For some reason, people who look to the internet to make more money or start their own online business are drawn to the internet marketing or home business industries. Ironically, these marketers (and I was one of them!) become affiliates for "make money from home" products, or buy reprint rights for the same, and thus try to sell something they have no experience in.

Sooner or later, new internet marketers will hear from an established "guru" that they should stay away from the internet marketing niche. Instead, they should find a "niche" they are interested in-for example, baseball-and focus their marketing efforts on that niche. The reason given by the gurus is that the internet marketing niche is already overcrowded, and "newbies" are going to have a hard time cracking that niche. (Of course, these "gurus" also encourage you to buy their products, because they will help you become a better marketer?.)

While I agree that the internet marketing and home business industry is overcrowded, and while I do not think it is a niche at all, but a large overarching concept, I think it is still possible to carve out a niche within this concept for yourself. This is true, if for no other reason than there will always be new people coming online looking for ways to make money online. Why shouldn't you be the one to reach them? For myself, I found many other "money-making" websites before I found the gurus' websites.

So how do you carve a niche for yourself in this industry? For starters, brainstorm all the different aspects (niches) of internet marketing and home business. To get a list begun, here are a few: traffic generation, lead generation, web copywriting, autoresponder follow-up, product creation.

Here is a battle plan for creating your own niche. 1) Think hard about the products you affiliate with. Are they centered around one niche, like traffic generation? If you have too many products, whittle them down to a few you will focus on. 2) Build a website or an autoresponder series around your niche, and make sure it will establish you as knowledgeable in your chosen niche. 3) Drive traffic to your new niche website.

The best way to accomplish 2) and 3) is by writing articles and submitting them (and including them in your autoresponder series). Instead of writing about all aspects of internet marketing or home business, you specialize in traffic generation (for example) and become known as someone who is very knowledgeable about traffic generation. Build your business around this niche.

Jeremy M. Hoover is an online freelance writer who specializes in writing articles for website owners to use to establish themselves as experts, and to promote with. If you need articles, contact Jeremy through his site, http://www.jhooverwebcopy.com. Read more marketing articles by Jeremy at his marketing blog, http://www.jhooverwebcopy.blogspot.com.