They say that the most profitable niches fall into one of three markets – health, wealth, and relationships.
Of course, profitability and competition go hand-in-hand. Fitness is an incredibly valuable and lucrative industry, and with that comes a lot of competitors looking to take a piece of it for their own.
Therefore, in order to succeed within the health and fitness market, it is vital that you niche down further, targeting your website, channel or podcast around a specific sub-niche, rather than trying to take on the fitness market in its entirety.
In this post, I will cover good fitness sub niches to consider building a business around.
Let’s get to it!
A Few Important Notes About The Fitness Market
Like other extreme-competition niches, the sub niches in the fitness market need to be tackled a bit differently than most other websites.
Frankly put, you’re not going to get large traffic volumes and ranking organically in Google is very difficult. Most big players in this niche are actively buying backlinks to their most important pages, and some of these companies include fitness brands pulling in millions of dollars each month. Ranking each article may require building backlinks to them, particularly on ‘money topics’ – topics that would lend themselves to a purchase of a product.
This doesn’t mean you can’t rank without backlink building, but you need to be extremely specific about the articles you’re writing. Having unique expertise, experience, or personal stories helps tremendously. Google weighs expertise, authority and trust more heavily for websites that pertain to a person’s health.
Anyhow, this makes the fitness market a better choice for those looking to build niche authority sites or personal brands. Building a closer connection with a smaller segment of people through an email list, social media and personal conversations can help you to make the most of a small amount of traffic.
Conversely, the fitness market is a poor choice for those seeking to make money through ad networks such as Adsense, Ezoic or Mediavine, as well as other monetization options that require a large volume of traffic to drive significant revenue. Due to how aggressively competitors target easier keywords, I would not consider this market to be good for those looking to make money passively either, as you are at risk of competition selectively targeting your best keywords once your website starts to gain traction.
I do not mean to instill fear, as this can still be a very profitable and personally rewarding market to enter into, it simply requires a bit of extra work into marketing and relationship-forming in order to see significant growth.
Anyway, let’s get into the sub-niches!
1. Weight Loss – Through A Specific Method, Targeting A Specific Type Of Person
Yeah, you have to go down deep. Not niching down just to weight loss, but further to a different method, then even further to a different person.
Consumers are bombarded with advertisements regarding weight loss everywhere they go – not just online. If you’re unable to really speak to someone with your blog or website, you’ll quickly be forgotten.
Some examples may include:
- Yoga for men over 40.
- Weight lifting for vegans.
- Cardio for people with specific health conditions or disabilities.
- Specific types of diets.
According to the Global Wellness Institute, the ‘healthy eating, nutrition & weight loss industry amounted to 702 billion dollars in 2019 (the most recent release of their study at the time of writing.)
It may not seem like there are a lot of people that fall into these very specific niches of people, but across the entire world you will find a sizeable audience that is not currently receiving any special attention from the bigger websites.
They say that if you can build just 1,000 true fans to your brand, then you’re set.
Get specific with your targeting, and you’ll find that the riches truly are within the niches.
2. Goal Based Training
People become very passionate – and spend a lot of money to help them achieve their goals.
Therefore, websites centered around a specific goal can be very lucrative. If you’re able to sell or promote a product to help them achieve that goal, then all the more power to you.
If you’re not sure what I mean, here are a few examples:
- Running a marathon.
- Participating in a triathlon.
- Running a sub-7 minute mile.
These are not something that most people can decide to do, and then successfully complete instantaneously. There is an entire journey that the goalsetter goes through, with unique challenges at each stage.
By working in one of these sub-niches, your website can serve as a resource to be there throughout the entire process.
Note that because there is a clear end to the process, visitors may not stick around forever. Once they achieve their goal, there may be no further need for your website. In this instance, it may be beneficial to push your biggest product sale as quickly as possible.
3. Health Of A Particular Body Part
2 years ago, I gave myself terrible runner’s knee after running 5 miles almost every day on a treadmill. If you’re not familiar with runner’s knee, it is basically damage to the cartilage under the kneecap, which became quite painful and lasted over 6 months.
During this time I felt a lot of distress because I legitimately loved running, but I felt severely limited by the pain of my runner’s knee.
Fitness is not always about getting your heart rate up. Sometimes, it’s about working out particular areas of the body that need special attention.
It may not seem very exciting to write about joint exercises for people with arthritis, but remember – these people do not receive a lot of focus on mainstream health websites, and they are also more motivated to solve their problems.
If you think about it conceptually, there are dozens of potential fitness niche ideas that fall into this category alone.
4. Supplements And Consumables
Although this topic is less related to fitness and more on health as a whole, the things we put inside of our bodies contribute significantly to how we feel throughout the day.
They also affect our athletic performance.
Dietary supplements are a 123.28 billion dollar industry, and it’s projected to reach over $230 billion by 2027 according to Grand View Research.
From a marketing standpoint, supplements are a wonderful product to acquire a customer for. They are consumable, customers are brand loyal, and they purchased over and over again.
There’s been an uptick in personal brands launching their own supplement companies for this very reason – customers are worth a lot, and supplements don’t have the same regulations that medications do.
Anyhow, affiliate marketers can benefit from high commissions from the following supplement affiliate programs:
- Tropical Oasis (with lifetime / recurring commissions!)
- Vitamin Shoppe
- Rainbow Light
- eVitamins
- A1 Supplements
- Bodybuilding.com
Just be careful – you don’t want to give bad information that can end up harming anyone. There are also a lot of shady companies operating in this space – both supplement manufactures themselves as well as bloggers and marketers, so be careful about who you choose to enter into business with.
5. Fitness Equipment
If you are a gear junkie or your primary goal is to make money via affiliate marketing, building a website specifically around equipment may be a good idea.
One common approach is to start your website with a more focused niche (say, only focusing on weightlifting benches, or kickboxing equipment for example.) Then, when you’ve written all the content you possibly could about the topic, branching out to others that are related, or accessories for the initial product.
This way, you have the benefit of being really focused early on, without being constrained once you’ve written all the content you can about a topic.
I talk more about how to execute this strategy inside of my blogging course.
Although Amazon is still the dominate affiliate program with the highest conversion rate, fitness equipment is a market in which many people are comfortable ordering from other trusted eCommerce stores. Therefore, it may be worth pursuing other affiliate programs that offer higher commissions, and longer cookie lengths.
However, if your goal is to build a website specifically focused around Amazon’s affiliate, I offer a detailed blueprint for building profitable Amazon affiliate websites that you can find on my products page.
Monetizing Within The Fitness Market
As mentioned earlier in this article, acquiring a large volume of traffic can be difficult due to the large number of competitors.
Therefore, it is ideal to focus on monetization strategies that maximize the value of each visitor arriving on your website.
Utilizing other platforms that allow for ongoing communication, such as social media, YouTube, podcasting, and an email list are also extremely beneficial, and are key to steadily growing a larger audience. By following this strategy and retaining the visitors that arrive on your website – ideally through an email list (which still beats out the others in terms of dollars generated, by far), then I believe it is possible to make a full-time living with only 100 visitors a day.
Which, even in the competitive fitness market, is not an unrealistic goal by any means.
But how should you monetize? Let’s look at a few different options.
1. Creating An Info Product
Perhaps the most profitable way to make money as a blogger, YouTuber, or podcaster is to create and release your very own info product.
For example, an eBook, course, or membership site that goes above and beyond the free content you’re already releasing.
In the fitness market, personal relationships and connection with your audience matters. Therefore, not only will you benefit from an increased amount per sale (since you’re receiving the full amount, not just a commission), but you’ll also make more sales overall due to the fact that your audience will already know, like, and trust you.
Your blog will also serve as a resource to target and attract qualified customers, while providing value up-front at the same time.
For example, I like to release articles like this one in order to help people find a niche that excites them, and provide a little insight into some of these markets. If you still aren’t sure of which niche is right for you, I’m secretly hoping you’ll pick up my niche selection blueprint.
Creating an info product may not be the only way to monetize a fitness sub-niche, but it sure is one of the best ones.
2. Affiliate Marketing
If the idea of making your own product seems scary or you simply don’t want to take the time to do so, you can still make plenty of money promoting other people’s products instead.
There are marketers making millions of dollars promoting fitness products as an affiliate, and the industry is only growing.
The strategy you’ll need to take with affiliate marketing depends heavily on the specific sub-niche you choose to enter into. Amazon affiliate websites prioritize quick conversions and review type content in order to target people that are already in the later stages of the buying cycle. Those looking for a longer-term relationship, to sell different types of products across multiple price points may benefit more from releasing informational content that targets people who are still learning about the steps they need to take.
Products in the fitness space span all types – with certain types of equipment going for thousands of dollars.
Clickbank shows that affiliate offers in this space offer commissions up to 75% for digital products, still allowing for significant earnings even if you aren’t creating the products yourself.
3. Sponsored Posts
Remember earlier, when I told you that many competitors will likely be buying links?
Although it goes against Google’s guidelines, there wouldn’t be buyers if there weren’t also sellers. If you’re comfortable with the idea of offering sponsored posts on your blog, the fitness market offers a premium over most other niches. This is especially true once your website achieves any significant authority in its space.
Not all marketers will ask you for a dofollow backlink with their sponsored post, but in all honesty most will expect it.
If you choose to pursue this strategy, I recommend keeping the ratio of sponsored to non-sponsored content as high as possible, only link out to relevant websites, and monitor Google Search Console for any warnings.
4. Coaching / Mentoring
Personal, one-on-one coaching is more popular than ever when it comes to personal fitness, and much of this service is now turning to the internet.
With home-based workout routines increasingly in popularity during and after the pandemic, there is plenty of opportunity for you to train or mentor people to help them achieve their fitness goals.
Either by virtually taking on the role of a personal trainer, building nutrition plans and workout routines, or simply offering your guidance, there is a lot of value you can add to the lives of your customers.
Remember, even if this doesn’t sound like a service you’d personally buy, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t others out there that are looking for your help.
And let’s be real. Some of them have deep pockets.
If you don’t want to offer one-on-one coaching, group coaching is also a worthy alternative to consider. For example, running a live webinar once a week that your clients can all join together to ask questions and receive guidance.
5. Private Labeling
Did you know that importing products from other countries is no longer as difficult as it used to be?
In the last 5 years, there has been a huge surge in people private labeling products from factories, and selling them under their own brand. With a blog, YouTube channel or podcast to drive attention and build trust, you can then use this to gain an edge over competitors in your space.
Many factories that you’ll find on Alibaba.com have low minimum order quantities, and for many products it’s possible to get started for $1,000 or less.
This was the strategy I took with my eCommerce brands – I released one product, then used the money it generated to expand into other products.
As an added tip, you may consider promoting a wide range of products on your blog through Amazon’s affiliate program – then selectively choosing which products to manufacture based on what sells.
Swap out their link for yours, and you’re practically guaranteed to sell a similar number of units.
Conclusion
The fitness market is an incredibly exciting market to enter into, and there are plenty of different ways to grab a piece of it.
If you consider yourself to be a driven and motivated person, I believe it’s better to enter into a competitive market with plenty of room to grow, than a smaller market that you’ll be limited by within 1-2 years.
After all, in a market like this one, there is practically no limit to how much you can make.
I hope you found this article helpful. I have worked with several clients in this space in the past, so if there are any questions that I can answer for you, just let me know through the comment form below.
Thank you, and best of luck!
– James McAllister
Recommended Further Resources
Niche Selection Blueprint – If you still aren’t sure which niche you’d like to enter into or you want to learn how to analyze potential niches more deeply, click here to view my niche selection blueprint.
Blogging Course – If you’ve decided your niche and you’re ready to hit the ground running, enroll in my blogging course. It covers everything you need to know to build a successful blog in the competitive fitness market, through 60+ video lectures and tutorials.
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