30 Day Niche Research Blueprint
Many people quickly select a niche before doing any preliminary research. This causes them to falter or fail when they discover that after buying a domain, spending months creating content, and hoping to build a list, there’s not as much profit potential as they had hoped.
You want to make sure your niche topic has lots of revenue potential, but also satisfies you on a personal and professional level, since you’ll be showing up to serve this audience on a regular, if not daily basis.
You have to make sure there’s enough interest, enough products you can promote or create. This requires you to do some digging online to see if it’s a lucrative niche concept. Below, you’ll find a 30-day plan to help you size up whether or not the niches you’re considering have what it takes to build a business with.
Day 1: Generate a List of Your Favorite Topics
Planning for your niche means you’ll need to create a list of your favorite topics. Because if it interests you, you can bet it’ll also interest someone else. Today, think about all the things that you want to learn about or stuff that makes you happy – or even sad.
It could be that you’ve experienced a health issue such as having an underactive thyroid after years of struggling to lose weight. So it could be that your niche focuses on weight loss when you have a health problem like with the thyroid malfunctioning.
You want to make your list one that has all the things that you might already do and that you’re good at it. But it’s okay to go into a niche based on topics that you’re willing to get to know and want to learn more about so you can share it with others.
Day 2: Understand How to Gain Visibility
On day two, you’re going to want to start your focus on how to gain visibility. You need your niche to show up in searches. So you have to know how you’re going to get people to see you, especially when here are so many other choices out there.
For example, if your niche is personal development, one of the topics you’re dealing with might be on confidence, since this is an area where a lot of people have struggles. So you would want to search for words that are related to confidence in personal development.
Use keyword tools or search engines to see what people are looking for on your chosen topic. It will provide insight you may not have had about your niche, and show you specific ways people are searching for information.
Another good way to do this is by searching for all the hashtags on social media that relate. Just type the word you’re searching into the search area on all-hashtag.com. Make sure you click the top circle under the search box before you hit “generate.” This will then pull up a list of trending searches for confidence.
Day 3: Know What Your Audience Needs Help With
The key to creating a viable niche is to know what’s wrong. Look at the topics you picked out that interest you. Spend today writing down why they interest you or why they may be of interest to others. For example, you might have listed weight loss as one of your niches.
It interests you because you struggled to lose weight after being undiagnosed with a thyroid malfunction. So you could write down topics related to that such as losing weight when you have thyroid disease – or any other connection such as losing weight when you have health issues.
A lot of people want to lose weight, but can’t necessarily follow a given plan because they have other factors that are outside the “one size fits all” realm. If you were in the financial self-help niche, you could focus on topics like saving for single moms or saving for one income families, or paying down debt specifically for that audience.
Day 4: Be Timely with Your Niche
Popularity can easily wane. That’s why you want to conduct some research today for what’s relevant within your niche at any given moment. You don’t want to focus your efforts on something that’s going to fade.
Instead, you want to focus your niche topics in a way so that they hit the evergreen category. These are topics that are always going to be relevant to an audience because people will always have issues or want to know information in these areas.
Sometimes certain niches are going to be more popular for a period of time. You want to hit that popularity wave and ride it, while building the foundation of your business on the solid, evergreen niche topics, so make a list of both kinds.
Day 5: Create Branches Off of Each Part of Your Niche
Now is the time to dig deeper on whatever topics you’ve chosen. So if you’ve focused your niche on relationships, you could branch into dating and use dating tips, dating apps, dating by age groups like 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond.
You could also branch into dating after a divorce, dating after being widowed, etc. Every main part of your niche can have several branches to it. The more you expand it, the more ideas you’ll come up with.
You might want to spend the day creating a mind map so you can see it visually, or even make a list of sub-topics for each main topic within your niche. The idea is to keep drilling down until you’ve run out of possible branches.
Day 6: Know the New Information in Your Niche
Because niches can trend, you have to stay on top of what’s going on, so you want to start practicing that today. You’ll be able to learn this information by doing simple Internet searches. You can just type in whatever your niche is and add the phrase “what’s new.”
For example, if you were in the health niche, then you would type in “what’s new in the health niche” and you would get results showing what was new in fitness, treatments, hair loss, digestive, etc.
You also want to pay attention to what big names or sites are saying about the niche. So for some of these, you would see what Fox, MSNBC or other mainstream media outlets had to say.
Whenever you type in your topic in whatever search platform you use, always look for the words “trending” or “news” and it’ll tell you what’s going on that you may not have heard about yet.
Day 7: Visit Consumer Hangouts
To connect with people who want to buy your products or services, you need to interact with them in forums and find out what it is they’re looking for or what they’re interested in, so that’s what you’ll start doing today. Then you’ll have a good idea of how to structure certain items you’re offering.
For example, if you’ve built a business based on wealth building, then you would want to take part in discussions on financial forums or like sites. When you get onto these sites, you’ll start to notice recurring topics among the people.
They might be talking about building wealth as a side hustle while working a full time job. They might be devastated about current inflation or gas prices specifically and wonder how they’re going to get to work or put food on the table.
These emotion-driven forum discussions can be a great source of blog content for you as well as ideas for lead magnets and digital info products, if you want to take that route and create a course to help solve their problems.
Day 8: Look for the Tie-Ins for Your Main Niche
When it comes to choosing a niche, you don’t want to just focus on that main issue. You need to see the potential for niche tie-ins because these mean potential income in the future. You’ll be searching for those today.
These shouldn’t be random things that have no similar ties. For example, if you’ve been thinking about the weight loss niche, other things that can tie-in to this are topics like anti-aging (because losing weight when you’re middle aged is harder), digestive health, thinning hair (that sometimes results from extreme diets or nutritional deficiencies), etc.
You can specifically target groups under your niche like pregnant women or busy moms, those over 50, or men. You can also turn one tie-in topic into several, like those over 50 with mobility problems.
As long as the topic relates somehow to your original niche, it’ll work. Once you find these tie-ins, you can then look for ways to discuss and promote items your audience can purchase.
Day 9: Look at Information That’s Already Available
You can start from scratch and try to figure out what’s related to your niche. Today, you can work on creating a list based on what you think of, but you can also look at information that’s already out there.
Don’t neglect video sites. The biggest video site online is YouTube, which doubles as a huge search engine. Whatever your topic is, if you search for it on the site, it’s going to automatically have other suggestions and information that you can use.
For example, if you’re in the pet care niche, when you look up videos that tie-in to this topic, you’re going to have a trove of information that you can glean through. Look at the notes under the videos.
Look at related videos. Look at any keywords that are used. Scroll down to see what other people are saying or what they’re linking to. You might see information about supplements or food.
But you might also see where people are discussing problems with dog bedding – like for an extra-large dog or for dogs that tend to chew up their bedding. Make a note of what you’re seeing, especially if you see someone who is talking about a problem that they’re having with pet care.
They might be discussing pet beds specifically for arthritic dogs, and this could lead to a sub-topic or niche and you could use that to create a product or service in the future as well as promote products for as an affiliate.
Day 10: Get Social Proof for Your Niche
You obviously want a niche that’s going to do well. One way to discover that is to see if people are talking about it online on various social media sites. Start with Facebook today. Scroll through other businesses that are in or linked to your niche topic.
Look at the comments and the amount of engagement. This will give you some insight into the behavior and buying habits of what the people want or need. What you can do is act like a newbie and search out groups to join where other people are talking.
This might be time consuming, but it’ll allow you to have access to what may be missing from your niche or what problems aren’t being addressed. This gives you an opening to be able to fill that gap.
Plus, you’ll meet other niche business people and this can expand your business growth potential. You can do nothing more than observe silently if you want to – and you never want to be a disruption or content thief from other marketers who have started these groups or pages – just use them to become well-informed.
Day 11: Join Social Media Sites You May Not Be On
Most entrepreneurs have their own pet social media sites. They’re comfortable there and don’t branch out. That’s a mistake. Even if you don’t care for some of the newer sites and apps like Tik Tok, you should still be on there and should still be using it as a research point, so download that app and start looking today.
Maybe you’ve ignored this app because you don’t know much about it and think it’s a place where people just lip sync to music. It’s not. It has thousands of different niches on the site.
You can type in a keyword relating to your niche and pull up valuable information you can use for your business. Not only will the content be from fellow niche leaders, but from consumers, too.
Day 12: Check Instagram for Niche Potential
By day 12, it’s time to add another social media site to your list of what to study for your niche business. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Instagram is just a place where people share pictures.
By checking to see if your niche is on Instagram, you can find out how much interest would be generated by certain topics. For example, if you’re in the fitness niche and you see someone talking specifically about a problem losing fat in a particular body area like the belly, and there are hundreds of comments – that can show you that there’s a need for your potential product, or information on addressing that problem.
Day 13: Look at Other Image Sharing Sites
You need to check sites you may not normally consider looking at for studying your niche. Pinterest is self-described as a “visual discovery engine.” You can look on there today for things that are related to whatever your niche is.
For example, if your niche is one that focuses on building muscle for men, you would go on the site and use those as keywords to search. You would get information that addressed things like workouts and then specific types of workouts. You might also see topics relating to home workouts vs gym workouts.
Day 14: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
When it comes to your niche, you really don’t have to know all the ins and outs to be successful. You just have to pay attention to what other people are doing. You want to spend today looking at successful online business leaders within the same niche and see how they’re faring.
You can do this by spending some time looking at sites where they might have their eBooks or their information products listed. You can look at comments, check rankings and more. You’ll also be able to see what they’re good at by what people are saying and how their business is lacking as well.
Then, you can take the information that you learn and use it to improve your own business. You can fill a void or find a different way of sharing information that resonates with the core audience.
Day 15: Take Your Research Offline
It’s a good thing to study your niche through online means like Facebook groups or whatever. But today, you also want to check information specific to your niche through print media as well.
See what newspapers are saying about the niche and its related topics. Many niches have magazines solely dedicated to this. For example, Dogster is one that focuses on dog wellness, exercise, breeds, lifestyle, etc.
By checking out print media relating to your niche, it’ll enable you to discover what interests your potential customers. Spend a day browsing through consumer and trade magazines at your local Barnes and Noble to see what’s being published.
Day 16: Check the Audio Media
Don’t just focus your research online and through print media. Today, you also want to look at any audio information. Many niches will also have a segment such as a blogcast. These will be part of the niche’s blog.
You can also look through several platforms that feature podcasts that may be connected to your niche. You can look through platforms like Apple. For example, if your niche is financial and you wanted to see if investing was a viable topic, then you could check out investing podcasts.
These are sometimes referred to as “radio shows” even if they are podcasts. During your study, you want to see if you can find an “upcoming topics” section and what these may be saying about investing. This will let you know not only what could be popular, but also what people are looking for.
Day 17: Find What’s Missing
There’s no way for every topic people need information about to be covered so well that there’s no longer a need for more. Because no one is perfect, this will leave an opening for what you have to offer.
The trick is to find it through observation, and that’s what you’ll be doing today. You’ll be able to spot ways that you can approach the topic using means that your competitor either hasn’t done or did do but it wasn’t done well enough, and the market is still wide open for you.
For example, you might find that another niche entrepreneur compiled information on how to start a business online, but neglected to cover how to respond to problems with customers or how to best meet their needs.
You could write a guide or book on how to handle customer relations to gain consumer loyalty. Or, you might see a niche that offers information about how to set up a business using social media or how to use it to grow a business, but the information contains too much fluff and doesn’t cover all the important details. You could use this information you’ve discovered to offer what your competition doesn’t.
Day 18: Discovering What to Charge
In your niche, you need to know what to charge for what you’re offering. You want to be careful so that you’re competitive, but you also don’t want to severely undercharge either, so you want to spend time today researching that aspect of the niche.
You might hear a lot of advice on what you should charge but never go by “should.” By pulling up similar information that your competitors offer, you’ll be able to see how it was priced.
You’ll also be able to tell what was included in the product or information for that amount. You’ll want to have similar items of value. Check each part of the product offered by your competitor.
Look at their bonus offers and any bundles they might offer to boost a one product sale into a multiple purchase funnel. You also want to know how to handle it when a customer balks at one product – maybe because they’re having trouble affording it.
This way, you can immediately offer a less expensive option (a downsell) that would still help them until they can afford the more expensive product. Be sure to fix your price so that if anyone else gets a cut of the profit, like a partner, or if you’re part of an affiliate program, you still make what you need to earn.
Day 19: Create Your Own Upsells and Downsells
When you’re doing your niche research today, you need to look at what your competition is offering as their upsells and downsells. An upsell is an additional product that costs slightly more than the original purchase.
Think of this as the option to “supersize” an order at a restaurant. A downsell is a product that costs slightly less than the upsell, but still has some of the same features. This would be like a restaurant where you say no to the milkshake for an extra $1 but yes to the cookie for 50 cents.
You are looking to see what your competition is offering with upsells and downsells so you can know what to offer your customers. In digital products, you might have an upsell with a full multimedia bundle that includes videos, audios and infographics for $47.
If they say no to that offer, then a downsell might just be to offer them just the infographics for $10. This is great for people who want more, but who can’t afford an entire upgrade.
Day 20: Look for Extra Income Through Physical Products
Smart business owners don’t just focus on selling digital products. They also offer physical items like books, stickers, tote bags, pillows, clothing and more. Sometimes these items will be as simple as products with your logo or a niche saying on them.
You can sell it yourself on your website, but you can also use an online company that will handle packing, shipping, returns and customer service for you. This is known as print on demand physical items.
It’s one of the easiest ways to expand your income without a lot of extra effort. Some niches have certain merch products that work well, like customized water bottles for the fitness niche, and if you look on social media sites today, you’ll see how people are making them.
Day 21: Your Niche Business Needs Affiliates
Selling products is not a lone wolf endeavor. You need a community around you to help sell the products to your customers. These fellow sellers are known as affiliates. These help promote your product and in exchange, they receive a commission.
This is a percentage of your sale, typically 50%, but it could be less or greater, depending on the circumstances. Today, see who your competition is recruiting. The easiest way to do this is to pay attention when your competition talks about their affiliates such as making social media posts about their success in a promotion.
These could be people that are also willing to become your affiliate. All you need to do is compile a list of prospects. Leaderboards of past contests can help guide you on whose list is responsive for a certain topic.
Day 22: Going the Extra Mile for Affiliates
You might be tempted to believe that top affiliates only perform for the rate of commission. But this is actually a common myth. The best affiliates don’t just want the same money from you that everyone else gets.
They want other benefits as well. The best way to know what an affiliate might be interested in receiving from you is to know what they got from other niche leaders, so you’ll be looking for that information today. Depending on who the competition is, be prepared to offer big perks.
For example, if you have a funnel that earns you an average of $100 per sale, then you might be prepared to give away the front end product costing $10 to your affiliates at 100% commission just to get them onboard, get their subscribers on your list, and make money in the upsell.
Day 23: Become an Affiliate Yourself
Affiliate marketing works both ways in a niche. While you want affiliates to promote digital products you’ve created, you can also become one yourself for other people’s products.
Today, research products in your niche that your audience might need. You’ll need to research all the popular products to see what you can promote. For example, you’ll be looking for things like information products in the form of a PDF course, video modules, or subscription service and then you’ll earn money from those sales.
Day 24: Go Beyond Digital Items
When you’re in the marketing mindset, it’s easy to focus on digital items. But many niches have customers who need physical products as well, so you want to brainstorm that today. For example, if you’re in the dog training niche, you might only think about promoting a video course on puppy training.
However, your customers also need physical items like dog treats, whistles, leashes, collars, leak-proof puppy pads and more. This gives you an opportunity to promote and make money on these items, so make a list today of the tangible items your niche buyers will want to pay for.
Day 25: Make Recurring Commissions
Don’t limit yourself to a single commission. Look for chances to make residual money today. Think of items, physical or digital that your customers will need again and again. For example, people housetraining a new puppy may need leak-proof puppy pads repeatedly.
Help them by suggesting a subscription service so that they get these delivered automatically every month and don’t even have to think about it. Meanwhile, you earn every time they get a delivery and there are monthly subscription boxes available for many different niche markets.
Day 26: Consider Becoming a Consultant
You can mentor, become a consultant or coach others in your niche to boost how much you can earn. This can be extremely rewarding financially. Today, look to see what your competitors are providing for a coaching audience.
If they do have consulting or mentorship for a price, see how much they’re charging and what’s involved in the coaching program. If you can’t find any competitors who have this service, then consider creating an opportunity yourself for customers who may want it.
Day 27: Give Your Customers DIY Options
You can increase how much you earn and make it easier by having some of the options offered as a DIY (do it yourself) opportunity. For example, instead of you printing out stickers for planners or calendars or fitness trackers, you can create them as digital downloads on sites such as Shopify or other well-known sites.
Because there’s a continual need for the items, you’ll have ongoing sales. Spend a day today going through sites like Shopify or even Etsy to see what printables in your niche there may be.
Day 28: Outsource When Needed
Whatever your niche is, you’re going to need content – and a lot of it. It has to be relevant and fresh. You’ll need it not only for your business blog, but for any other platforms your business may be on.
Because you’re only one person, this can quickly eat up your time and make it hard for you to run your business. This is why outsourcing may be the key for you. Find someone else who can write the stuff that you need.
If you can’t afford to pay a writer to create this for you, consider purchasing pre-made information or products and use that. It’s known as private label rights (PLR), so today, look up some PLR vendors who write in your niche to see what content is available.
Day 29: Ongoing Education Is Key
It’s easy to stagnate and get out of date with what’s new or cutting edge if you don’t continually work to educate yourself. At least once every quarter, starting today, you should be taking a new course or challenging yourself with learning new information.
However, the important thing is to choose a learning method that works for you. You can read books about your niche, listen to podcasts, find free tutorials or pay for classes.
Day 30: Time to Set Up Business
Once you’ve finished studying what you need to know for your niche, you need to put that information to use. Today, it’s time to find the digital real estate that will house your niche.
To do that, you’re going to need to find a domain that will work for your business. What you can do is to search a domain registrar like GoDaddy and use words relevant to your niche.
For example, if it’s fitness related, you want that in the domain. If you want more word options about your niche, you can use an online keyword tool to help you brainstorm – or even a thesaurus, if it helps.
Play around with the keywords and phrases until you come up with a short dot com domain that is available and ready for purchase. You also have the ability to buy your name as a domain and brand yourself as a niche leader.
Conducting niche research is a task that has many initial processes as well as ongoing things you need to handle. Even if it’s an evergreen niche, there’s always new information being released that you may not have thought to convey to your followers.
Make sure you stay on top of niche research, because as the go to expert, your readers and subscribers are relying on you to be the point person they can turn to when they need information.