A blog niche is a specific topic you will focus on throughout your blogging journey. Finding the right niche is one of the most crucial steps of starting a blog, as it will be the foundation of your content.
Depending on who you are, coming up with that perfect niche to blog about can be the easiest or toughest part of getting started. You may already know what you want to blog about, or you may know you want to start a blog but you don’t know what to write about yet.
Brainstorming
Start by making a list of your interests. Don’t limit yourself to what you think would make a good blog niche, just jot everything down. Think about your hobbies, skills, routines and habits. What do you read about, listen to, and watch regularly? What are some significant things you’ve accomplished in the past?
Once you think your list is complete, start running back through your list for good blog niches. Your perfect niche could already be written on your page, or it could stem from something you’ve written. For example, perhaps you’ve written “fitness” as an interest – you can branch this out into great niche’s such as “everyday home fitness” or “crossfit moms.”
The most important factors in choosing a successful niche are:
- Your Interest & Experience on the Subject
- Size of the Niche Audience
- Competitors in the Market
- Monetization Potential
Your Interest & Experience on the Subject
You must be passionate about your chosen niche. You will be regularly posting new content, and it’s important that you won’t run out of interest or ideas.
If you have a passion for the topic you’re writing about, you’re more likely to continue putting in the time and stick with it.
Your interest and experience will be reflected in your writing, and your readers will feel your passion. If you don’t actually have an understanding of what you’re righting about, your readers will not take you seriously.
Size of the Niche Audience
Google Trends is a great resource for finding how many people are looking for your potential niche. Try searching your niche, keeping it as brief as possible. Example: If your potential niche is “keto meals” just search those two words.
Don’t only look at the number of people searching, but also the overall trend. Does it seem to be on a down-ward trend? If so, you may want to rethink your niche.
Competitors in the Market
Google can help you with this one, too. Do a quick search on Google to see how many results come up.
The sweet-spot you’re looking for here, is between 1 million and 50 million results. I know, it sounds like a lot, but trust me. If your key words come up with less than 1 million results, then your topic is likely “too niche” or just not profitable at all. If there are over 50 million results, it’s going to be a lot harder to break into this market and get your blog to the top of the page.
Try broadening or narrowing your niche to get into this “sweet-spot.”
Monetization Potential
There are several different ways to monetize your blog. You will have to determine which methods you plan to use to generate revenue from your blog, while staying on-niche.
- Affiliate Marketing
- Google Adsense
- Sponsored Posts
Other avenues could be direct product sales (either physical or virtual products) if you have a product to sell.
Affiliate Marketing
Put simply, Affiliate Marketing is the process of recommending products you believe in on your blog, and earning a commission when your viewers purchase said product. This is one of the most-used methods of monetizing blogs.
When thinking about your blog niche, think about what kind of products you could try to earn commission with. For example, if your niche is “family camping” you could be referring to recommendations for camping equipment such as: tents, back-packing gear, camping stoves etc.
The top two recommended Affiliate Marketing platforms are: Amazon Associates and ClickBank. Amazon Associates is geared more toward physical products (think anything you would shop for on Amazon.ca) and ClickBank is for promoting virtual products (such as software, e-learning etc).
Even if your wheels are now turning thinking of all the ways you could leverage both platforms, we recommend starting with one or the other, and expanding your options down the line once you’re feeling comfortable and confident.
It’s important to always promote products that you truly believe in. The last thing you want is for your blog to be solely tacky pushy sales pitches, constantly trying to pressure your viewers to just buy the product with the highest commissions.
Google AdSense
Google takes a lot of the work out of placing ads on your website, with great flexibility. You can choose between: text, images, rich media, video, animated image, AdSense for Search.
Make sure not to drown out your own content using ads, as that can be very annoying to your readers. Also keep in mind, that while ad revenue can be quite fruitful, you are also driving your viewers away from your website and content.
Read more and get started with Google AdSense.
Sponsored Posts
Creating sponsored posts is being the “influencer” of blogging. This method can bring you a great bang for your buck with an immediate return, but it can be tough if your blog is in the beginning phases.
Sponsored posts come in various forms, such as: product reviews/recommendations or an article about a company. Once you start gaining traction with your blog, you will have a valuable “soapbox” where your opinion with be valued – and sponsors will recognize that!
Read more about monetization opportunities: 3 Ways to Make Money Blogging
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