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Niche – the buzzword that dominates the internet today. Whatever type of online business you want to launch, chances are you’ll have to compete in a niche.
In other words, you want to find a very specific category (niche market) within a larger category (mass market) and sell products or services tailored to specific consumers’ needs.
But e-commerce is only one way to look at online business niches. Blogging and affiliate marketing are viable options for generating substantial income no matter which niche you choose. If you’re passionate about any of the business niches covered in this article, you can monetize your passion with a blog and affiliate marketing.
We’ve thoroughly analyzed the 10 best online business niches. For each, we’ll provide an overview and include a few ideas or examples that you can implement in your own online business.
In the end, we’ll give you our top three tools for market research to help you identify the niches that are worth your while.
What Is a Niche Market?
Every product or service belongs to some kind of market. And each market has its subcategories or niche markets. Small businesses, in particular, benefit from niche markets since they get to focus only on one product or service. In this way, they can avoid competing with large companies that have greater marketing resources.
You have to find a specific niche if you want to start and grow a successful online business. Knowing which niche your business belongs to will enable you to define your target audience. There’s nothing worse than attempting to reach out to the wrong people.
When you know who the consumers in your niche market are, you’ll be able to create a more engaging website and social media profile.
Also, once you’ve defined your niche market, you may get new product ideas. Perhaps your loyal customers are buying a product related to your niche but from a different seller. Why not introduce something similar?
Your customers can keep everything under one roof, and you’ll increase the profit potential of your business.
Furthermore, if you closely observe your niche market, you might notice what’s missing in it. Maybe some niche products would meet consumer demand, but no such products exist in your niche market.
This can be an excellent opportunity for your business to introduce novelty to your niche market and drive sales.
What Defines a Niche Market?
You now have a general idea of what a niche market is and why your business needs to fit into one. Now let’s get into the specific parameters that define a niche market:
- Demographics
- Location
- Price
- Interests
- Value
- Quality
All of these elements are essential when analyzing a potential online business niches for your business. And even after you’ve identified a niche market, your business has to offer products or services that outperform the competition.
Niche Market Examples for Online Businesses
Everything is clear about niche markets and why you need to fit your online business into one. But what if you don’t know where to start? You have the drive, you want to put in the effort, but you simply don’t know what your online business should deal with.
Don’t worry, as we’ve got you covered. Prepare for an extensive description of the 10 best online business niches. We guarantee that you’ll find a suitable niche regardless of your current financial position.
1. Fitness and Weight Loss
People take fitness seriously for several reasons. For some, if they can’t go to the gym regularly, they may have to silence their daily dopamine needs with excess food, which can only lead to an unhealthy lifestyle.
Nowadays, and no doubt in the foreseeable future, there is huge consumer demand in the fitness and weight loss niche.
If you want to start an online store, it can feature many fitness-related products. Workout enthusiasts will want to create their gym at home. Thus, you can include everything from dumbbells to entire gym systems.
Digital products will likewise sell. You can hire a professional trainer to create video content for workout programs and sell them to your customers. Many people have never worked out at all and need professional assistance at home.
If they can’t afford a personal trainer, they can purchase workout videos from your online store and play them whenever they wish to put the work in.
Nutrition comes hand in hand with fitness. Obesity is a direct result of not enough exercise and an unhealthy diet. More than 36.5% of American adults are obese, while an additional 32.5% are overweight. If people decide to purchase your workout programs, they’ll most likely need to go on a diet as well.
Selling weight loss products will only add value to customers who have already purchased your workout plans.
In fact, you can cross-market weight loss products and workout programs. And if you research specific diets, you can create a blog where you explain how people can make the most of your products, both digital and physical. In this way, fitness and weight loss enthusiasts can have a one-stop shop for everything they need.
Another working way to make money in this niche is through affiliate marketing. Join an affiliate program, share opinions with your audience about the promoted products and earn a commission on every purchase made through your affiliate link.
As an example, BizzOffers affiliate program give free participation, content preparation help and even promotion strategy. Their offers include a wellness app and more. You'll definitely find something you can tell your audience about and earn commissions on. Worth a try.
2. Health
The health niche is closely tied to fitness and weight loss. In addition, people want to take control of their health. Vitamins, supplements, detox products, all of these can be featured in your online store.
What is more, you don’t need to have any of the products in stock. Instead, find companies that are willing to drop ship products and collaborate with them. In this way, you’ll have lower risk and capital requirements. Then, all you need to do is maintain an effective marketing strategy.
Apart from edible products, you can also sell anti-aging and hair loss products. Beauty products, in particular, fall within the health niche. People will always need them, especially the older population. Thus, the process of finding the right target audience will be easier.
If you’re fond of creating content, you can engage in affiliate marketing. How does this function? You write health product reviews and include a unique link to those products. For each sale, you get a small commission from the seller.
An example of a platform that offers affiliate marketing opportunities is Amazon. You can simply find a health niche product and promote it on your website. The profit here lies in the number of products you can review, which is unlimited.
It only depends on how good your reviews are and how frequently you can write them.
But there are thousands of products on Amazon. So how can you know which product you should choose?
Research it! You should find the best-selling products and write good reviews. This will increase your chance of people finding your reviews. At the same time, your profit potential rises.
3. Dating and Relationships
Hustle culture has overtaken people’s lives, especially in the United States. People devote their whole time to work, work, work. But while building their business empire, they are missing out on finding a suitable partner for them. Voila! Here’s timeless consumer demand for your online business.
If you’re experienced in web development and web design, you can start an online dating website. When Tinder first appeared, everyone, cringed at the mention of it. But it is now as widespread and commonplace as Facebook or Instagram.
For that matter, if you’re an app developer, you can consider a dating app development, as app's are the most user friendly platform within this niche.
You might think that the competition is intense in this niche. In truth, it is. But you have to dig deeper. There are many subcategories you can explore in this niche. For example, you can create a dating site for gays, lesbians, transgender, divorcees, etc.
Alternatively, you can apply certain age restrictions, which can function as a marketing strategy. For instance, your dating site may be exclusive to people above forty. The options are endless.
Observe what features dating websites lack and make them the pillar of the marketing strategy for your website.
Another product that sells in this niche is advice. You’d be surprised to know how many people don’t know how to resolve an issue with their partner. In most cases, they don’t have anyone to talk to and can’t afford a professional counselor.
This is when e-books on relationships come into play. Have you had experience with bad relationships before? Could you share valuable advice that is universal? Then, write an e-book and sell it via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
But remember to research this topic first! Your e-book has to provide value and actually be helpful to consumers.
4. Pets
Approximately 90 million households in the United States have a pet. And every pet needs food, treats, supplements, and medicine. This creates a vast consumer need and can give you plenty of options for your online business.
But you should know those pet owners are a specific kind of people. They look after their pets more than they look after themselves. In fact, many pet owners treat their pets as children. This means they will buy various products just to make sure their little companion is happy.
But where do you start? How can you appeal to pet owners if they can buy pet food and supplies at the big box stores?
With the pet niche, it can be tricky. First, you need to focus on a particular type of product. For example, pet owners are constantly finding new ways of expressing love for their pets. And they want to keep them close at all times.
Thus, you can create personalized pet tags and sell them via your online store.
Moreover, this involves brand building as well. You’ll need to create a catchy name for your online business, a memorable logo, and invest in marketing to raise your brand awareness.
Apart from physical products, you can sell digital products too. For example, many dog owners don’t know how to train their four-legged friend. So you can create dog training videos or hire a professional to do it for you.
Then, you can sell these courses via your website. And don’t hesitate to include a relevant blog post every now and then.
5. Self-Improvement
When it comes to the best online business niches, self-improvement is a promising one. People are leading fast-paced lives, trying to accomplish too many things at once. But, this can backfire spectacularly and render people stressed and disinterested in the world around them.
That is when your online business can step in and provide help to people who struggle to get their life together.
By now, you’ve realized that you can always set up a dropshipping store and sell virtually any product online. This applies to the self-improvement niche as well. There are tons of self-help books and e-books that you can offer to your potential customers.
Think about focusing only on one specific aspect of life. For example, you can sell guides on career advancement. Women especially can find great value in books that help them stand up for themselves at work.
Or, you can sell educational books that help people take up a hobby much more easily.
Another thing you could do is be a content creator. YouTube is an excellent platform for posting self-improvement videos. If you have an extensive idea to cover, you can break it down into bite-sized videos for scheduled posting to your YouTube channel.
After all, YouTube’s algorithm favors content creators who upload regularly.
The significant advantage of YouTube is that you don’t need any previous credibility or reputation. As long as your content is sound and helpful, people will watch it and eagerly wait for your next video. So how exactly can you monetize this content?
After your channel meets specific YouTube standards, YouTube will enable ads on your videos and let you generate passive income. What you can do is include links to your online course, eBook, or merch.
6. Wealth Building Through Investing
Finances. Forex trading. Stocks. Investments. Cryptocurrencies. Do these terms ring any bells? If yes, then you are fortunate. The majority of people who start trading or investing don’t know what they are doing. They just watch a tutorial about some trading platform.
Then, they click on the affiliate link in the video and join an online trading platform, while the video creator gets the profit.
Should you opt for this niche, you don’t want to be the person who clicks on an affiliate link. You want to be the one who promotes it. Sharing valuable knowledge to people not educated about online trading is an excellent opportunity for you to generate income.
Obviously, you have to know how online trading works to create successful educational programs that sell. But that’s why you’re here learning about the most promising niches – to find one in which you can best utilize your skills and knowledge for profit.
How can you monetize your knowledge in this niche?
Create online courses for those new to online trading and investing. You can check out these courses to get a general idea of how they should look. But that’s not to say that you can simply copy the whole concept. Instead, add something new to your material that any potential customer will find appealing.
Analyze the best-selling courses on online trading and investing and see what they are missing. Then, implement that additional value into your lessons.
Also, running a blog on top of selling courses is a must. To drive conversions, you first need to give bite-sized information that is easy to grasp. Once people feel like they’re starting to grasp the basic concepts, they will be more inclined to purchase one of your courses and expand their knowledge.
7. Make Money on the Internet
With the popularity of working from home, the main alternative to a paid job is to find ways to make money online.
As with previous online business niches, your options lie in blogging, content creation, coaching, and affiliate marketing. Sharing knowledge can go a long way if you do it properly. When you drive enough traffic to your website, you’ll be able to monetize it as well.
You probably already know this, but do you know how a lot of blogs make money?
Ads.
If you sign up for Ezoic (they pay you higher commissions than AdSense), they will put ads on your website. When users click on one of those ads, they get a small commission. So, with each new blog post, you create more ad space and a new opportunity to monetize it.
Thus, you should do thorough research on ways of bringing traffic to your site. Here are some ideas to get you going:
- Free downloads
- Review blogs
- Content writing
- Social media management
When you’ve created a sufficient number of blog posts, you can sign up for Ezoic. However, bear in mind that you have to devote time to search engine optimization (SEO) for your website. The better your site performs, the more traffic it will receive, which means more ad clicks.
Together with blog posts, you can engage in affiliate marketing. For instance, you can educate your readers about a freelancing platform, thus promoting it at the same time. The best part about this conjunction is that you can never run out of content ideas. And if you’ve signed up for Ezoic, you have two sources of passive income.
Note: If you run an e-commerce store, you may not want to sign up for Ezoic. Competitors’ ads may pop up on your website and steal your conversions.
8. Gadgets and Technology
We live in a world driven by technology. Every now and then, there is a craze for a new gadget or piece of tech equipment. From smartphones to Fitbits, everyone wants to have a new digital companion.
Logically, new consumer needs constantly arise within this niche, making it possibly one of the best online business niches.
The ways of generating income within this niche are well defined. Here’s a list of things you can do:
- Sell gadgets and accessories
- Review products
- Create product tutorials
- Write tech news
Selling smartphone accessories, for example, can be a good solution for a niche online store. Even more, if you are a skilled craftsperson, you can create your handmade smartphone cases.
Alternatively, investing in a 3D printer will make your job a lot easier, though you will have to learn how to create good print designs.
If you’d rather stick to blogs and content writing, you can always post updates about new gadgets and products. The advantage of writing about novelties in the tech market is that you can never run out of content ideas.
And if similar products come out at the same time, you can always write comparison posts.
Another thing you can do is write tutorials. This applies to both hardware and software products. In other words, you can focus only on writing tutorials on how to use certain features in PC, Android, or iOS apps.
Lastly, there’s always room for product reviews and affiliate marketing. For example, you can write reviews about the latest smartphone releases and compare their features. Then, for each product, insert an affiliate link. In this way, you are helping users with their purchases while generating income from affiliate links at the same time.
9. Personal Finance
Some people just don’t know how to manage money. In fact, 65% of people in the US claimed to not know how much money they had spent in the previous month. As a result, people run up personal debts and need assistance with managing their income and spending.
Moreover, more and more people are getting interested in investing. For example, popular apps like Robinhood are acquiring more users each year. Their number has increased significantly over the years, reaching an astounding 11.4 million users in 2022, according to these Robinhood statistics.
This creates a consumer need with which your business can deal.
There are myriad reasons why people run into financial issues. Each one accounts for a sub-niche that your online business can revolve around. Here’s a list of few financial difficulties which you can focus on in your blog:
- Loans
- Tax
- Financial plans
- Insurance
- Debts
Don’t worry. You don’t have to be a professional financial advisor to get into the personal finance niche. You can write content about frugal lifestyles in which you recommend practical tactics for saving money.
These posts can be easy to create because you can include a bunch of different tips and hacks.
But before you dive into creating engaging blog posts, it is wise to define a specific target audience. For instance, single parents can have a hard time making ends meet. Doing this with only one salary is almost impossible unless they find new solutions for saving or making money.
Once again, all you have to do is create content around these ideas and optimize your blog posts for relevant keywords. If no one stumbles upon your posts, all your content marketing efforts are in vain.
Similarly, you’ll get better affiliate marketing deals if your website generates a lot of traffic. In short, a good SEO and valuable content is your ticket to sufficient income in this niche.
10. Babies
The baby niche is pretty self-explanatory. The need for baby products will last for as long as humankind endures. The range of products and content ideas for this niche is enormous. All you have to do is focus on one specific sub-niche.
It’s worth mentioning that this niche is perhaps one of the most profitable business niches you’ll find, especially if you plan on selling baby products. Parents don’t have time to wander from store to store in the hope of finding the best product for their baby. Instead, they search everything online.
Of course, you can set up a dropshipping store and sell any product you want. But which type of products should you choose? Toys, clothing, cosmetics, or something else? You have to do research and see what your business can offer that other dropshipping stores in this niche don’t.
But it’s not all about products for babies. Sometimes parents want to kick back and relax while leaving their precious newborn to sleep in their room. Baby monitors enable parents to keep track of the baby’s behavior.
Some baby monitors have a built-in camera that allows parents to monitor their baby via a mobile app, while some baby monitors are audio-only devices. Since they have a practical purpose, almost every parent will want a baby monitor.
As with previous niches, you can always run a blog and post product reviews with affiliate marketing links. But we highly recommend that you try to establish an online store and sell products.
This is perhaps the most profitable business niche because parents want the best for their newborns, which reflects in their spending decisions.
FAQs
Now that we’ve reviewed the ten best online business niches let’s take a break and look at some common questions that novice business owners have.
What Online Business Niches are Good for Beginners?
Even if you have the drive, you might not know where to start when it comes to running an online business. In truth, this depends on your skills and capabilities. For example, if you’re good at writing, starting a blog is a no-brainer.
But, on the other hand, if finances and sales are the fields you excel in, launching an online store is a better option for you.
Still, here’s a list of ideas of online business niches you can consider:
Existing Businesses
Many newcomers to the online world, choose to buy an existing website rather than start one new. This has the advantage of already being proven in terms of the chosen niche as well as already earning revenue. So, this method is a quick and proven way to get started and going with your online journey.
Blogs
We’ve mentioned blogs in almost every niche we reviewed. The main reason blogs are suitable for novices in online business is that you don’t need to put up any money. You can create content after work and launch your blog when you have a sufficient number of posts.
Once you drive a significant amount of traffic to your blog, you can start monetizing it by selling ad space (sign up for AdSense), courses, sponsored content, digital products, and more.
Affiliate Marketing
The process of affiliate marketing should come after you’ve created a blog and built some reputation online. This will make your blog more appealing in the eyes of companies that are open to affiliate marketing deals.
Once you find a good deal and get affiliate marketing links for your blog posts, you can benefit from passive income.
eBooks
Publishing e-books only requires that you put in time and effort, not money. If you are skilled in writing and believe you have valuable ideas to share, consider writing an e-book. You can publish it via Kindle Direct Publishing.
You’ll also have to market your book, but as said earlier, you don’t need any financial investments for writing an eBook (or eBooks).
Freelance Work
If you’re skilled in graphic design, animation, content writing, SEO, copywriting, translation, or any other digital field, you can find your clients online. There are tons of freelance platforms online (e.g., Upwork, Guru, Toptal, etc.).
True, finding a few first jobs can be challenging. However, you can always take on smaller jobs and build ratings while you still have your nine-to-five.
Then, once you find a client who wants to hire you on a larger project, you can switch to freelance entirely.
How Do I Find a Trending Niche?
The current state of affairs in the world and your location, in particular, is what you should consider first. But, of course, you already know that national and global events can dictate consumer needs.
To find a trending niche, you have to observe different markets and see what products are starting to rise in popularity. Then, rather than jumping on the bandwagon, it’s better to establish authority while niche’s popularity is still budding.
In this way, your online business can build a reputable name for itself.
But where exactly should you look?
First, you can see what topics are trending on social media. Virtually everyone is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat. On Instagram, in particular, you can see what products influencers are promoting. The engagement rate (i.e., likes and comments) on niche-specific products will give you an idea of how trending those products are.
Looking for trending product niches?. Amazon provides a huge amount of data on popular products and you can use a tool like AMZScout to dig into this data.
With this tool, you can gain insights into monthly product sales on Amazon and other relevant metrics, to give you niche ideas.
Lastly, if you want to go in-depth with your research, consider using a keyword research tool. You’ll be able to see what users are searching for on Google and to what extent. These tools enable you to set the location and the period during which users searched for a specific keyword.
The best part about keyword research tools is getting a full-featured SEO toolset with it if you opt for the best ones on the SEO market. SEMrush, is one of these tools and their Market Research tool allows you to analyze the traffic and promotion strategies of competitor websites which shows you the data behind how these sites are successful.
Aren’t All the Good Niches Already Taken?
While some websites may have established authority within a niche before you, you can always create better deals, write content that adds the value your competitors lack, and market your business better than them.
To put it simply, a novel approach that customers find appealing can drive sales in any niche.
Also, remember that every niche has a potentially limitless number of sub-niches. So if you put the work into consumer behavior analysis and targeting, you can always find a niche within a niche.
So, to make our point clear, no niche can be taken entirely off the table as long as good ideas are around. And you can always come up with good ideas if you analyze the market and identify consumer values. Aligning your product with their values is a win-win situation for both your business and consumers.
Should You Talk to a Lawyer Before Entering Gambling/Adult/Finance Niches?
It depends on what you aim to do precisely in these niches. For instance, if you plan on running an online gambling site, you’ll need to obtain certain authorizations. Consulting a lawyer is a good practice in these situations because you don’t want to venture into the gambling niche uneducated.
Also, bear in mind that gambling is even illegal in some countries. So, a lawyer will facilitate the process of launching an online casino.
With dating websites, it is most likely that you’ll need to register your business. In addition, if you get revenue from selling something other than ad space (e.g., relationship books), then you’ll need to obtain a license for your business. In this case, you should consult with your lawyer first.
As for the finance niche, you don’t have to obtain any license if you only publish posts about news or trends, though you’ll need to have a Privacy Policy on your blog if you collect any user data.
Also, it may be wise to include a disclaimer on your blog so that people don’t assume you’re a licensed financial advisor.
If you're looking for good templates for Privacy Policies and Disclaimers then we recommend checking out US Legal Forms as they offer industry leading options to get you all set up.
How to Evaluate Your Niche Market Ideas?
If you believe your ideas are new, then you’re already on the right path. We assume you’ve found a consumer need and are ready to set up your blog or online store. However, before you do this, there are a few steps you need to take.
First, you must research your competition. If you offer the same products and services as your competitors at an unfavorable price, you won’t drive any conversion. This applies to blogs as well.
If you don’t bring something new to the table, you’ll never maintain a sustainable ranking position in search engines.
The goal is to find a niche that has an unfulfilled need or demand. You should compare your own ideas with what is already out there. If you believe you can provide a better offer to consumers than the top competitors in a particular niche, then this is a sign that you should realize your idea in that niche.
The best online business niches for you ought to be profitable niches. You may agree that investing your time and energy into developing an online business in a niche that is not profitable is unwise. Still, this is something you have to decide on your own.
If you’ve identified a consumer need that no one else has, your ideas can go a long way despite that niche’s profitability.
What is a Mass Market and What is a Niche Market?
We’ve focused solely on niche markets up until now. You’ve learned by now that a niche market revolves around specific consumer needs and the needs of specific target audiences.
The mass market, on the other hand, is for products and services that everyone needs. From food to computers, the mass market offers everything for everyone.
To illustrate the difference, you can look at Bee’s Wrap, a company that sells reusable wraps made from organic materials. Their target audience is environmentally friendly and doesn’t want to contribute to global plastic pollution. In any grocery store, you usually get single-use plastic wraps for your food.
So, there’s a difference between a niche product and a mass-market one.
Recommendations
Choosing the best niche for your online business can be a daunting task. You don’t want to start a business in a non-profitable niche, nor do you want to compete with businesses that are way out of your league. To find a perfect spot for your business, you need to use tools for identifying consumer needs on which you can profit.
Thus, here are our three top picks.
Consumer Expenditure Survey
The Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts surveys on buying habits of consumers in the United States. They publish all the results on the Consumer Expenditure Survey website. Here, you can gain insights into statistics about what type of products US consumers have bought in the previous years and to what extent.
The best part about Consumer Expenditure Survey is that you can access all the reports for free.
SizeUp
The primary purpose of SizeUp is to help small businesses grow, develop. It lets you locate your potential customers and discover suppliers in your area. SizeUp also enables you to see how your competition is performing. In a nutshell, you can view SizeUp as your online business assistant that helps you with all your business decisions.
Google Trends
Google Trends functions similarly to a keyword tool but with slightly different types of results. Rather than search volume, Google Trends shows you info about the popularity of your search term. This tool also enables you to compare search terms, which is great when comparing one niche with another or a few ideas for a product within the same niche.
A Niche for Every Business and a Business for Every Niche
The internet has mainly popularized niche markets. eCommerce and blogging are the primary tools that niche businesses use, both for marketing and sales. Thus, you’ll need to utilize them both to get the most out of a niche market.
As for niches themselves, we hope that our review of the best online business niches gave you a clear perspective on where to start. In truth, the options are endless. First, it’s up to you to identify a specific consumer need and develop viable solutions.
Then, with the right idea and the right target audience, your business will skyrocket.
