Get Your Niche in Focus
“Find your Niche” is one of the first pieces of advice anyone who is interested in working online will hear. If you are like me, that was a foreign term. Depending on the expert you are listening to, it even has a different pronunciation! Now I could give you the official definition of the word, but I will just use simple terms instead. A really rudimentary definition would be getting focused.
Basically, it is narrowing down a broad share of the market into a much more specific segment. Lets face it, most of us are not ready to be the next Walmart. We won’t be offering every product & service to everyone on the planet. Look at it this way. If your lawn maintenance guy tells you he can advise you about investing, how much faith would you put in his recommendations.? If instead he told you what weed and feed product to use, and when to apply it, you would buy with confidence. That is because in your mind, he has established himself as an expert on lawn care, not financial advice.
Finding your niche makes it easier to be the expert.
It is far easier to gain expertise in one topic than in many. In this arena, claiming to be a “jack of all trades” will not be the best choice. For many of us, the word expertise is a stumbling block. We are too modest to claim to be an expert. Well folks, please excuse my bluntness, but get over it.
None of us have lived this long to not learned a thing or two along the way. I totally identify with any of you that feel like you are not an authority on anything. When I first started the process, it was really depressing. I took a class to find out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had owned my catering company for ten years, yet it was hard for me to say out loud that I was a pretty good baker.
I had to work to overcome that lack of confidence. When I did cinnamon roll sales for non profits, I got rave reviews all the time. I even became known as “the cinnamon roll lady”. I had to give myself permission to believe what others said.I developed my class for people who would like to earn money making cinnamon rolls for non profits. I love teaching that class. I know how to teach people who have no experience because I know how it feels to not have a clue.
As you can see, getting the word out about the class is critical, and as a result I had to learn a lot about niches, websites, blogging, SEO, keyword research and so much more.In the beginning I felt so confused. The great news is that as I learned new skills, I found out I love working with the computer and blogging.I want to share what I have learned in the last two years.
I do claim expertise as a baker. But in the process of building this website and digging into blogging and affiliate marketing,I have learned a lot. I sleep in until 4:00am these days, but then I get out of bed, make my coffee, and fire up my computer. I have a blast learning these things.
You know what, I was really excited when one of my mentors said her all time favorite way to make money online is to learn something really well, and then share your knowledge with others. When you do that, you know what it is like to be in the shoes of your target market, and you are really familiar of what others are needing & wanting out of that niche.If you identify with where I started and are stuck questioning your expert status that is great news. Go find a niche you would love to learn about and get busy.
To find out more information about how start identifying great niches, check out my blog about keyword research.
