Thinking of starting an online business but want to make sure it’s successful?
Then this post is for you.
The biggest hurdle for most people when they want to start an online business is in choosing the right niche. Choosing the wrong niche for you, could be a total waste of your time, energy and money. By reading this post, you will have a better idea of what a niche is and how to choose the right one for your online business.
What is a niche?
A niche is a term, often associated with professional marketers and it is used to describe a specific area or segment within a marketplace or industry.
A niche market, is an even broader segment of that industry that is identified by certain or similar preferences and demographics.
An example of niche could be:
Asian children under five, located in London, who need to learn British English vowel pronunciation from a native, British teacher.
So the ideal Niched business for this niche could be:
An online English teacher who is either a British native or has a near British accent who specalises in teaching Asian, Under 5’s, English pronunciation. Just think of all the extra digital products that could go along with that!
Another example of a niche could be:
Dog Owners located anywhere in the UK, US and EU under 40 years of age, who have Staffordshire Bull Terriers.
A good niche, online business for pet owners for example, could be a private members only club for owners of bull Staffordshire terrier dogs. Products could include dog training, dealing with aggressive people on dog walks ( due to bad press on these dogs), tips, info and special offers (affiliated products) to keep your dog healthy. Ears and back legs are common health issues with Staffordshire terrier dogs for example!
Find out more about niche products for online businesses here.
Why do I need a niche?
Choosing a niche for your online business will allow you to launch an online business and grow faster initially by allowing you to target a specific audience.
By doing this you will learn more about your niche or target market which will help you to understand the buying behaviour along with other important demographics, that will help you make better conversions and sales, related to your niche market.
Commonly, niched markets share the same or similar clusters of demographics which make them easier to sell to and easier to predict.
Compare a small business owner or freelancer to a company like Amazon. Amazon can sell thousands of products because they have millions to spend in market research and business development. Small business owners do not.
So, a niche allows you to start small and grow big whilst also building a reputation for being a specialist or the ‘go’ to person in a certain area.
Are Niches different for offline and online businesses?
I would say, yes. Offline niches tend to be either locally based or sell a product that is 100% essential, like a toothbrush. Often the big difference between offline and online niches are their ability or not to mass produce services or stock upon demand.
Most offline niches will have a ceiling due to the cost of the product, cost of delivery, business size and business cashflow.
An example, a family business is located in a small seaside town in France. They sell handmade olive oil. There niche is locally based people that prefer locally made, organic farm foods. This business owner can sell locally with a 100km radius due to limitations of employees and delivery and production costs.
Within offline and online niche businesses there is also a difference between online businesses that sell physical products direct to the consumer and niche online businesses that sell services and digital products online, direct to consumer.
Differences between Niche Online businesses that sell physical products or services
Clearly an online business that sells any physical product regardless of their niche is going to have more business costs to account for.
Drop shipping is a good example of an online business that is niche specific. Have you ever landed on a website that has sold only a few products? These are what we call, niche stores. They know what their audience wants and they often sell those products at volume direct to consumer. These sorts of businesses often tend to be niched products that are bought in from Asia from companies like Aliexpress and sold at a higher profit, or create niche products through POD.
POD is short for print on demand. Niche e-stores in Print on demand are numerous but they are also very competitve. Niche e-commerce stores often have huge advertising costs due to the competition. A good example of a successful print on demand store would be the Oodie® – I bet you have seen one of their advertisements on social media before!
Niche online businesses that do not sell physical products often sell services and from that they also sell a host of digital products. These can often be online courses, masterclasses, ebooks, templates, community memberships. Niched digital products can be as successful and in many cases more successful than niche drop shipping stores and there is one reason for this.
A seriously, well researched niche.
If you find a niche that you have well researched, you will often to be able to create services and digital products that serve the audience within that niche.
For example, for Digiteachonline.com, we serve the niche of freelancers or people that want to start online businesses based in educational services or products, in short e-learning.
We are successful in this niche because we had worked in it for many years as an employee before building and growing our own online, educational businesses and brands. Whilst doing that we share our knowledge, tutorials, affordable resources and professional time-saving tools with our audience in our niche.
We have been able to set ourselves apart from competitors that provide this knowledge with one key fact. Are businesses are brands and they operate today. Whilst we do sell some online courses, our income is mostly generated from our own brands not from selling online courses.
This difference is highly recognised in the online business industry of niche teaching and has enabled us to build and sustain a good relationship with our niche audience.
How to find my online business niche?
To find an online business niche that is right for you, it’s generally a good idea to consider three things:
- Identify what you know something about ( more than the average person) or are passionate about.
- Research well the industry that, the niche relates to. Observing key trends (Use google trends).
- Identify the commercial viability of that niche. Can you create interesting Info or digital products that relate specifically to that niche.
On this post we have created a searchable service based niche table. There are over 700 different service areas and we will continue to keep adding to this.
How to find a good online business niche?
Use our Ultimate Niche Finder table below. We have listed over 720, niche specific online services. There is a search box in the right hand side of this table for you to search a specific niche if you wish to.
Look through our Ultimate Niche finder Table and see what services you know something about. When you find it, it will pop out at you!
From that start doing the research as listed in the point above: ‘How to Find my Online Business Niche’.
Research can involve looking on google for online service based businesses or digital products being sold online, Interacting in Facebook® groups, searching for keywords related to that niche on Tik Tok and other social Media platforms such as Pinterest.
It is important to research where your niche audience generally spend their time on Social Media. Not everyone uses Tik Tok, not everyone uses Instagram etc.
When you find where your niche audience resides, interact with them, listen to them and research into what they would like in a digital product or course.
You can then start to think about what digital products and or services you could create that your chosen niche audience would benefit from. This post here will help you with that.
How to pick a profitable niche?
Despite what a lot of guru marketers will try and tell you about some niches being more profitable than others, know that ‘the riches are in the niches!’
Once you have found your online business niche, you will be able to generate income from it by creating online niche related services, courses and digital products. If you know your niche audience well enough, the profits will come.
The big bonus with online niche businesses that sell uniquely services and digital products is in the ability to start small, create a digital product in a day, start selling and learn as much as possible about that niche audience.
Then go back to the drawing board and improve the niche product, again and again as time goes on and as you gather more information about your niche audience and online niche business.
How to Plan your Online Niche Business?
Obviously, we do have a digital product that can help you with a lot in planning your online niche business and a whole heap of other things also. All can be found in our downloadable, Teacherpreneurs Business Plan Workbook.
It will help you simplify the processes required to start an online niche business with step-by-step actions, to help you fully research your online niche business. Plus a few other secret bonuses!
Niche planning is the ultimate key to niche business success!
The Ultimate Online Business Niche Finder
Service Type |
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Administrative Assistants |
Appointment Setters |
Bilingual Book converters |
Bilingual Teacher |
Business Plan Services |
Cold Callers |
Customer Service Representatives |
Data Entry Services |
Data Entry Specialists |
eCommerce Management Services |
Editors |
Email Handlers |
Executive Assistants |
Google Docs Experts |
Google Sheets Experts |
Graphic Designers |
HTML Developers |
Internet Researchers |
Intuit QuickBooks Specialists |
Microsoft Excel Experts |
Microsoft Office Specialists |
Microsoft Outlook Specialists |
Microsoft Word Experts |
Personal Assistants |
PowerPoint Experts |
Recruiters |
Research Assistants |
Social Media Managers |
Typists |
Virtual Assistants |
Chatbot Developers |
Creative Writers |
Etsy Administration Specialists |
Etsy Shop Manager |
Etsy Shop Designer |
Etsy Creative Designer |
Excel VBA Developers |
Financial Analysts |
HubSpot Specialists |
Lead Generation Specialists |
Legal Researchers |
LinkedIn Specialists |
Musical Composition Specialists |
Paralegal Professionals |
PDF Converters |
Pitch Deck Writers |
Presentation Designers |
Real Estate Virtual Assistants |
Sales Representatives |
Smartsheet Specialists |
Tax Preparers |
Web Scrapers |
Writers |
Zendesk Specialists |
Zoom Video Conferencing Specialists |
Online Receptionist |
Virtual Sales Representative |
Online Data Entry |
Virtual Customer Service Representative |
Accounting & Bookkeeping |
Administration |
Analysis, Valuation & Optimization |
Applications & Registrations |
Arbitration & Mediation |
Business Consulting |
Call Center & Calling |
Career Counseling |
Compensation & Benefits |
Consultation |
Customer Care |
Customer Success |
Customer Support |
Deal Development |
Digital Marketing Projects |
Domain Name Research |
Employee Learning & Development |
ESL Teacher - Adults |
ESL Teacher - Preschool |
ESL grammar teacher |
French Teacher |
French Teacher |
Maths Teacher |
Tech Teacher |
File Conversion |
Financial Consulting |
Financial Forecasting & Modeling |
Flyer Distribution |
Full Package Qual & Quant |
Game Concept Design |
General Legal Advice |
General Online Research |
General Project Services |
Graphics & Design Projects |
HR Consulting |
HR Information Systems |
Interview Prep |
Interviews & Focus Groups |
Lead Generation |
Lead Qualification |
Legal Consulting |
Legal Disputes |
Legal Documents & Contracts |
Logistics |
Market Research |
Music & Audio Projects |
Online Trading Lessons |
Organizational Development |
Performance Management |
Personal Finance & Wealth Management |
Planning & Setup |
Procurement & Vendor Management |
Product Research |
Product Upload |
Programming & Tech Projects |
Project Management |
Search & Apply |
Skip Tracing |
Store Management |
Strategy & Planning |
Supply Chain Management |
Talent Acquisition & Recruitment |
Tax Consulting |
Video & Animation Projects |
Writing & Translation Projects |
Online Course Creator |
Online Logo Maker |
Online Researcher |
Online Business Manager |
Teach Online |
Virtual Recruiter |
Local Business Marketer |
Amazon Virtual Employee |
Product Reviewer |
Automations |
Business & Financial |
Cloud Based Solutions |
Computer Vision |
Dashboards |
Data Analytics |
Data Engineering |
Data Mining & Scraping |
Data Processing |
Data Science |
Database Administration (DBA) |
Design & Optimization |
Formulas & Macros |
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) |
Graphs & Charts |
Marketing & Sales |
Planning & Supply Chain |
Product & UX |
Queries |
Ranking & Recommendation |
Reports |
Surveys & Research |
Text Analysis & NLP |
Time Series Analysis |
Adobe Creative Suite Freelancers |
App Designers |
Campaign Managers |
Content Creators |
JavaScript Developers |
Joomla Developers |
Microsoft PowerPoint Producers |
Motion Graphics Designer |
Pitch Deck Freelancers |
Prezi Presentation Freelancers |
Product Designers |
Social Media Consultants |
Wireframing Freelancers |
2D Animators |
2D Designers |
2D Game Artists |
3D Animators |
3D Designers |
3D Modelers |
3D Product Animation Services |
Adobe After Effects Experts |
Adobe Illustrator Experts |
Adobe InDesign Experts |
Adobe Photoshop Experts |
Animators |
App & Website Promo Videos Services |
Audio Engineers |
Audiobook Narrators |
Banner Ad Services |
Banner Designers |
Book Cover Designers |
Book Design Services |
Brand Strategists |
Brochure Designers |
Building Information Modeling Services |
Business Card Designers |
Caricature Artists |
Flyer Designers |
Game Design Services |
Illustration Services |
Infographic Design Services |
Instructional Designers |
Logo Designers |
Mobile UI Designers |
Packaging Designers |
Photo Editors |
Photo Retouchers |
Photographers |
Podcasting Freelancers |
Poster Designers |
T-Shirts & Merchandise Design Services |
Video Producers |
Web & Mobile Design Services |
Instagram Marketers |
Amazon FBA Specialists |
Conversion Rate Optimizers |
Data Scrapers |
Database Programmers |
Microsoft Access Consultants |
Network Engineers |
Power BI Consultants |
Product Managers |
Product Marketers |
Salesforce App Developers |
Tableau Experts |
UI Designers |
UX Designers |
Web Designers |
AngularJS Developers |
AWS Developers |
C# Developers |
C++ Developers |
Chatbot Services |
CSS Developers |
Data Analysis & Report Services |
Data Visualization Consultants |
Database Services |
Developers |
DevOps Engineers |
eCommerce Development Services |
Front End Developers |
Full Stack Developers |
Golang Developers |
HTML5 Developers |
Machine Learning Engineers |
Magento Developers |
Mobile App Developers |
MySQL Developers |
Online Coding Lessons |
Python Developers |
QA Services |
React Native Developers |
Ruby Developers |
Ruby on Rails Developers |
Rust Developers |
Scala Developers |
Shopify Developers |
Software Developers |
Software QA Testers |
Support & IT Services |
Unity 3D Developers |
Vue JS Developers |
Web Developers |
Web Programming Services |
Website & CMS Software Services |
WordPress Development Services |
Ad Review & Optimization |
Ads Setup & Management |
Advertising within Podcasts |
Affiliate Marketing |
Affiliates Recruitment |
Analytics & Tracking |
App Promotion |
App Store Optimization |
Audience Development |
Audio Advertising |
Book & eBook Marketing |
Campaign Creation |
Campaign Marketing |
Campaign Setup & Management |
Cold Emails |
Community Management |
Competitor Analysis |
Consultation & Audience Research |
Content Strategy & Research |
Display Advertising |
Ecommerce SEO |
Email Automations |
Email Marketing |
Email Platform Support |
Event Marketing |
Events, Conferences & Awards |
Full SEO Package |
Google My Business |
Growth, Partnerships & Monetization |
Guest Posting |
Influencer Marketing |
Keyword Research |
Link Promotion |
Local Citations and Directories |
Management & Engagement |
Marketing Funnels |
Marketing Plans |
Mobile App Marketing |
Music Promotion |
Music Streaming Services |
Native Advertising |
Off-Page SEO |
On-Page SEO |
Optimization |
Organic Promotion |
Paid Advertising |
Planning, Strategy & Setup |
Playlists and Placements |
Podcast Marketing |
Podcast Promotion |
Press Release Pitching |
Profile Setup & Integration |
Program Strategy & Setup |
Promoted Listings |
Public Relations |
Retargeting |
Search Engine Marketing Management |
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) |
Setup & Strategy Consultation |
Shoppable Content |
Shopping Ads |
Shoutouts & Promotion |
Social Content |
Social Listening |
Social Media Marketing |
Sourcing & Recruitment |
Strategy & Research |
Technical SEO |
Text Message Marketing |
Tracking & Reporting |
Video Ad Campaigns |
Video Promotion & Distribution |
Video SEO |
Voice Search SEO |
Web Traffic |
Website Promotion |
2D Drawing |
2D Drawings & Floor Plans |
3D Garment Design |
3D Modeling & Rendering |
Album Cover Design |
AR Filters & Lenses |
Architecture & Interior Design |
Backgrounds & Environments |
Book Layout Design & Typesetting |
Brand Style Guides |
Brochure Design |
Business Cards & Stationery |
Car Wraps |
Cartoons & Comics |
Catalog Design |
Character Design |
Character Modeling |
Concept Design & Sketching |
Concept Development |
Diagrams & Mapping |
Dieline Design |
Email Design |
Fashion Illustration |
Full Design Process |
Game Art |
Graphics for Streamers |
Headers & Covers |
Icon Design |
Illustration |
Industrial & Product Design |
Invitation Design |
Jewelry Design |
Label Design |
Landing Page Design |
Landscape Design |
Logo Design |
Menu Design |
Packaging & Label Design |
Pattern Design |
Pattern Making |
Photoshop Editing |
Planning & Design |
Podcast Cover Art |
Portraits & Caricatures |
Postcard Design |
Product Manufacturing |
Props & Objects |
Prototyping & 3D Printing |
Resume Design |
Signage Design |
Social Media Design |
Social Posts & Banners |
Storyboards |
Tattoo Design |
Technical Drawing & Tech Pack |
Thumbnails Design |
Trade Booth Design |
UI & UX |
Vector Tracing |
Virtual Staging |
Web Banners |
Website Design |
Create Printables |
Freelance Artist |
Arts & Crafts |
Business Tutoring |
Collectibles |
Cooking Lessons |
Craft Lessons |
Dance Lessons |
Dream Analysis |
Family & Genealogy |
Fitness Lessons |
Game Coaching |
Game Sessions |
Greeting Cards & Videos |
Language Tutoring |
Life Coaching |
Local Advisors |
Love & Relationships |
Math Tutoring |
Meal Plans |
Modeling & Acting |
Online Tutoring |
Personal Stylists |
Postcards From |
Readings |
Science Tutoring |
Shipping Services |
Social Sciences Tutoring |
Trip Plans |
Wellness |
Workout Plans |
Flip And Sell Items Online |
Stock Image Photographer |
Makeup Consultant |
Online ESL Teacher (Teach English Online) |
Virtual Health Coach |
Become A Travel Agent |
Audio Ads Production |
Audiobook Production |
Backing Tracks |
Beat Making |
Beats |
Composing & Soundtracks |
Dialogue Editing |
DJ Drops & Tags |
DJ Mixing |
Ghost Production |
Jingles & Intros |
Loops & Kits |
Mashups |
Meditation Music |
Mixing & Mastering |
Music Transcription |
Online Music Lessons |
Phone Systems & IVR |
Podcast Editing |
Producer Tags |
Producers & Composers |
Production |
Radio Ads |
Remixing & Mashups |
Session Musicians |
Singers & Vocalists |
Songwriters |
Sound Design |
Sound Effects |
Synth Presets |
Theory |
Video Games |
Videos & Films |
Vocal Tuning |
Vocals |
Voice Over |
Voice Over Coaching |
Addons & Customization |
App Customization |
Application Improvements |
Assessment & Penetration Test |
Backup & Migration |
Blockchain & Cryptocurrency |
Blog |
Browser Extensions |
Bug Fixes |
Business Website |
Chatbots |
Code Review |
Coins & Tokens |
Compliance Services |
Convert Files |
Convert PSD |
Convert Site to App |
Convert to a Fillable Form |
Convert to an eBook |
Convert to an Editable File |
Convert to Another File |
Custom Application |
Custom Website |
Customization |
Cybersecurity & Data Protection |
Cybersecurity Management |
Decentralized Applications (dApps) |
Design Review |
Desktop Applications |
Development for Streamers |
Email Template |
Event Website |
Exchange Platforms |
Full App Creation |
Full Game Creation |
Full Website Creation |
Game Development |
Help/Consultation |
NFTs |
Online Store |
Performance & Security |
Performance & SEO |
Portfolio Website |
QA & Review |
Security |
Setup & Installation |
Software Testing |
Technical Support |
Theme/Plugin Installation |
User Testing |
Web Application |
Website Builders & CMS |
Website Development |
WP Installation & Setup |
Amazon Seller Central Experts |
BigCommerce Developers |
Brand Managers |
Explainer Video Freelancers |
Google Cloud Platform Freelancers |
HubSpot Freelancers |
PHP Developers |
Spreadsheet Experts |
Squarespace Developers |
Webflow Freelancers |
WooCommerce Developers |
Search Engine Evaluator |
Adwords Experts |
Amazon SEO Experts |
Content Marketers |
Crowdfunding Services |
Domain Research Services |
eCommerce Marketing Services |
Facebook Marketers |
Google Analytics Consultants |
Google Tag Managers |
Internet Marketers |
Link Builders |
Local SEO Services |
Mailchimp Freelancers |
Marketing Automation Experts |
Marketing Consultants |
Marketing Strategists |
Mobile Marketing & Advertising Services |
Pinterest Marketers |
PPC Specialists |
Search Engine Marketers |
SEM Services |
SEO Audit Freelancers |
SEO Experts |
SEO Services |
Social Media Advertising Services |
Survey Services |
Telemarketers |
Video Marketing Services |
Web Analytics Services |
Web Traffic Optimization Services |
Yoast SEO Freelancers |
YouTube Marketers |
Ecommerce Coordinator |
Pinterest Assistant |
Selling On Amazon |
SEO Specialist/Online Marketer |
3D Product Animation |
Animated GIFs |
Animation for Kids |
Animation for Streamers |
Anime Music Videos |
App & Website Previews |
Article to Video |
Beauty Retouching |
Book Trailers |
Character Animation |
Cleanups |
Color Grading |
Conceptual Videos |
Corporate Videos |
Crowdfunding Videos |
Dance Videos |
Drone Videography |
eLearning Video Production |
Game Trailers |
Intros & Outros |
Isometric Explainers |
Live Action Explainers |
Local Photography |
Logo Animation |
Lottie & Website Animation |
Lyric & Music Videos |
Lyric Videos |
Match Moving |
Music Visualization |
Narrative |
Performance Videos |
Product Photography |
Real Estate Promos |
Screencasting Videos |
Short Video Ads |
Slideshow Videos |
Spokespersons Videos |
Spotify Canvas |
Subtitles & Captions |
Unboxing Videos |
Video Templates Editing |
Visual Effects |
Whiteboard & Animated Explainers |
Whiteboard Explainers |
Video Editor |
Call Center Agents |
Children's Book Illustrators |
Excel Experts |
Fashion Designers |
SEM Specialists |
Twitter Marketers |
Wikipedia Specialists |
Zoom Video Specialists |
Ad Copy |
Articles & Blog Posts |
Audio Ads |
Beta Reading |
Book & eBook Writing |
Book Blurbs |
Book Editing |
Book Proposals |
Brand Voice & Tone |
Business Names & Slogans |
Case Studies |
eLearning Content Development |
Film & TV Screenplays |
Game Writing |
Ghostwriting |
Grant Proposals |
Grant Research |
Grant Writing |
Job Descriptions |
Kindle Niche Research |
Letters |
LinkedIn Profiles |
Meditation Scripts |
Podcast Content |
Podcast Show Notes |
Podcast Writing |
Poetry |
Product Descriptions |
Proofreading & Editing |
Script Coverage |
Short Stories |
Song Lyrics |
Video Scripts |
Webinars |
Bookkeeper |
Resume Writer/Career Coach |
Copywriter |
Freelance Translation |
Freelance Writing |
Proofreader |
Write An Ebook |
Academic Writers |
Article & Blog Post Services |
Article Writers |
Biography Writers |
Blog Writers |
Business Plan Writers |
Business Writers |
Comedy Writers |
Content Writers |
Copy Editors |
Cover Letter Writers |
eBook Writers |
Email Copy Services |
Essay Writers |
Fact Checkers |
Fashion Writers |
Fiction Writers |
Legal Writers |
Localization Services |
Lyrics Writers |
Medical Writers |
Online Language Lessons |
Online Writers |
Press Release Services |
Press Release Writers |
Proposal Writers |
Report Writers |
Research & Summary Services |
Research Paper Writers |
Resume Writers |
RFP Writers |
Sales Copy Services |
Sales Writers |
Scientific Writers |
Screenwriters |
Scriptwriting Services |
SEO Writers |
Social Media Copy Services |
Speechwriting Services |
Technical Writers |
Transcript Services |
Translation Services |
Travel Writers |
UX Writing Services |
Website Content Services |
White Paper Services |
White Paper Writers |
Wigwam Designs |
Tiny Homes Designs |