases like intermittent fasting schedule. Use that phrase and drill down even more, finding phrases like intermittent fasting schedule by age.
Check for buyer keyword phrases. Buyer phrases are those that start with words like best or buy, not words like free or how to. A phrase like best intermittent fasting program is a good indicator that the person is about ready to buy. On the other hand, the phrase how to start intermittent fasting is probably someone seeking free information.
Use question words like how, why, what, etc. If you type what home gym into a tool, you’ll get good buyer phrases like what home gym equipment should I buy in your results. This will come in handy for a future blog post you can monetize by promoting affiliate products.
Become a Social Spy
Spying on other content creators’ social media accounts and their levels of engagement is a useful when considering your list of topics . You can do this in many places and in a stealthy manner..
Start with competitors’ niche blogs, including the biggest companies to the smallest solo publishers that show signs of audience engagement. Go to their blogs and see what they’re discussing.
Your objective here is never to rip off their content, but to be inspired and approach the topic from your own angle. In the initial stage, all you’re doing is collecting ideas for research and topics.
By all means, read their material for your own education if you discover a method or concept that you’re new to. Suppose, for example, that you’re in the fitness niche and you find an article about plyometrics.
Until now, you’ve never heard of plyometrics. Now, don’t copy their blog and re-publish their article on your own site. Just make a note the plyometrics idea for your research list and make time to learn more about it later from other sources so you can present related information from scratch on your blog.
As with book seller sites, spend some time reading through the comments on the blogs you visit. See what others are saying. For example, if you see someone on a diet blog saying she stalls out on her weight loss when doing keto – that might give you an idea for possible plateau causes, like sugar alternatives.
Look for topic and research ideas on social media accounts, not just competitors’ blogs. On Facebook, join niche groups and follow your competitors to see what they’re talking about.
Also, just conduct searches on Facebook, then click on Posts. You’ll see the public posts people have shared on your topic – from experts sharing information to everyday individuals who’re dealing with it.
Don’t neglect Twitter, where you can use hashtag searches to see what people are talking about. You can also see the replies given to these people, which can spark some ideas for you.
Use the same concept on Instagram. When you follow others in your niche, make sure you check the hashtags they’re using, too. Niche marketers typically add a long list of related hashtags which could be good phrases for you to investigate for possible niche topics.
You can even see what’s trending on Pinterest and other social media platforms. Look for three things: the topic they’re posting about, the hashtags they’re using, and the comments left by the nice audience.
You should do a lot of niche research when you’re starting a blog or getting ready for run a targeted affiliate sales campaign. If you’re establishing a blog, social presence, and a long-term email list, keep yourself abreast of breaking news and information you need to position yourself as a go-to authority in your niche.
