The first post in this series about blogging looked at the differences between a blog and a website. In this article, we focus solely on blogging, in particular starting a profitable blog by selecting the perfect blog niche.
There’s no question that starting a blog is exciting! But eventually, you’ll run into challenges. Not knowing what to write is one such challenge. Can choosing a blog niche help?
Absolutely! Finding a niche for your blog will not only keep you from running out of ideas but will also help you attract the right readers. And attracting the right audience is ultimately what makes for a profitable blog.
So how exactly do you arrive at a perfect blog niche? One that guarantees an unlimited source of blog post ideas that help attract the right readers and make your content marketing efforts worth it? Keep reading to find that out and more.
What Is A Blog Niche And Why Do You Need One?
Before you learn how to pick a niche for your blog, you first need to know what a niche is and why you need to have one.
What Is A Niche?
A niche is a focused area of a broader market that businesses use to differentiate themselves from their competition. In simpler terms, a niche is just the topic that you decide to write about.
To run a successful blog you need to write and focus on only one niche. Sticking to one niche allows you to build trust with your target audience which gives you a larger market share of that community as opposed to having multiple niches.
So why exactly does your blog need to have a niche?
Why Your Blog Needs A Niche
Having a niche makes it possible for your blog to be found on search engines. Without one, it’s technically impossible to rank on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
“Why don’t I just write whatever I want on my blog without doing any research?” You might think.
Well, the answer is quite simple…
Doing research helps you know exactly what people want to read about. This saves you time by filtering out what works from what doesn’t.
Another reason why you can’t just write about anything is that the niche you might pick may have a lot of high authority websites ranking for it. These websites would bully your blog on SERP ranking.
Now that we’ve discussed what a niche is and why it’s important for your blog to have one, it’s time to look at how you can pick the perfect niche for your blog.
How To Pick The Perfect Blog Niche
There are a few questions that you need to ask yourself for you to know what kind of niche will work for you. These questions are many, however, in this article, we’ll only take a look at the most important ones.
1. What Topics Do You Like Talking About?
This needs to be the first question that you ask yourself before picking a niche topic for your blog. What can you talk about all day without breaking a sweat, what are you passionate about, or what are your hobbies?
Picking a topic that you have strengths in is important for the long-term survival of your blog. How? You might wonder… Well, it’s because a blog needs constant content to stay relevant.
Writing about a topic that you’re a professional in future-proofs your blog against turning irrelevant. This is because you’re a content goldmine on that topic.
An effective method you can use to find out which topic amongst your strengths is the best one to venture into is to put all of them to the test. Here’s how…
Take a pen and paper and brainstorm 10-20 blog post ideas just off the top of your head. Don’t overthink anything, just brainstorm and jot down literally every topic that crosses your mind. If you write 5 or fewer topics in a particular strength you have, it means that strength isn’t the right one to use for your blog.
On the other hand, if you come up with 10 or more topic ideas in one of your strengths, it means that topic is the one you should consider venturing into.
2. Can You Build High Domain Authority For That Niche On Your Blog?
After picking a topic you’re confident in, you need to do keyword research to determine how possible it is for you to build a strong domain authority on that topic.
The domain authority of a website describes its relevance for a specific subject area or industry.
Doing keyword research is an important step in picking a niche for your blog because it gives you insight into how easy on hard ranking for that specific topic is.
I.e. Let’s say you picked the topic of ‘sportswear’. How do you think your blog will perform on that particular topic? Not good at all. Why? Because your blog would have to go up against high domain authority websites like Nike, Adidas, Puma, and so on…
This precisely is why you need to do keyword research, to make sure the topics you want to rank for on SERPs are not too competitive. Because if they are, your blog might rank on Google’s 100th page (which no one will find).
An effective tool that you can use to make sure the topic you pick allows you to rank high on SERPs and build high domain authority is Ahref keyword explorer.
3. Is That Niche Profitable?
Something you need to be aware of is that not every niche is profitable. This question highly depends on the purpose of your blog. If the purpose of your blog is monetization, you’ll need to pick a profitable niche.
There are several ways that you can make money on a blog, some are:
- Displaying banner ads or other advertisements on your blog posts
- Writing about certain products with links to where people can buy (Affiliate Marketing)
- Selling your own products or services
There’s one thing that all the above-mentioned methods have in common. It’s that they all need a profitable niche to work.
I.e. Picking a niche covering ‘smartphones’ would be highly profitable because the majority of people today are willing to trade in an arm and leg to get the latest smartphones.
So if you pick a niche like ‘smartphones,’ make sure that:
- The banner abs or advertisements that you promote on your blog posts are related to that niche. (smartphones)
- The content you create on that niche should have affiliate links that take people to websites where they can purchase those smartphones from. (i.e. Apple, Samsung, Hauwei)
- If you sell smartphones or any accessories related to them, create content that tells people why they should buy your product and from where.
Wrapping Up
Blogging is really exciting once your boat sails but can be a real hassle if you’ve barely gotten on that boat. It’s so much of a hassle that you might not even want to get on that boat at all or jump right off immediately you hit a tide.
Finding the perfect niche is similar to getting on that boat. People might be eager to start a blog but get discouraged when they find out that it’s not as easy as just waking up and writing about whatever they dreamt of.
There’s a little effort needed to set sail on your blogging journey as seen in this article.
Knowing what to talk about, whether you can build strong domain authority, and whether the niche you pick is profitable are all important pieces of information that give you insight into whether your blogging boat will either stay afloat after setting sail or sink.
If lead generation is important to you, be sure to see our article on conversion-focused web design.
