YouTube Niches: How to Find the Perfect Niche for Your YouTube Channel
Choosing a niche for your YouTube channel is crucial to success. The wrong niche can lead to lackluster views and low revenue, but the right niche can open up an entire new world of opportunities.
In this article, I’ll outline everything you need to know about YouTube niches before deciding on one for your own YouTube channel so you don’t make any costly mistakes.
What are YouTube niches?
A YouTube niche is your target audience. It’s usually a word or phrase that describes the type of people who will be watching your videos as a majority. For example, if you’re targeting beauty enthusiasts and their would-be makeup purchases on YouTube, then “beauty” would be your niche because it generally describes the viewer base for this genre.
What is a YouTube channel?
You can define a YouTube Channel as “a collection of videos about a particular topic or theme, with the intent of building an online community around that content.” The scope of what you can do on YouTube is only limited by your creativity. As long as you have good quality videos and are able to keep people interested in your niche, it’s possible for this platform to be very profitable for entrepreneurs who know what they’re doing.
A video producer may have many channels, which are typically named after their niche topic or interest (ex: “My Cooking Channel” for cooking videos). Your goal should be to find your passion in order to stand out from the crowd and make it easier on yourself when marketing your content.
Why is it important to find your niche?
A niche means you are catering to a specific interest or audience. This takes the guesswork out of marketing your content because it’s targeted and relevant to what people want from you on that particular channel. Someone who has found his perfect YouTube niche is body builder/entrepreneur Mike Rashid.
It also gives experts an opportunity to share knowledge with those who may not have professional experience in their field, which can help advance the education of the general public.
You can also use a YouTube channel to promote your products and services. For example, if you are an artist or photographer who creates custom work from home as your job, then uploading tutorials on how to do certain things could be a way for potential customers to learn about what you offer.
How do you pick the best niche for your YouTube channel?
If you’re thinking about starting a YouTube channel to make some money, it’s important to find the right niche. A good way of discovering your perfect YouTube Niche is by brainstorming what content or themes interest you and where your passion lies. If you’re not sure of any ideas, remember that there are plenty of popular YouTube niches for inspiration.
You need to identify your strengths and weaknesses. What do you LOVE talking about?
What are the skills that come natural for you based on your education or experience?
It’s best if a niche is an intersection of two things: what interests/matches with your background AND what will be popular in advertising opportunities.
If you love to talk about the best dumplings in NYC, and you’re a chef, that’s an excellent niche for your channel.
However if you don’t know much about cooking but love talking about pop culture, it may not be a good idea to build your YouTube Channel around this niche because there are less advertising opportunities available as well as a smaller audience. Your goal should be to find your passion in order to stand out from the crowd and make it easier on yourself when marketing your content.
You may also want to consider how much time you have to devote to the channel, how quickly you can produce content for it, and what else is going on in your life that may be preventing you from devoting enough time and energy into it.
Remember: A successful YouTube Channel has multiple videos per day available so that when people search one of your keywords they’ll have plenty of material to watch.
A new YouTube channel typically starts with one or two videos per week, and then builds up to uploading daily.
What are some possible YouTube niches?
Here are some of the possible YouTube niches you might want to consider:
- Comedy
- Science and education
- Fashion and beauty tutorials (makeup, hair, fashion) -News and current events updates from a specific perspective (feminist news, political commentary)
- Reality TV shows with voiceover commentary
- Product reviews and shopping hauls
- Vlogs (video blogs) about your personal life, tips & tricks on how to do something or other, travel diaries.
- Music videos of original songs or covers by well-known artists
- Reaction videos where you watch a popular movie/show/TV show for the first time and offer your thoughts
- Tutorials about how to do something or other (drawing, cooking, cleaning)
- Family friendly videos with educational content like kids songs, for example.
What are best YouTube niches?
Different people have different interests, so there is no one best niche for every single person. But if you’re looking to make money on YouTube and need some help with picking the right niche, here are a few good areas:
- Technology (hardware reviews)
- Beauty & Fashion (hair tutorials)
- Music
- Teaching (English as a second language)
- Business & Finance (personal finance videos)
- Science and Technology News.
What are the worst YouTube niches?
Anything involving sports or politics is a really bad idea for your first niche because they’re extremely saturated markets with existing competitive channels that are already ranking at the top of YouTube’s search results.
The worst YouTube niche is anything in which the subject matter isn’t engaging enough for people to watch. That includes mundane topics like cooking and decorating.
Best ways to monetize a YouTube channel
One way to monetize a YouTube channel is through partnerships with brands. You can also create your own products or use affiliate links in videos, such as those for Amazon and eBay. Partnerships are appealing because they typically offer the biggest payout. The downside of this strategy is that you may need a big following before companies will be interested in talking to you.
Another way to monetize a YouTube channel is through ads, like those from Google AdSense. The benefit of this strategy is that it doesn’t require as many views before revenue starts coming in. However, the downside is that the payout per view isn’t usually as good with ads compared with other strategies. And depending on your niche, the ads may not be very relevant.
You can also make money on YouTube by selling your own products in videos, whether they’re physical or digital items. The benefit of this strategy is that you don’t need a big following to get started and it doesn’t matter as much if ad revenue through Google AdSense isn’t generating enough money.
The downside is that you need to make sure the products are easy to find on your site, and customizing them can be a pain as well. And when people buy from your videos, they don’t get any message about where their purchase came from which isn’t always ideal for building trust with customers.
In general, higher quality videos with more views will generate greater advertising revenue than lower quality videos with less views.
But while it’s important to create good content, you still need to be mindful of the boundaries that advertisers set for YouTube videos because they are what ultimately determines your revenue as a YouTuber.
The types of business models that can work well on YouTube include: crowdfunding or viewer-supported advertising, advertisements based around a particular product, and sponsorship from a company who want to use the channel’s reach for their marketing needs.
Some other monetization strategies that work well on YouTube: selling “merch” (e.g., t-shirts with your logo), digital goods like ebooks and coaching sessions, or even live events like conferences.
How do you engage and keep your audience?
YouTube channels have a very short window to get viewers before they leave. It’s important for content creators to create engaging videos that keep their audience coming back again and again. Some tips on how you can do this include:
- Originality: It is nice to see something new rather than the same old thing over and over.
- Keep the videos short, people are much more likely to watch a shorter video than they are one that’s 20 minutes long.
- Include questions in your videos or at least ask for feedback. Make sure you provide a way for viewers to interact with you and have their opinions acknowledged by giving them an email address or social media account (such as Facebook or Twitter).
- Include a call to action at the end of your video. What are you asking people to do after watching? Get more information, subscribe to your channel, buy something from your website; it doesn’t matter what but be sure to give them an option for next steps.
Producer Michael boosts net worth using YouTube
One of the most successful YouTubers is Producer Michael, also known as Michael Blakey.
He started his YouTube channel in 2014 and has over 550,000 subscribers.
Producer Michael is most famous for his video "21 ways to make money on the internet." His videos are also about marketing tips and tricks that help entrepreneurs promote their businesses online. They are full of life advice, valuable business tips, and motivation for young entrepreneurs.
To learn more about Michael Blakey, check out I Buy I Review’s article about his life and net worth here.
I buy and review courses so you don’t have to. Sometimes, I even find courses that are legitimate and worthwhile; and that’s how I accidentally came across one that led me to building a 6-figure business in a little under 5 years. Now, I still review courses because it’s my favorite hobby. 🙂 Learn more about me here.
