Life as a freelancer allows for a certain level of flexibility. You might take on different roles and adapt your style to fit what your clients want and need. As a freelancer, you might quickly discover that you don’t have to do every type of job for every client to be successful. You can create what you want and work with clients within a specific market that capitalizes on your strengths, and one that allows you to work in a field that you truly enjoy. That means you will have to discover – or reevaluate- what your niche is. Here are seven questions you should ask yourself to help you determine what your freelance niche should be.
1. What are your passions?
Before you can get started, you first have to discover what you like to do. This will make all the difference when you start working. You don’t want to simply choose a niche because you are sort of interested in it. Your freelancing niche has to be something that you are motivated enough to devote eight hours to every day.
Try to think of things that you would like to do in your free time, regardless of whether or not you are getting paid for it. Maybe you love to plan events, write on a variety of topics, or design things.
Half of the battle is figuring out what you really enjoy doing every day. When you enjoy what you do, that shows in your work. If you love it, it won’t feel like work, and you’ll be happy doing it!
Read: Services You Can Offer
2. What are you good at?
You might also want to consider any special skills you might have or past work experiences. If you love talking with people, are good with technology, or have marketing skills, that might be something you want to consider. Think about the skills you might have developed through your job or other experiences.
When you are marketing yourself down the line, you want to be able to say that you are the best at your niche confidently. Plus, if you are working in a field you are talented in, you will be delivering high-quality work, making you and your clients very happy.
3. What problem can I solve?
Once you have identified what you like to do or are passionate about, you can start to narrow down your niche further. To create a profitable freelancing business, you might want to figure out what problems you are currently solving for your clients and determine how you can make that into a business for yourself. You also want to start thinking about why people should choose you over your competition and who could benefit.
Some further questions you might want to consider are:
- Who do you want to help?
- Why do you want to help them?
- How can you help them?
By asking yourself these questions, it can help you narrow your focus even further. As you begin to decide your niche, you can start to filter out clients who don’t fit within the services or products that you are offering.
4. Who is my dream client?
As you beginning to filter your niche, start envisioning your dream client. In order to further narrow down the definition of your dream client, you might think about these questions:
- Are you happy with the people you work for currently?
- Have they given you positive feedback?
If you are currently working as a freelancer and trying to decide your niche, you might start to think about what you would like to change if possible. Do you only want to work for people that are in the same country as you? Do you want to work for a big company or a small one? Do you want to work for an agency?
You should also try and analyze past client interactions, including interactions that didn’t go well. Was there a specific reason why things went wrong? For those who do have clients, you can interview them about why they like you (or why they didn’t like you). By learning what you don’t and do well, you can help to narrow down your niche.
5. Is there a market for my niche?
Unfortunately, just because you are passionate about something doesn’t mean that there is a market for it. You have to make sure that someone will actually want to pay for your services. Otherwise, your hobby can never become a full-time job.
One of the best ways to determine if there is a market for your niche is to do keyword research. There are free tools that you can use to make this process easier. Once you put in some keywords related to your niche, you can see what words or phrases are suggested and understand what people are looking for.
Tools I Like: KWFinder
As you see what is popular and what is not, you can see what the competition is for each niche.
6. How can you narrow down your niche further?
By now, you might realize that you need to narrow down your niche even further. After all, freelance writing or marketing is a very popular and wide niche. Instead of writing about health, video games, web hosting, gambling, and education, pick the one topic that you like the best.
Say you are interested in writing about fitness. Do you want to write for blogs, magazines, or do social media content? You also want to think about what specific fitness topics you might want to cover. Are you interested in covering fitness equipment or workout types? There is a wide variety of topics you can cover, but by choosing a more narrowed field of focus, you can become a well-respected expert in that field.
7. What is your brand?
Now that you have started to narrow down your focus, you should create a positioning statement that shows what makes you unique as a freelancer.
The basic formula for this statement should be, “I am a freelancer that will appeal to {who your target audience is} because {what makes you different from everyone else in your niche).
This statement will then become your elevator pitch or branding statement, which will help you land clients in the future.
For those who are having trouble developing their brand, they might want to take a step back and look at the most important aspects you want to consider, and what key features you want to be associated with as a freelancer. Once you have these attributes, you can understand better what the theme of your business will be.
Don’t rush the search to become a freelancer. Your niche can and probably will evolve over time as you develop your brand.
If you feel like you are becoming too specific with your position statement, and feel you are branding and alienating potential clients, that is okay. This branding statement is simply a guide to help you on the path to finding freelancing work. Once you have picked a direction, you can begin working with that niche and can modify your business as you go along.
Remember, you can’t and should not appeal to everyone. You want to be specific enough that your brand is distinctive and memorable. By picking a specific brand and niche, you can filter out clients that aren’t a good fit for you. That leaves more time for you to focus on clients that want what you can offer as an expert in the field.