How to find your niche as a Freelancer

Freelancer niche – Yes or no? They say it is often better to be the master of one trade than a jack of all. In freelancing, finding your niche can have an extremely positive impact on your career and is often the best way to take your business to the next level.

Finding your niche can result in more projects and work, boost your income, and ultimately make you happier with what you do. But discovering your niche can be difficult – how exactly do you do it? 

Here are five tips that will get you well on your way towards finding the thing you’re really good at.

How do you find your niche for your freelance services?

1) Try out a lot of stuff

Having different kinds of experiences is one of the most important prerequisites to finding the perfect niche for your business. If you’re not sure what you’re great at, try as many things as you can. Are you good at developing WordPress plugins or UI/UX design? 

Talk to people who focus on different things and think about what drives them. Does it sound like something that you could be into? Try it out. Think of it like this – you have five different kinds of candy. You can either keep eating without switching out of convenience or alternatively try all five and find out what you like most. 

When considering niche ideas, think about the following: 

• Who are your ideal clients?
• Why do you want to work for them?
• How will you help them?

These questions can help you narrow down your options. Once you have a good idea of the niche possibilities, you can move on to the next step.

2) Study the market

You don’t want to choose just any niche – it has to be something you perceive as profitable and viable in the long run. So you should know the market.

Find out what is up and coming and think about where it will be in five years. If you think that a certain business model is going to disappear soon, building your work around it is probably not a good idea. 

3) Follow your passion

So you’ve tried out a lot of stuff and identified which niches will be profitable in the future. This is where you really narrow it down. Think about the following:

• Your interests
• What you have the most fun doing
• What have you done well?
• How do your passions align with your business goals?

These questions will help you find your passion (and find your niche!).

Remember, it is not about what is easiest or most convenient. If your heart’s not in your work, it will get real boring, real quick. 

4) Become an expert

Now that you have found a potential niche, own it. Chances are, you already know quite a bit about it. But “quite a bit” is not enough, you have to push your advantage even further.

Don’t just know more than most, be one of the few that knows all there is to know. Read articles, find books on the subject, or look for insights from the leading figures of that particular field. This is how you become an expert.

5) Advertise your expertise

Finding your niche doesn’t mean that your work is done. In a practical sense, it’s just beginning.

Share your newfound mastery with the world and focus your business in that direction and. From your company name through the description of your Facebook page, to your email signature – everything should support and be based around your niche.

Show confidence that you are the best in your field and clients are bound to come.

Is having a niche always a good idea?

Now that we’ve discussed some of the benefits of having a niche and how you can go about doing so, let’s take a look at the flip side. 

Are there strong reasons NOT to have a niche? 

At the other end of the spectrum, some freelancers believe having a niche can harm your chances of connecting with potential clients. 

Furthermore, if you’re just starting out and are not sure what you would specialize in, it is probably not in your best interest to rush through the process of trying to find your niche. Here, instead, it would be better for you to try out a few areas of interest before you’re able to find a path that feels right. 

The main takeaway is to make sure you’re specializing the right way. 

Take for e.g., the field of Web Development. There are several ways to niche in this field. Your niche could be based on: 

• Programming Language
• Industry/field
• Work type

But dive into how this would play out. By having your niche in a programming language, are you able to set yourself apart? Consider how many other people also specialize in the same language. But this doesn’t mean you should try to master 10 programming languages. Instead, try to focus on 2 or 3 of them.

Additionally, if you were to consider specializing based on industry type (e.g. pharma, insurances, etc.), think about what this means for potential work. Does the industry you’re looking at generally work with freelancers? Do they offer remote work and projects? All important points to think about!

Alternatively, developing your niche by work type may sound like a better option. Spend some time researching the type of work offered to web developers and how you can niche in a specific market area.

Are you interested in developing new websites from scratch? Would you like to focus on improving flaws? Maybe just maintenance? Think about your options here.

Ultimately, it all boils down to how you approach the concept of finding a niche. Take a step back to study your options before finding what works best for you!

For example, niching within a programming language could make sense, but niching by a sector might not so much. While as a copywriter, niching by a sector can be a pretty good idea. 

Do you think that having a niche is worth it or are you in favor of a generalist approach? If you have one, how did you find your niche? Let us know down below!