help with niche selection?

[squawk]

I've been doing this for several years, I've got the software tools and programs, I've got the various worthwhile PDF reports and videos, I've identified the common themes between them all in terms of how to setup the niche blog to make some money, etc, etc, etc.

But the one place where I come up totally blank is in finding a niche to promote! That is crazy but when I start thinking about what to target to start creating a new blog or site and making use of all these tools spinning on my hard drive and the tons of knowledge I've accumulated upstairs, all of a sudden the space between my ears turns into the perfect vacuum.

I mean, I already know about going to ebay pulse, google trends, amazon hot sellers, etc, etc, but looking down the lists, I see nothing that would appear to be even a REMOTE candidate. A lot of that comes from picking a niche in the past and seeing the site gather dust at my web host.

Any ideas on how to overcome the niche selection equivalent of writer's block?

[lynnth]

One way is to go on ClickBank and see what products currently have the highest "gravity". That indicates what is currently selling well and you can look at what niches those products are in and look for a trend.

[Dan Nickerson]

Start with something you're passionate about, and then drill down to a micro niche of it. Use the Google Keyword Tool to look for opportunities in that niche.

Look for new affiliate programs with unique products that you can build a niche site around.

[dennisse]

Same concern with me. The thing is that how to check niche also used by competitors websites?

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Mommy Makeover

[lynnth]

Do a Google search using the same keywords that you would use for your site. The search results are your competitors under those terms. You can then check their Alexa ranking and use the Google pagerank plug-in for Firefox and see where each stands.

[kana]

Hi Squawk,

You've obviously been around for a while, I'm fairly new to this stuff but just a suggestion that might help, I'm on a training program called Dean Holland's Quick Start Challenge and one of the first things he got us to do was start a new blog (even if we did have other blogs already) and start writing about what we're passionate about no keyword research no pitching stuff or anything just write want you want to say and how you feel and to be honest it's amazing what starts to develop ideas and all sorts just start coming to you, I don't know if it's an answer but might be worth a try

Nathan (aka Kana)

http://www.linkandbuild.com

[hwaitah]

Niche selection? It's down to 2 important criteria:

1) Passion - Do you mind keep writing on the subject, month after month, year after year? It must be something you already have strong interest in. Sometimes I ask myself, "What would I love writing, even for free?"

2) Profit - There are many wsos that can help you identify a profitable niche. And you probably know it too.

For me, the ideal case is finding a sweetspot of the Passion-Profit combo ie. a niche which satisfies both criteria in a healthy level.