When you’re thinking about a new business, you first need to come up with an idea. An idea that you are super passionate about. Something you can see yourself working on for years and years to come. Something that makes you wake up each morning with excitement.

THAT is first and foremost. If you don’t love what you do, you will fail. I promise. Life’s too short to do crappy work that you don’t enjoy.

Once you’ve decided on an exciting idea, you need to start thinking about the niche. Which niche are you going to fit into - and more importantly, is it a profitable niche that you really want to pursue?

Before I go any further, let me quickly explain what a niche is, exactly.

A niche is a a specific type of content/service/product.

For example, on my website, MrsJanuary.com, we cover all things frugal living. Therefore, our niche is “frugal living”.

If you’re a virtual assistant, your niche would be “real estate virtual assistant” or “blogger virtual assistant” - whatever type of virtual assistant you are.

If you sell jewelry, your nice would be “antique jewelry” or “kids jewelry” or “glass jewelry” - whatever type of jewelry you sell.

Make sense?

But how do you know if your niche is profitable? How do you know if what you offer is actually wanted by others?

Good question, and one you should definitely consider.

The best way that I’ve found, to determine if a niche is profitable or not, is to check with Google. I use a free tool called Google Keyword Planner. (Note: You need to sign up for Adwords - which is also free - before you can access Google Keyword Planner.)

Here’s how it works, from Google directly:

Google Keyword Planner is like a workshop for building new Search Network campaigns or expanding existing ones. You can search for keyword and ad group ideas, get historical statistics, see how a list of keywords might perform, and even create a new keyword list by multiplying several lists of keywords together. A free AdWords tool, Keyword Planner can also help you choose competitive bids and budgets to use with your campaigns.

Whether you’re new to online advertising or an experienced pro, you can use Keyword Planner to lay the groundwork for a successful campaign.

So - as you can probably tell, this tool is targeted toward those that would be using AdWords to place ads with Google. You don’t NEED to do this, though. You can still use Keyword Planner to search for your niche/topic and see how many people are searching for that particular service/product.

If you find that not many people are searching for “kids jewelry”, you may want to change your approach to something like “girls play jewelry” or “women’s homemade jewelry”, or something like that - whatever is getting the most amount of searches on Google, that matches with your bright idea, is going to be the best, most profitable niche for you.

If you need help using Keyword Planner (it can be a bit confusing in the beginning), check out this fabulous post from Shout Me Loud.

Knowing what niche you are in, and what needs you are servicing for your customers and readers, is extremely important. Knowing that the niche you have chosen is a profitable one, is even more important.

Choose your niche wisely, making sure that it is a popular search online, and that it is also in line with your passions, and you will have no problem being successful.

What niche are you in (or want to be in)?