If your favorite creators have inspired you, you might wish to follow in their footsteps. Starting a YouTube channel is exciting, but you must consider several factors before jumping in—including your niche.
When choosing a niche for your YouTube channel, you should ask yourself several questions. This article will identify some of the most important ones.
1. What Is the Purpose of Your YouTube Channel?
When choosing a YouTube channel niche, you should first think about why you’re starting your channel in the first place. Knowing the answer could dramatically change what you talk about.
If you’re starting a YouTube channel for fun and don’t care about subscribers or views, you can talk about whatever you want. And rather than managing two or more YouTube channels later on, you can keep everything in one place.
Things change if you’re considering starting a YouTube channel for business purposes. In those instances, you’ll need to fine-tune your content to attract the right audience. Building a YouTube channel for a business will also mean that you need to think more about doing keyword research. And your thumbnails will also become more important.
2. Can You Find a Unique Angle to Talk About?
While it’s not too late to start a YouTube channel, you will need to find a way to rise above the noise. Regardless of the niche you choose, you will find a huge amount of content—but in some instances, you may find that the competition isn’t as fierce.
Before you pick your niche, think about whether you can find a unique angle. For example, you could talk about an underrated team if you want to start a YouTube channel about sports. Your unique angle can also simply be that you have a different opinion from many of the main channels in your field.
If you’re unsure about a particular niche, you can always upload a few videos to test the waters and see if you can separate yourself from others.
3. Do You Actually Enjoy Your Niche?
Being a YouTuber is an in-demand job, but many people underestimate how much work goes into growing a channel. You will need to deal with few—if any—people watching your videos for at least a few months.
You also must understand that making a reasonable amount of money from YouTube will take a long time. And in the beginning, you won’t even be eligible for monetization via ad revenue.
Considering how long it takes most users to grow a YouTube channel; you’ll need to ensure that you don’t burn out. What’s the best way to do that? Simple: talk about a topic you enjoy.
Try not to get caught up in what the most “profitable” niche is. Even if you pick something that could be lucrative, you won’t reap the benefits if you hate uploading content. Your audience can also tell when you’re only interested in earning money.
4. Do You Know Enough About the Topic?
To successfully create valuable content online, you need to know more than your audience about your chosen topic. You don’t need to have top-level expertise, but you should be a couple of steps ahead. With that in mind, starting a YouTube channel about something you know nothing about is a bad idea.
If you’re not sure where to start, think about your hobbies. For example, if you enjoy taking pictures, you could create a YouTube channel about photography.
If you want to start a YouTube channel about a topic you don’t know much about, you can always spend a few months learning more. And so, you can document your journey; this is another way to keep viewers engaged.
5. Will You Have Enough to Talk About?
When doing research about finding a niche, you will notice that many people tell you to narrow down. That’s largely true, but you also need to beware of potentially going too narrow.
A good way to test whether you’re at the right level of nicheness is to try and brainstorm a year’s worth of topics; if you’re struggling, you might need to change your plans.
If you don’t feel you have enough topics to discuss under your niche, consider branching out a little further. As long as you still adopt a focused approach, you shouldn’t have too many issues finding the right balance.
6. Is Your Niche Profitable?
This question is irrelevant if you’re only running a YouTube channel for fun. But if you plan to create a business eventually, you should ensure that your niche is profitable.
When determining whether your niche is profitable, you’ve got several options. You can look at search volumes to determine whether the audience exists for the type of stuff you plan to talk about.
If you’ve already got a business, you can look at your best-performing content on other platforms—such as your blogs. Doing so will give you a better idea of what your audience is looking for.
You can also look at what potential competitors in your corner of YouTube are doing. While you shouldn’t copy them, you’ll get a better idea of where gaps exist that you can fill.
7. Are You Willing to Learn More About Your Niche?
When you start a YouTube channel, you should have the intention of sticking with it for the long run. With that in mind, you should also accept that what you already know about your niche shouldn’t be the ceiling.
If you want to succeed on YouTube, you must be willing to constantly learn. A good way to tell if you’ve chosen an appropriate niche is by determining whether you’re happy to spend time consuming content about the topic elsewhere.
Besides consuming content about your topic, you can also learn more through doing. This is especially true if your channel is about a specific creative field.
Choose Your Niche Carefully
When choosing a YouTube channel niche, you need to carefully consider several factors because your niche can make or break you. Beyond all else, you need to enjoy the topics you’re going to talk about—otherwise, you’ll burn out.
If you’re running a business, you should also think about whether your efforts will be profitable in the long run. Moreover, you should try to find a unique angle that you can offer. If you’re unsure about your niche, try experimenting with a few videos to determine whether it feels right.
