How to Choose a Topic for Your Online Business

Deciding how to choose a topic for your online business is one of the hardest parts of getting started. It’s often a big blocker for progress.

We tend to fall into this downward spiral of self-doubt and uncertainty about what people are interested in and what we feel confident teaching others about.

But I’m here to tell you that this doesn’t have to be so hard and it certainly shouldn’t hold you back from getting started.

The good news is – you can always change your mind later on. 

That’s one reason why I recommend being flexible when choosing a domain name for your website. It leaves room to pivot later on if necessary.

My goal with this article is to help you sort through some of your thoughts so you can go ahead and start your first website (if you haven’t already).

In this post on choosing a business topic or niche, I will cover:

• How Can I Choose a Topic or Niche for My Business?
• The 5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Choosing a Topic
• How to Narrow Down Your Niche
• Who is Your Target Market?
• Who Are You Trying to Reach With Your Content?
• Got Your Topic? Next Steps

If you have any questions, leave a comment for me at the end of the article! I’d be happy to help you find an answer. Let’s get started!

How Can I Choose a Topic or Niche for My Business?

There’s no need to do any deep soul-searching to find an answer to this question. In fact, you shouldn’t overthink it.

It’s a waste of time and you’ll end up talking yourself out of something that perhaps should have been a natural path.

This should come naturally to you. If you have to work super hard at it, you might not be ready for that particular path.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Starting a new business will require work – a heck of a lot of it. But sharing your knowledge on the topic that we’re choosing today should come more naturally.

Here are 5 questions that you can ask yourself to start narrowing down your topic. Once you’ve decided, we’ll move on to narrowing it down further and coming up with your target market.

The 5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Choosing a Topic

I encourage you to write down the first topic or two that come to mind for these questions. Try not to overthink it.

1. What Area(s) Do You Have Personal or Professional Experience in?

This is my favorite question of the bunch, so I’m going to lead with it.

I started my first website in the health and fitness space because it’s what I was personally passionate about and had experience in. You’ll see that this topic fits into the answer for pretty much every question on this list.

I was a pretty hardcore vegan for two years leading up to the start of my website. I read countless books on the subject – enough to have pretty extensive experience on the topic.

Alternatively, I could have started my business in what I have professional experience in: accounting.

I have my undergraduate degree in Accounting as well as a Masters in Business. I didn’t choose accounting, but ultimately I did choose business – online business, to be more specific.

After earning six figures from my health website in my first year, I started a couple of different business-related blogs.

2. Do You Have Any Passion Projects or Side Hobbies?

This can be somewhat related to the personal experience in the first one. In my case, I can honestly say that I’m not much of a “hobbies” person.

I used to be a bit of a gym rat and then I turned into a yoga rat. But I’ve never taken up knitting or gardening or gaming or anything of that nature.

My free time was generally spent working out, making green smoothies, reading about diet and exercise, etc. You can see how I’m circling back here.

My other hobby is working, despite my husband telling me it doesn’t count, which circles back to my other topic: online business.

What activities do you love to do outside work? Are there any hobbies that you have always wanted to take up?

Perhaps now is a good time to do so and document your journey through starting your own website or blog.

3. How Can You Help Others?

Again, in my case, I’ve always been the friend that gives solicited or unsolicited dieting advice to my friends.

I’m the accountability workout buddy and the one to ask if you’re looking for a good food choice on the menu.

Now, most of my friends also come to me for online business advice.

What do your friends or family go to you for advice for? What can you share with others that can help them improve their lives?

This can be as simple as being incredibly positive, motivating, or disciplined. These are all valuable skills that many people do not possess.

4. What Problems Have You Personally Overcome?

This can be somewhat related to the above scenario but try to dig a little deeper here.

Have you overcome any medical problems or illnesses?

This can be literally anything from keeping your vegetable garden alive to training a difficult puppy to beating your favorite video games quickly.

Here are some other random examples: Acne, Hair Growth and Care, Flexibility, Losing Weight, Marital Solutions, Budget Travel

Starting an online business ultimately boils down to solving a key problem for others. What problem are you solving?

With my first blog, I helped people struggling to lose weight. Now, I help people struggling to build a successful (and profitable) online busines.

5. What Would People Say You Can’t Shut Up About?

Okay, hopefully, you already have a recurring topic or two from these questions. If not, #5 never fails as the catch-all.

What would your friends or family say you can’t shut up about? What books do you like to read or gravitate to?

Creating an online business is more or less about having conversations with people about topics that you care about.

It really is that simple when you boil it down. Everything I’m telling you right now is also what I tell my students in my courses and what I tell people that ask me for advice.

I could talk about it for days because I’m passionate about it and I have years of experience in it.

If you’re still super stuck, your best bet is to look to Google for some inspiration and find an article like this one with 100+ blog topics.

How to Narrow Down Your Niche

After you choose a topic for your online business, it’s time to narrow it down. This is important for a few reasons:

• Better for SEO (search engine optimization)
• Attracts a specific, target audience to your content
• Helps you create products around that content and audience

It’s not enough to start a website on plant care. You need to be more specific than that.

Focusing on indoor plants is better and teaching people how to propagate plants is even better.

If you market to the masses you will end up on the last page of Google and people leaving your website to look for more specific and related content.

One way to start narrowing down your topic is to think about who your target market is.

Who is Your Target Market?

Your target market is simply the people that you want to attract with your content. These are the people that will make up your target audience.

Someone is considered “targeted” when they are highly interested in a specific topic, idea, or problem.

For example, if you have an email opt-in on how to keep your plants alive, you’re going to attract a very wide audience full of people with tons of different problems related to the overall problem of the plants dying. 

But if you have an email opt-in on how to properly propagate your plants and you also sell a product on that same topic, you’re going to attract an audience that is already very targeted for that product.

Who are you trying to reach with your content?

Remember that this is subjective and can also change over time.

It is sometimes also determined by what platform you are creating content for because every platform attracts a different demographic of people.

You can also do what I did first – throw everything up at the wall and see what sticks.

It works, to some extent, but it can take you months or longer plus some extra time and money to figure it out.

It’s best to begin with the end in mind and think about how you can narrow your topic down before you get started.

Got Your Topic? Let’s Get Started!

The most important takeaway from this article is to have confidence in what you decide but always be open and flexible for this to change somewhat.

You may decide to go down a different path once you get started or even months down the road. This has happened to me on multiple occasions with different websites.

That’s okay. 

Your website should always be open to change, growth, and evolution.

Okay, your next step is to start your website! You can do so with my step-by-step tutorial that will walk you through how to:

• Choose a domain name
• Get a hosting plan
• Design your website with a theme