How to Go About Finding a Freelance Niche

There are two basic ways to approach your freelance career in terms of the content that you are going to be providing to your clients; either you can generalize or you can specialize.  If you generalize as a freelancer, then you take on all the different types of jobs that you are able to complete.  If you specialize, you create a niche for yourself as a freelancer who does a certain kind of job.  While some freelancers enjoy generalizing because of the diversity of their workload that it allows for, most freelancers find that a career is better made by finding a freelance niche and developing it.

It makes sense, when you think about it, that finding a niche is where the money is going to be at.  Think of the differences between generalizing and specializing in any field at all and you quickly realize that the people who specialize are the ones who are sought after by their clients or customers and are the ones who are getting the bigger bucks.  Why is that?  Well, someone who has a specialty tends to have the increased knowledge that gives them expertise in a field which is something that people will pay to have.

This is as true of freelancing as it is of any career.  By finding a freelance niche, you create an area in which you become an expert.  As an expert, you have more credibility and are able to charge more for your services.  Plus, word of mouth about your work travels a lot faster when you can be identified with one niche.  After all, are you more likely to tell your friend about “this writer you know” or about “this music journalist who specializes in finding Beatles-influenced hits in modern music”?

So, you can see the benefits of having a freelance niche, but how do you go about finding the niche that’s right for you?  Well, the first thing to do is to take stock of the freelance work that you are already doing.  Sure, it seems like your work is all over the map, but there are probably many jobs which fall into the same basic categories.  Maybe you do a lot of business writing or perhaps you’ll see that you regularly consult on PR services.  If you can see that there’s something you already do a lot of, and therefore already have work samples and references from, you have your starting point for your freelance niche.

If you haven’t yet started freelancing, you should look to things in life in which you are something of an expert.  What do people come to you for advice about?  Which hobbies are you passionate enough about that you can wax poetic on them at any time?  Take a look at these things and see if they can be turned in to a freelance niche.  With some creativity, most hobbies can be adjusted into a freelance niche of some sort.

Once you know what your freelance niche is, work on expanding it as much as possible while still keeping it specialized.  For example, the writer who specializes in the Beatles-influenced music search may be interesting but probably doesn’t have a large market.  However, if she can expand into writing about Beatles history, doing blogs for fans of the Beatles and other related items, and writing reviews about neo-hippie CD collections, she can keep expand her market while still keeping her niche.

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[tags]niche markets, find your niche, small business, home business, freelance, freelancing[/tags]