Finding the right niche is a huge determining factor in whether or not a site will be successful. A good niche is going to have high-paying offers, large amounts of traffic, and be something that interests me enough to keep working on it over a long time.
For beginners in the niche website game, choosing a niche can be surprisingly difficult. Some will struggle to think of a good niche while for others, the sheer number of possibilities can be paralyzing.
Let’s take a look at some of the best niche website ideas out there!
Table of Contents
What is a Niche Site?
A niche site is a site focused on a relatively narrow topic (niche) that explores that topic in-depth. The goal is for a site to become seen as an authority in this narrow topic or field, get ranked at the top of the search engines, and then monetize the traffic those rankings will bring.
Niche sites are one of the best ways to make money online and can do so via passive income or from flipping for a major one-time payout.
How Can You Learn To Build Niche Sites?
Building successful niche sites takes skills. The good news is that these skills are all learnable. While nothing replaces the detailed learning that comes from actually doing it, there are much faster ways to speed up the learning process.
Take a Niche Site Course
Niche site courses can be a great way to get incredible teaching and speed up the learning process by years. It’s important to make sure that the course is a reputable one from individuals who know how to build successful niche sites because they have done it.
Income School and Fat Stacks Blog both offer well-known and rated courses from professionals who have proved repeatedly that they know how to build profitable niche sites.
These courses are worth the initial investment because they are gold mines of knowledge and save you many years of work to learn the same things from experience.
Join Facebook Related Groups & Communities
Many Facebook groups exist focusing on building websites, blogging, SEO, monetization, and every aspect of building successful and profitable websites. Actively joining these groups is a great way to learn from other building sites and these communities are often very helpful.
These are also great places to ask questions since there’s a whole community of experienced individuals there to answer.
Follow & Engage On Twitter
Twitter is an active social media space where back and forth interaction is still a really common thing. Follow movers and shakers in the space. Look at what they’re talking about. Take the free advice experts are willing to give out.
I also make it a point to help out those who are further behind the same path as me. This builds up a positive reputation, connections that can pay off later, and mimics the behavior of authorities in the space.
Pay-To-Access Premium Communities
Certain communities have experience, knowledge, and resources that are just above and beyond. Certain pay-to-access premium communities could offer additional support to help on the niche website journey.
The benefit of these communities is why several of the most respected online marketing or niche website courses also come with forums where users can help each other out.
Trial & Error
As good as the other resources on this list are, and I’ve used them all, nothing beats trial and error. Especially for true beginners. Running into unique challenges, struggles, and learning to overcome them builds both skills and confidence.
Mistakes can be even greater teachers than successes and that first-hand experience means it’s easier to remember the lessons that experience teaches.
Why Does a Niche Matter So Much?
The niche a site is built-in is a major factor in determining profit, workload, and potential for success vs. failure.
Income
Some niches have huge traffic but very few advertisers or products. The niche determines the average income, average EPM, as well as the earnings potential. A bad niche choice can make it extremely hard to create even a meager profit.
Affiliate Product Selection
Niches that have multiple product offerings will also have more affiliate options. Generally speaking, more monetization options also means higher potential earnings.
Read our guide on affiliate marketing to learn more.
Commission Rates
Commissions in some niches tend to average 1-2% or the basic Amazon 3%. In other niches, the demand for leads or sales is so high that commissions are double digits with many digital products or memberships offering numbers like 70%.
If it’s not a good product or doesn’t convert that doesn’t matter, but the average commission rates found throughout a niche are often a major indicator of how profitable the niche can be.
Competition
The profitability of the niche doesn’t matter if it’s impossible to break into. Low competition is good, but only if the potential profits are there.
Remember that higher competition means more work to get traffic and revenue. Sometimes a medium potential niche with very low competition might be the better pick compared to a high potential niche with high competition.
Investment Needed
How much money and time investments are needed to get competitive in a niche? Is that number worth the pay-off or is it hard to make the numbers work?
Understanding the amount of work that needs to go into a niche, and the amount of money to scale up, gives a clearer picture on whether the niche is actually worth the effort or not. Or even if it’s viable for whatever the current budget is.
How To Pick a Niche For Your Site
Inspiration for niche sites comes from a variety of places. Here are some of my favorite options.
Your Hobbies & Interests
Being passionate about a niche is a huge benefit. You not only tend to have insider knowledge and lingo of favorite hobbies or interests and thus can write authoritatively, but knowledge of the niche means you already know questions others coming into the hobby will ask.
Those often make for great articles, not to mention the fact your excitement for the niche makes it easy to continuously work on and build over months.
Current Trends
Sometimes breakout trends just don’t have great sites dedicated to that niche. This can be an opportunity. Seeing where a current trend is heading can also reveal other related topics or niches likely to take off in the near future.
Your Competitive Edge
What are you better at than others in any given space? I love finding a niche where I clearly have an advantage from the get-go. If you can find a niche where you have that expertise, connections, or edge over others, that’s a great potential place to find great niches.
Time & Energy Investment
The amount of time and energy a site will need to be profitable needs to fit the time and energy that is available to put into building that site.
If I decide I need 5 high-energy hours a day for six months to get a site competitive and I don’t have that time with my other commitments, then it’s not the right niche for my project.
Money Investment
Scaling up a site fast often takes money investment. Some sites can be done relatively cheaply while others are going to cost a lot more.
Make sure the money investment estimates for building a niche site fall in line with the available budget.
Monetization Opportunities
Always have an eye on how to monetize. Are there premium affiliate programs, bidding wars for display ads, informational courses? Lead generation?
While I won’t disqualify a niche that appears to be mostly display ads with the occasional Amazon product to link to, I like to see more than that.
Demand
The level of demand in any given niche tells me a lot about how profitable it can be. If it’s mostly informational and full of tire-kickers there’s only so much that can be monetized.
If the niche is full of passionate people ravenous for the next product, release, or news, that can be a very good sign.
54 Best Niche Website Ideas
These can and will change over time, but even after decades of people building niche sites there is still no shortage of great ideas.
Here’s a list of niches that have plenty of room, many of which may even have sub-niches that can support a strong niche site that is even more narrowly focused.
- 3D Printing
- Airsoft
- Archery
- Backyard Offices
- Bathroom Remodel
- Bird Watching
- Candle Making
- Custom Backyards
- Custom Basements / DIY Basement Finishing
- Digital Nomads
- DIY Home Kitchen Upgrades
- DIY Tiny Homes
- Drones / Drone photography
- Endurance Training (Think Running/Marathon Keywords)
- Family-friendly board games
- Fishing Rods
- Fly Fishing
- Gardening
- GPS Devices
- Hair Care
- Hammocking
- Healthy Eating
- Home Aquariums
- Home Bread Making
- Homebrewing
- Home Schooling
- Kayaking
- Knitting
- Leatherwork
- Long-Term International Travel
- Man Caves
- Metal Detecting
- Micro Greens
- Mountain Biking
- Non-Religious Spirituality
- PC Gaming Equipment
- Pet Snakes
- Rock Climbing
- Scrapbooking
- Side Hustles for Making Money
- Sleeping Bags
- Smart Watches / Fitness Trackers
- Solar Panels
- Soundproofing
- Storm Chasing
- Teach English Online
- Throw Rugs
- Traveling with Pets
- Van Life
- Video Editing
- Vintage Clothing
- Water Filters
- Weddings (especially budget or DIY)
- Woodworking
Takeaways
Many fantastic possible niche website topics are out there still waiting for good niche sites to provide consistent high-quality value to individuals searching for information.
- Use available resources to speed up your acquisition of niche website skills
- Engage with active communities
- Pick your niche site topic with care
- Do due diligence before picking a topic
- Pick a topic that fits your criteria and available budget
Follow this advice, and the chances of the next niche site becoming a profitable winner greatly improves!
