Finding a Niche to Give Your Business a Competitive Edge

When I started my active dog website one of the things I tried to focus on was my niche. What was going to set me apart from all of the other websites already offering dog related merchandise? For answers, I asked myself what merchandise I look for when I purchase products for my dogs.

I have two large, active dogs who destroy most toys within minutes. When I looked for toys for them, I needed something practically indestructible. Through trial and error, I found a handful of products that stood up to their jaws of death. Those were the suppliers I chose to use for reselling on my site.

Next, I thought about the activities we pursue. Like most dogs, large or small, they love to go for walks but these big guys are difficult to control. I had purchased Halti Head Collars for them to help with that. Hooray, another product, I could sell on my site! I also added Gentle Leader on a friend's recommendation. She had used them with great success for her large dogs.

Then I started thinking about what an active dog might need to protect them from the elements while walking. We have bitter winters here so I added sweaters, coats, and boots to my product line. That led to hiking and what we might need for that. Backpacks were added to the line so they could carry some lightweight supplies with them. I also found that when they were doing something useful, they were better behaved.

Another activity they enjoy is agility but we didn't have access to a professional obstacle course and our backyard wasn't big enough for regulation size. We were able to find a supplier of backyard agility courses and I offered them on my website too.

Little by little, I added more products as I thought about what might be needed to make an active dog happy and healthy.

My niche was in supplying products for large and energetic dogs.

One of the advantages of a small internet business is being able to cater successfully to a niche market. When deciding on your niche product or service it is best to stick with what you know such as a hobby, talent, skill, or interest you are passionate about. What products or services do you like to buy when you are pursuing this interest of yours? What do your friends, who share your interests, recommend?

Using a free tool such as http://wordtracker.com or http://adwords.com put in a keyword phrase. In my case I might have used dog toys. As of this writing, adwords shows 60,000 searches for that phrase. That is way too competitive. Tough dog toys yields 3,600. That's better and that would be a possible niche product. Safe dog toys only brings up 480. That might be an even better niche. Safedogtoys.com might also be a perfect name for a website if you decided to offer these kinds of products as your niche.

You can start out with a few products like I did and add to them as you go, always keeping in mind your niche.