Why to Find a Niche for Your Small Business

Today, everyone is talking about niche marketing niche businesses and niche websites, but not many people know how or even why to find a niche for themselves. Specifically, you don't know how or why to find a niche for your business. Many people aren't even sure what a niche is.

Before you start a business of any kind, you need to find your niche. For your business to be successful, you need to find a niche that works for you; but why?

First, if you aren't sure, let's discuss what a niche is. After all, how can you find a niche if you aren't sure what it is?

For our purposes, a niche is a market segment, or a small part of a large market. Look at the world as a large marketplace, kind of like a huge shopping mall. A niche is like one kind of store, like a shoe store. If you look closer, you'll see one or two stores that specialize only in casual women's shoes. That would be a niche. When you want to see casual women's shoes, you would go there. If you are looking to buy fresh coffee beans or bananas, you wouldn't go there.

Now if you are starting an internet business, you might think that you want to try to sell to everyone on the whole internet. Why would I want to find a niche and limit myself to a smaller number of people? Wouldn't I make more money selling to everyone? Not really. Here's why.

When people come to the mall, they aren't looking to spend time or money on everything in the world. They want to buy a pair of shoes or a suit or a birthday gift for a friend. They are not going to go into every store looking to buy something. They are going to look at the mall directory for stores that offer what they want.

If you want to start a home business, you want to start as simply as possible. You might want to have a lot of customers, but you only want those who want what you are offering. If you buy advertising, you only want to pay to reach those people who need or want your service or product, not for everyone in the world.

The internet is just like the mall. People come for information; information about nutrition for their child, or first aid for their dog. They might want to know how to fix a leaky pipe or how to pick the best digital camera for under $50. They want specific information or products. On the internet, there is a "mall directory" - it's called a search engine. There are a number of search engines on the internet. Three of the biggest are Google, Yahoo and Bing, but there are many more.

In order for enough people to find you, you need for the search engines to show them where to find you. People go the search engines to find one thing at a time; they are trying to find a niche that has what they are looking for. That's why you need to find a niche for yourself. After all, if you are selling cigars, it won't help you to have little Tommy Teenager come to your site looking for pimple cream.

Here are a few benefits of choosing a small niche when you are about to start your small business, especially to start a home business:

Advertising efforts are easier because you have a target market.
You don't have to spend your valuable time explaining your service or product to people who are not true prospects.
Because your own mind is clear about your target market, you can learn that market better and serve that market better.
Because your efforts are concentrated in one niche, you can easily become the "expert" in your market.

That, my friend, is why you want to find a niche that works for you.

Before you start a business, find your own niche. You can't be everything to all people and you can't please all the people all the time. The smart entrepreneur knows how to concentrate his efforts.