How to Find and Expand a Niche

You've joined Squidoo (Great!) and created a few lenses (Even better!) about topics of your interest or your passions. And now you're stuck! Where to go next?!!

You probably looked at other lenses or visited SquidU to find an answer to this question. And many of the answers mentions 'niche' lenses.

If you're like I was when I first joined Squidoo, you probably don't have a slightest idea what this word means or what, in Earth's name, are these people talking about!!!

So, you start digging!

And find out there is lots of talk about niche marketing, there are people called 'marketing guru'... lets face it: This is a whole new industry! And some people are making a living on it! Unfortunately, many are trying to sell bullsh!t and few are worth spending your money.

Just to be certain you understand what I'm talking about, here is a quote by Kimberly, one of Squidoo staff members posted in a thread on SquidU: "But there's another category of people there: The vampires. Vampires are people out to cheat and trick and scam and make money off of YOU, off of people who want to use Squidoo. Vampires happen. But that doesn't mean you need to be suckered by them." - You can read the rest in a sticky thread with a name: Curious about unofficial ebooks/tools about Squidoo?

So, do you really need a guru to tell you how to create a successful niche lens?

My take on this: Never ever have I paid a dime for any of this stuff... Still, I've managed to place 3-4 of my lenses to top 2,000 and some of them have even reached top 100 on Squidoo.

And how did I manage this?

Use resources Squidoo gave you! Look at your backyard before looking at any other places. Squidoo gave us tools, it's on us to use it properly!

Image credits: blahblahblah by carmhox3

Niche is a term connected and used by internet affiliate marketers. It's related to smaller segments of larger markets. A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing on: niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact. Every single product that is on sale can be defined by its niche market. (Source: Wikipedia)

You've read it and keep thinking: What exactly does this mean?!?

Example 1:
- your market: DOGS
- your targeted customers / demographics: DOG OWNERS
- possible niche market: DOG ACCESSORIES
- a niche inside a niche: DOG CHEWING TOYS <<< possible lensography?
- a niche inside a niche, inside a niche (LOL): LENS REVIEWING AND RECOMMENDING SPECIFIC CHEWING TOY <<< this is where your lens should be!!!

Example 2:
- your market: BOOKS
- your targeted customers / demographics: PARENTS, CARE GIVERS, TEACHERS, GRANDPARENTS
- possible niche market: CHILDREN BOOKS
- a niche inside a niche: SOFT BABY BOOKS <<< possible lensography?
- a niche inside a niche, inside a niche: REVIEW OF A BOOK FOR BABIES <<< this is where your lens should be!!!

Example 3:
- your market: CLOTHING
- your targeted customers / demographics: TEENAGERS, PARENTS
- possible niche market: T-SHIRTS
- a niche inside a niche: FUNNY TEEN SHIRTS <<< possible lensography?
- a niche inside a niche, inside a niche: t-SHIRT DESIGNS QUOTING PARENTS (Like No-No list, or something similar) <<< this is where your lens should be!!!

There are few other things you should also consider doing with keywords your stats tab with traffic shows - these terms are keywords people used to find your lens:

- add them to your tags (specially if they are repeating frequently)
- consider the ways to incorporate them into your titles, subtitles and content.

When adding these keywords, don't overdo it! You don't want to have same keyword in all your titles and subtitles! It's called keyword stuffing and search engines often drop lenses using this!

Everyone of us has at least one lens like this - created in a moment of inspiration or on impulse! Now, you published it and don't have a slightest idea what to do next!? I've got lenses like that too! ;) And this is one of them!

Lens Mirror, Mirror Upon The Wall was created as a Caption assignment for Giants Summer School. It was created completely on impulse - due to picture I had taken during my trip few years back to Germany... And this picture seamed like a good start I could build a lens on. So I did.

Now, after 3 months, I'm pretty much satisfied with it's traffic and rank... specially considering that I haven't updated this lens from the day it was created... But! This lens has potential to be expanded into another niche! Why do I think that? Look at this 30 day graph:

First, there is no clickouts from that lens what so ever! I should urgently add or change products I provide here (I have only few mirrors inside Amazon module) - probably to add more products related to superstition... Maybe even Snowhite book! ;) Also, I should add few related links to websites and blogs.

Second, there is no traffic to this lens from within Squidoo! And we all know Squidoo can be a pretty good source of traffic! So I need to find lenses related to this one and lensroll them in hope that other lensmaster would do the same for my lens.