First steps to create a niche

The Creative Process:
I am not known for my creative ability, so this is an area where a little imagination can make a half-decent idea out of some of my half-baked ones. That said, I occasionally have a light-bulb moment...
The best niches must be related to a subject that will create sufficient traffic, the last one I tried was the Credit Crunch which I worked out would certainly figure in internet searches, and of the few I have tried, this one has been moderately successful. The other key element to monetising a niche is to discover whether the Adsense Ads are going to generate a satisfactory pay-per-click return. There are ways to do this, but you can always start by creating a page and seeing what adverts appear - obviously you can't click on them, but if you can generate some traffic and get clicks 'organically' then you can quickly assess the results. The PPC revenue will depend on the competition for the keywords in your content.
Once you have settled on your niche, it would be a good idea to see what domains are available for that niche, ideally for the niche keyword itself, ideally on a dot com. The best domains are of course already in use, so some creativity is needed for this process. If you use GoDaddy for domain searching, they will offer plenty of alternatives that are available if your desired keyword is already taken. Of course you don't NEED your keyword in the domain, but the power of both domain and page URL in getting SERP should not be underestimated... My strategy has been to find a domain that I may use, but before I take the plunge I am going to try a page or two on an existing unrelated domain so that I can assess whether there will be any interest in my niche.
I should add that as well as being 'popular' your niche should ideally be something you know a bit about and are interested in, you don't want to be stuck with a niche that does not interest you at all. If your niche starts to take off, you will want to add more content and pages, so having an interest and an extended source of information is essential. In my opinion it is quite acceptable to gather information from different internet sources as long as you don't copy them out verbatim without attributing ownership or asking permission. I would say that if you accumulate information from a number of sources and reproduce that information in your own unique way, then your content is unique both in terms of Google's requirements and morally. There is however a fine line between lazy 'research' and plagiarism - more about this in the next installment...