Welcome back to The ViaMaverick Internet Marketing Blog Niche Website Workshop series.

In this workshop, I’m going to show you my step by step process to finding profitable niches online!

While I do have some unique methods of my own, I’ve decided to apply my buddy Sean King’s (Inboxtips.com) “five, five, five’s” method to pick my niche.

This way I can make sure that the niche will not only be profitable but that it will also keep me interested for a long time to come.

With that being said, let’s get started!

Five Five Five’s

Building a niche website takes a lot of time and effort. The last thing you want to do is pick a niche, build your website, and then get bored or discouraged before you have any real results to show for all of your hard work. I can’t stress enough how important the niche selection process is. So please follow along and pay attention to ensure that you select the most profitable niches possible! Your results depend on it!

To lower the possibility of giving up on our niche website, we’re going to use the “five, five, five’s” method. Pick 5 passions or hobbies, 5 things you’re very knowledgeable or have experience doing, and finally 5 frustrations and/or fears you have.

Here are my 15:

5 Passion/Hobby

1. Soccer
2. Pitbulls (love my dogs)
3. Going to the Gym
4. Drinking Non-conventional Beer
5. Spending Time with My Girlfriend

5 Knowledge/Experience

1. Vendor Businesses
2. Skateboarding
3. Juicing (fruits and vegetables)
4. Moving to a Different City

5 Frustration/Fear

1. Sports Injuries
2. Toenail Fungus (years of soccer will do this to you)
3. Lack of Mentorship
4. iPhone App Development
5. Poor Productivity Habits

Pain, Informational, Passion

From my point of view, there are three different types of niche websites:

1. Pain – focuses on providing a solution to a problem; be it emotional or physical.
2. Informational - provides valuable information that the visitor finds helpful at best.
3. Passion- targets the likes and interests of others to turn a profit.

As to which one makes money?

I would have to go with the pain and passion driven niche site model. Pain because you can sell on the emotion of getting your visitor from point A (a state of emotional or physical pain) to point B (solving their problem) – which is what they want in the first place.

And passion because you’re creating a sense of community where like minded people gather around one common interest. This is the perfect website to profit through products (how to eBooks) or services (live workshops) depending on the niche.

Remember: You Don’t Matter

You can have a huge passion for flannel rugs but if no one cares about it then it is not a profitable niche. Your target audience in whatever niche you decide, only cares about themselves. Everything is gimme gimme gimme. While you should be interested in your niche to see it through, your niche website is not about you..it’s about your visitor and the value you can provide to them by way of a product or service.

My Top Three!

From the 15 “fives” I’ve selected, I’ve narrowed my results down to three niches.

Beer Tasting – I selected beer tasting because it’s something that interests me. I know that long term (for the rest of my life) I’ll be interested in trying out new beers, and I’ve never been one to shy away from giving my opinion. Plus, it’s an evergreen market. There’s always going to be someone turning 21 who wants to start buying beer and will want to know which one’s are good or not. Plus beer is just good!

Juicing – This totally contradicts my beer niche since this one is all about health, but I actually like this niche because I have experience doing it. While I was living up in Northern California, my buddy and I went on a 7-day juice fast and it was AMAZING. We came up with crazy recipes, some good and some bad, but at the end of the day it was a new experience that we both really enjoyed. Looking back at it now, I wish we would have documented what we used in our recipes and then made an ebook or something to give away for free. All in all, people want to lose weight healthy, fast, effectively and with as little work as possible. Juicing is definitely a great option for doing just that.

iPhone App Development – This has been a huge frustration of mine. I’ve got at least 20 solid iPhone application ideas in a ton of different markets that I’ve been wanting to develop. What’s kept me from doing so? A lack of information. Creating a start to finish guide to iPhone app development is something I know I would greatly appreciate and I’m sure a lot of other aspiring “appreneurs” would appreciate and benefit from as well.

More Than Profits

Now that I’ve selected my three niches (hopefully you’ve selected yours too!) it’s time to do some deeper research to decide which one is the best choice to build a solid niche website. While I do want to make profits from this website, I also want to gain some valuable knowledge that will last a lifetime and improve my lifestyle.

This process is about designing my life and making it fun. While I don’t want to work a job and slave away for “the man” I also want to make sure that I’m happy doing what I’m doing. The last thing I want is for this project to feel like “work” because then it will become just that..WORK!

Stay tuned for the next Niche Website Workshop where I’ll be revealing my niche! Follow the niche website journey here at the Niche Website workshop.

- Chris

Img Credit: wheatfields