In Part 1 of this series I gave you a simple technique for how to come up with some basic ideas for picking a niche in which you have an interest, and in which you could potentially make money.

Now I’m going to show you how to take those basic ideas and find yourself a huge amount of potential niche markets that will give you plenty of choice! And it’s all very easy to do.

Let’s look at an example…

Say you wrote down “photography” as one of your interests. We’re now going to use some well-established sites, to find out what people are talking about and buying in the field of photography, with the aim of getting lots of ideas for potentially profitable niches within the area of photography.

(1) Find the top products in X at Amazon.com

Using our example, go to Amazon.com, type in “photography” into their site search box and press “Go”. Since Amazon are likely to list their hottest and best selling products first, you now have a list of stuff that people are actually buying in the photography field.

Go through the top products in “photography”, and make a note of the niches within photography that are represented, along with how often they occur.

For instance, at the time of writing this article I came across the following photography niches represented:

digital photography (11 times)
portrait photography (2)
american photography (2)
digital wedding photography (1)
wedding photography (1)
family portrait photography (1)
nature photography (1)
photography course (1)
conceptual photography (1)
mental photography (1)
landscape photography (1)

So it seems like the “digital photography” niche is well represented with products in the photography section.

The purpose of this is to get more ideas of niches within photography, and also to show you what people are buying. (We want to be in a niche where people actually buy stuff!)

(2) Find discussion groups on X at Yahoo! Groups

Next, we’ll find out what discussion groups exist on the subject of photography, so go to Yahoo! Groups at groups.yahoo.com, type in “photography” into the “Find A Yahoo! Group” search box, and press “Search”.

We’re really just paying attention to the names of the groups to get more ideas for niches. You might also want to keep a note of the number of members of a group, to give you a rough idea of the level of interest in that niche subject.

For example, looking through the first 100 results I came across the following forums that are also ideas for niches within the photography market:

digital photography (2700 members, 5600 members, 1600 members)
infrared photography (1500 members)
selling stock photography* (1700 members)
panoramic photography (1700 members)
stock photography (3500 members)

I’ve put a * next to “selling stock photography” because I particularly like the sound of that one. Anytime you get a product idea in your head, write it down! It doesn’t mean you should act on it there and then (you don’t yet know if there’s a demand for the product), but if you don’t write down ideas as they come to you, you’re likely to forget them - and there’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to remember a great idea you had!

(3) Find out what people are asking at Yahoo! Answers

Next, go to Yahoo! Answers at answers.yahoo.com. This is a great site where people can ask questions and have them answered by several people, many of whom have positioned themselves as “experts” on a subject.

We can use this site to find out what questions and problems people have in the field of “photography”. To find photography related questions, it’s best to drill down using the “Categories” links. Under the “Categories” heading, click on “Arts & Humanities”, then “Visual Arts” and finally “Photography”.

The questions can give you yet more niche ideas. For instance, I came across the following question:

What are some creative ideas for fashion photography? please help

So we could add “fashion photography” to our list of niches. Here’s another one…

How to do a professional summer photo Shoot with for a readhead with blue/green eyes?

So here’s someone who’s looking for answers on “professional photo shooting” - however, I probably wouldn’t narrow down the niche to blue/green eyed redheads!

(4) Find out what subjects are being discussed in X at EzineArticles.com

Finally, head on over to EzineArticles.com. This is a popular site where writers share articles which can be used by others.

You can use this site’s search facility to find articles on “photography”, or drill down to their photography section, which is in the “Arts and Entertainment” category. (I know this because the category was the first listing to come up when I did a search using “photography”.)

Doing this, I noticed that “digital” and “wedding” photography gets talked about a lot, and also found several other niches within the photography field:

PR (public relations) photography
wildlife photography
photography career
documentary style wedding photography
aerial photography

Once you’ve visited all four sites and done your research, you’ll have a decent list of potential niches!

However, before you even consider entering a niche, you need to find out whether it’s profitable or not. I’ll show you how to do that in Part 3 of this series (which will be scheduled for Monday 2nd June), so make sure you’re subscribed to this blog so you don’t miss it.

In the meantime, get brainstorming and searching for niche ideas!