How To Choose the Perfect Niche for Your YouTube Channel

Step #1: Consider Why You Want to Create YouTube Content.

First, consider why you want to create YouTube content.

Below are some common reasons people decide to become YouTube creators.

You may have more than one reason, and that’s okay. Write down all the ones you identify with and set this list aside for later.

Step #2: Assess Your Interests, Areas of  Expertise, and Strengths

Next, you need to identify what type of content you would feel comfortable making videos for.

To do that, you must assess your interests, areas of expertise, and personal and professional strengths.

Write down everything you think of in this step and put that list aside.

Step #3: Take a Hard Look at Your Budget

It’s important that you have a good idea of your content creation budget before you pick a niche. This is because some niches require you to spend a lot of money.

Travel videos are a great example of a type of content that can get pricey quickly if you have to take trips to film them. So can tech and beauty tutorials and reviews, as well as any other content that involves expensive products or services.

Make a note of what your realistic monthly budget would be for filming, editing, uploading, and marketing videos on your YouTube channel. Factor in your budget for growing your channel through engagement, as well.

Step #4: Make a List of  YouTube Content Niches You’re Interested in

For this step, take out the lists you made in steps 1 and 2, plus the budget you noted for step 3. Refer to them as you make a new list, this one with 3-5 YouTube content niches you’re interested in.

The niches you select for this list should meet your goals for making YouTube content, as well as complement your interests, expertise, and/or strengths. They should also be feasible within your desired budget.

Step #5: Research the Competition in the Niches You Selected

Once you’ve selected a few YouTube niches, research the competition. In other words, seek out creators that already make content in those niches. See how many creators there are, how many subscribers they have, and how many likes, dislikes, views, and comments they get.

Your goal here is to figure out if any of the content niches you wrote on your list will be lucrative and help you meet your goals. Researching the people who would be your potential competitors is one of the best ways to go about it.

Step #6: Find a Gap in the Market to Fill

Another strategy you can use to choose between your preferred content niches is to find a gap in the market to fill.

A gap in the market is one way to describe a blank or sparse YouTube niche where there isn’t as much content as in others. It doesn’t have to be an obscure or little-known niche, however (like mechanical engineering history). You can take a popular content category, like Beauty, and search for a sub-category that doesn’t have a lot of videos, but that Beauty audiences want to see.

Choosing a gap niche for your channel to fill will ensure you don’t have a lot of competition, which could bring you more engagement.

Step #7: Finalize Your Choice

With all the information you collected and the lists you made in the previous 6 steps, it’s time to finalize your choice.

The good news is that since you put extensive research and thought into your decision-making process, it’s more likely than ever that you’ll land on the perfect niche that will launch your YouTube channel – and your YouTube career.

After you settle on a content niche, you can move on to brainstorming video concepts, planning shoots, familiarizing yourself with editing software, purchasing filming equipment, and doing all the other things you need to make your YouTube videos a reality.