Settling for a niche for your blog can be frustrating. Like most people, you are passionate about a zillion ideas, or you are comfortable being a generalist, and zeroing in on one niche is heartbreaking.
While your blog can have more than one niche, niching down enhances your authority and credibility. You can immerse yourself in one field of study and be an expert.
But how do you find a profitable niche for your blog that you love? This blog provides helpful tips to help you choose the perfect blog niche.
You might also enjoy reading: Can a Blog Have More Than One Niche? (Yes! and here’s how!)
What Is a Blog Niche?
A blog niche is its primary focus, which can be about anything from fashion, health, and wellness to food. In addition, a niche blog must also offer valuable information to a readership with useful, helpful, and engaging content.
In other words, a blog niche is a specific topic you want to write or create content about. For instance, if you love video games and want to build a blog around them, what would be your niche?
Most beginners mess up by trying to create content for everybody interested in the gaming industry. This is a sure way to fail in your blogging journey.
Here is how to define a blog niche:
- Understand your target audience. Most industries are huge; therefore, it is vital to specialize in your ideal audience.
- If we go back to the example of the gaming industry, instead of writing for everyone, you can use one type of game, like first-person shooters, and focus on it.
Why You Need a Blog Niche?
Why should you niche down instead of roaming from one topic to another? While no internet police will knock on your door for not sticking to one niche, you will likely succeed with a focused approach. Your target audience may not love all your topics, making it challenging to build a following without specialization.
Sticking to one topic or niche can guarantee loyal readers who know you are an expert in your writing field.
For example, if you write in the tech industry, you could only target graphic designers, thus avoiding other niche audiences like developers, ex-pats, writers, podcasters, and marketers.
Five Practical Tips For Finding a Profitable Blog Niche
The tips we are about to discuss can help you find a perfect blog niche to generate traffic to your website and build a successful online business.
1- Select a Topic You Are Passionate About
The first step to choosing a blog niche that makes money is focusing on a topic that speaks to your soul. While starting a blog- buying a domain, building a website, and publishing your first article- can be exciting, most bloggers give up after a few months.
Why? They lose interest in the blog niche. This underscores the need to choose a topic you like to read and discuss.
And you have several options. You can choose a niche for your work, hobby, or a machine you recently bought.
Should you be an expert on this topic? No. But the subject should excite you when talking about it.
So, how do you know a niche excites you? Think about topics you love reading about or watching on YouTube. You could also examine your home environment and daily life for ideas. Write at least 10 topics you love from your head.
Which one can you explain passionately without a lot of reading? Are other people also passionate about the topic? Can you get money from it?
If the answers to the questions are positive, then that could be an ideal blog niche. Now choose a blog post topic on this niche and start reading about it before writing.
2- Research The Viability Of The Topic
The next step is to establish the profitability of the topic. Does your blog niche have enough audience? If you are passionate about a topic with numerous products to sell, but it does not interest your audience, you may not make money.
What can help you to decide correctly? A little research will go a long way. The research will reveal the audience size and the competition level for your focus on the topic. And you can get this information on Google Trends.
For instance, if you choose “water fasting” as your niche, you can use Google Trends to see the interest level on the topic.
This tool provides insight into two essential data points:
- Are people searching for your niche?
- Is the interest in your niche improving or declining?
While Google trends may not offer conclusive analysis, it is an excellent place to start. If you desire a stable blog, avoid blog niches with declining interest.
The above data from Google trends shows that water fasting is an ideal topic to blog on. In the last 5 years, there has been stable interest in the topic, projected to rise in the coming months.
This means you have enough and a ready audience for your blog for several years ahead.
3- Narrow Down To a Smaller Niche
A niche can have enough audience, but the completion could also be higher.
How do you know the amount of competition a niche has? Google the topic and see the number of search results appearing at the top of the page.
Consider the example of water fasting:
The result shows 162,000,000 blogs targeting this keyword. The topic is too broad to target, with too many competitors. Your chances of ranking or reaching your target audience are slimmer if you focus on “water fasting.”
Fortunately, you can avoid competing with big authority websites by narrowing it to a smaller niche.
How can you do that? Scroll to the bottom of page one and see some suggestions.
You can choose one of the alternative topics on the above list. But it does not mean that they all have low competition. So, test them using AdWord Planner or other SEO tools to establish the number of people that search the word monthly.
For instance, Ubbersuggest provides keyword results for “water fasting benefits.”
The benefit of water fasting is a relatively good topic with an average of 4,400 search volume. This also shows it has low competition.
Including related keywords on your blog topics goes a long way in reaching your target audience, so ensure you include these keywords. You can use premium or free keyword tools, but you can also do keyword research without tools.
4- Search For Products And Services In Your Niche
You can choose a blog that interests you and your audience, but it is worthless if you can’t profit from it. Most people start blogging to make money, so look for a blog niche with money-making opportunities.
You have probably seen some bloggers mention sponsored products or services through affiliate marketing. It is one way bloggers make money, but your blog niche must be relevant to the product you promote.
Since your readers consider you an expert on your blog niche, you will likely sway them to buy a related product or service. Affiliate marketing allows you to make a commission on every sale from your website.
You could also attract sponsored ads, where you charge companies for their ads on your site. This is possible if your website has high traffic.
But how do you know if your blog niche is profitable?
Choosing a profitable niche requires researching to see if it has a market for products or services you can promote. A direct way to know this is to see if brands or businesses advertise on your keywords.
Are people spending money to advertise products or services targeting keywords in your niche? Sometimes Google ads may show you several adverts at the top of page one targeting the exact keywords.
Alternatively, you can go to amazon to see which products feature your keyword. You can then approach these companies and offer affiliate marketing.
For instance, “water fasting” on amazon brings these products.
You can join Amazon’s affiliate program to advertise or promote some of its products for a commission.
Furthermore, you can write reviews on water fasting guides and list the best fuel powders as you link these affiliate products.
5- Launch The Blog Site
Procrastination is of the worst enemies of progress. Some people postpone their blogging journey even after getting all things right!
Instead of waiting until you are “ready,” plunge into the deep waters and begin writing. You can only expand your audience and profit from it through writing, so start.
Other aspects of your website, like traffic and profitability, will come.
Blogging is like any other business; start selling once you know your product or service. People want to hear what you say even if you think otherwise.
What to read next:
- How Long Should a Blog Be to Rank on Google?
- Ways For Using Pinterest For Blogging: Beginners’ guide.
- 3 Best Free Blogging Sites (And how to use them!)
- 9 Unique Ways to Do Keyword Research Without Tools.
Follow The Rules After Choosing a Profitable Niche
Once you have chosen a perfect blogging niche, research and write killer content to help you stand out from the competition.
Maintain consistency to hook your audience, and in time you will see high traffic for your site.
Of course, don’t forget content distribution. You can have the best content for your blog, but it needs to reach your target audience. Email marketing and social media marketing are suitable distribution methods.
Did you find these tips practical in finding a niche for your blog?