How to find the right niche for an online course
How to choose a niche for a video course: three filters (problem, audience, proof), how to use Google Trends and audience questions, and mistakes to avoid.
"I teach marketing" isn't a niche. "I teach physiotherapists how to find their first private patients with Instagram" is. The difference shows up everywhere: in the course promise, in the free content you publish, in the people who message you and, in the end, in sales.
This guide is for creators who want to turn what they know into a video course and don't know where to start. It offers three filters, a few free tools and a cheap final test.
What is a niche and why does it matter?
A niche is the intersection of a specific problem and a specific group of people. It matters because everything else, from the sales page to social content, becomes easier to write when you know exactly who you're talking to and why.
A broad niche forces vague promises ("improve your photos"); a narrow one allows concrete promises ("deliver your first wedding shoot without flash in the church"). Concrete promises are understood in a second, and that second is when people decide whether to keep reading. We cover this in how to write a sales page for an online course.
Which filters should you use?
Three filters, in order: the problem, the audience, proof that someone pays. A niche that passes all three deserves a test; one that fails any of them needs rethinking.
| Question to ask | How to check it | |
|---|---|---|
| The problem hurts enough | Easy | Medium |
| You can reach the audience | Easy | Easy |
| Someone already pays to solve it | Medium | Easy |
| You have a different angle from competitors | Medium | Medium |
Our editorial framework. 'Easy', 'medium' and 'hard' describe how easy it is to answer honestly, not how much the filter matters.
The problem
A good problem for a course is urgent, recurring and costly to ignore. Someone with a wedding to shoot next month has an urgent problem; someone who would like to learn photography "one day" doesn't. Look for the problems people ask you about repeatedly, in the same words.
The audience
You need to reach these people through channels you already use. If your Instagram audience is mostly university students, a course for company executives starts with nobody listening. Your current audience is the first practical filter.
Proof that someone pays
If courses, books, consulting or paid tools already exist on the topic, someone spends money to solve that problem. That isn't a bad sign: it confirms the market exists. Your job is to find a different angle.
How do you use Google Trends?
To compare different phrasings of the same topic and see whether interest is stable, growing or seasonal. In its Trends FAQ, Google explains that the data comes from a sample of searches, that each data point is divided by the total searches in that place and time range, and that the result is scaled from 0 to 100. Very low-volume terms show up as zero.
So Trends doesn't say how many people search for something: it shows how relative interest changes. Use it to choose between "wedding photography course" and "learn wedding photography", or to discover that a topic spikes every spring. For absolute volumes you need other tools, as we explain in SEO for creators.
- Maximum value: peak interest in the chosen period
- 100
- Very low volumes show up as zero
- 0
- Phrasings to compare at most, to keep it readable
- 3
Google, 'FAQ about Google Trends data'. The third figure is our suggestion.
Where do you find your audience's questions?
Wherever people write in their own words: comments on your content, newsletter replies, DMs, live Q&A, industry groups and forums. Collect questions in a spreadsheet for two weeks, group them by theme and count how often each comes up.
The most frequent questions are candidates for your course; their exact wording becomes the headings of your sales page and free content. A short survey completes the picture, as we explain in audience surveys for creators.
An example
A physiotherapist with 8,000 followers collects the questions she receives for two weeks. Of 60 messages, 22 ask how to find private patients without paying booking platforms, 15 are about back exercises, the rest are scattered. Her first idea, a back-pain exercise course, targets a huge audience already full of free content. The second, a course for fellow physiotherapists who want their first private patients, has an urgent problem, an audience she already reaches and existing paid products, a sign that people spend money. She also has a different angle: she actually did it, starting from zero two years earlier. As a result, she picks the second niche and tests it with a 20-seat pre-sale. In practice, the numbers from the questions decided instead of her preferences. The example is made up, but the method is the one we recommend.
How do you test the niche?
With a pre-sale: describe the course, set a price, open a limited number of seats and decide in advance how many bookings you need to go ahead. If you miss the threshold, you've saved weeks of recording. We walk through it in validating a course idea with a pre-sale.
Which mistakes should you avoid?
- Choosing on passion alone. Passion helps, but the problem must be urgent for the buyer.
- Staying generic for fear of excluding people. Talking to everyone convinces nobody in particular.
- Hunting for zero competition. It often means zero demand.
- Trusting a single signal. Three agreeing signals beat one rising chart.
- Skipping the test. Opinions are cheap; bookings tell the truth.
Key terms. A niche is the intersection of a problem and a group of people. An angle is what makes your offer different from those that already exist. Relative interest is the Google Trends value, scaled from 0 to 100 against the peak.
How we checked. We read Google's FAQ on Trends data. The three filters and the example are ours. We found no independent data on how much a narrow niche lifts sales, so we don't quote figures. Contact: hi@heytea.app. Editorial note: we check every figure against the sources listed below and correct mistakes openly.
Frequently asked questions
What is a niche for an online course?
The intersection of a specific problem and a specific group of people: not 'photography', but 'wedding photography for people who have just gone freelance'. A narrow niche makes it easier to write the course promise, find the right people and be remembered.
Doesn't a narrow niche shrink the audience too much?
It shrinks the theoretical audience but grows the audience that buys. People who recognise themselves in a specific promise decide faster. You can always widen later with a second course or an extra module; narrowing a course that started generic is much harder.
How do you use Google Trends to choose a niche?
To compare relative interest between two or three phrasings of the same topic and see whether it is stable or seasonal. Google explains that Trends uses a sample of searches and scales values from 0 to 100: it doesn't tell you how many people search, but how interest changes over time and between places.
Which signals tell you a niche works?
Three concrete ones: people often ask you the same question about the topic, paid products on it already exist (so someone spends money), and a small group agrees to book or pay in advance. The third is the most reliable.
Should I pick a niche with no competition?
Usually not. Zero competitors often means nobody is willing to pay. Better a niche with competitors where you can offer a different angle: a more specific audience, a different format, a different language or starting level.
Sources
- Google, "FAQ about Google Trends data". Accessed 19 October 2026. support.google.com