Posted by So, you want to start a new blog?
We get it – it’s fun, and you can let your creativity roam free. Plus, you can earn real money with it.
But then the reality hits. What should you blog about? Is there a target audience for your blog?
Every blogger has asked themselves these questions once. And all of them came to a natural conclusion – you can’t just write about random things. You need a niche.
But how do you find the right one that actually sells?
For those of you who feel stuck or unsure, we’ve prepared a brief guide on how to decide what to blog about.
What is a blog niche, and why do you need to find it?
A blog niche is a topic you’ll cover in your blog posts. Niche blogging intends to promote a product or service to a niche market.
How narrow should blogging niches be?
As narrow as possible. Sometimes, beginner bloggers are interested in many topics and try to cover all of them in blog posts. But quite soon, they realize that their blog doesn’t bring any stable organic traffic or revenue.
Here are a few more reasons why you need to find the right niche if you want to start making money blogging:
- You’ll have an easier time finding blog post ideas. The fatigue of coming up with blogging ideas will hit you very soon if the scope of your blog is too wide. Finding your niche will significantly reduce your search area.
- You get a chance to become a niche expert. The more content you produce on one blog topic, the faster people will recognize you as an expert.
- A niche blog can turn you into a brand. When you build an authority in a niche, your blog can turn you into a personal brand. You’ll be able to monetize your blog content, build partnerships, and even turn your blogging efforts into a business.
The best part is that you don’t have to limit yourself to one specific topic once your blog takes off. It’s normal if your blog’s main topic runs its course, and when you notice that, you can slowly start introducing other related subtopics.
But just to give your blog a successful start, find your niche first.
How to find a profitable niche for blogging in 5 steps?
Now, let’s move on to practical advice and discuss how to pick a blog niche that fits your interests and brings revenue.
1. Consider your expertise
You can start choosing a blog niche by browsing your interests and knowledge. You might be passionate about one of your college subjects. Or maybe you are really into the news about the royal family.
Can’t think of anything specific?
In this case, you can browse trending topics on social media. For instance, Twitter picks daily trends based on your location:
Google Trends can also come in handy: if you’ve found a trend and want to see its growth over time, this tool can help you track this data. In the example below, we picked recycling from trends on Twitter and traced its growth through Google Trends:
If the value is around 100, it means the search term is trendy, and deserves more spotlight. So, if you don’t know how to find a niche that would sell, turn to data for help.
2. Research to validate your ideas
Now, how do you know that your niche choice will end up bringing you revenue?
That’s right, even the most trending topics and unique blog ideas don’t guarantee that your blogging efforts will pay off. The solution to this is to do some more research to verify your niche choice.
Start by picking a topic and researching similar blogs to see how they monetize their writing. Here’s an example of how to do it.
Since we started talking about recycling, let’s pick this topic as our blog niche, and Trash is for Tossers as a blog example from this niche. How does this blog make money? It sells products from recycled materials, which is super relevant for its niche:
You can go ahead and check every blog in your niche. Do they sell products similar to the one in the example above? Or maybe they offer consultations or do affiliate programs? Their practices can give you ideas on how to monetize your blog later.
Next, you can involve social listening to research blogging niches. Sites like Quora and Reddit, as well as Slack groups, can provide you with some niche insights. Here’s what people are currently talking about on Reddit regarding recycling:
As you can see, quite a few subreddits have many upvotes indicating that recycling is frequently discussed. From these subreddits, you can also pick up some blog post topic ideas.
And, of course, you can’t do comprehensive niche research without Google. Pick a few niche-specific keywords and go to Google to see if people are looking for content related to them. Checking the People Also Ask and Related Searches sections can widen your search and supply you with blog post ideas.
3. Ask these 5 questions
Picking the most profitable niches and topics won’t work out if you aren’t sure you will enjoy writing posts on them. So, before you create a blog, ask yourself the following questions to really understand how you feel about your niche choice:
- How deep is my knowledge of this niche?
- Would I be interested in paying for helpful content on this topic?
- Will this niche be around in five or ten years?
- What are my expectations for this blog?
- Will I still be as interested in writing posts on this topic in one year?
Essentially, what you’re doing here is self-reflection. Your niche research may be showing that you absolutely can make money from your blog. But will it work out well if you’re not that interested in this specific niche? Hardly.
4. Pick the best niche and start a blog
You know now that your blog niche idea should fall in the sweet spot between passion, knowledge, and profitability potential. Now, let’s see what you need to do to start a blog that generates profits.
First and foremost, you need to find the best blogging platform for your needs and choose a domain name. There are several criteria you need to keep in mind:
- easy setup
- SEO-friendly blog themes
- features that help your blog grow (content editors, form builders, etc.)
The bottom line here is to choose the platform that is easy to operate, but that’s also not taking the control away from you.
Once you’ve made up your mind regarding the blogging platform, you can finally start your blog and create content. At this point, a content map and a schedule are a must to keep you consistent. Apart from that, strengthen your SEO practices from the beginning to up your blog’s visibility and bring qualified organic traffic.
When your blog kicks off, you can also start thinking about some growth strategies. For example, you can consider affiliate marketing. Do some email outreach to relevant companies to see whether there’s a field for a mutually beneficial collaboration. A newsletter is also a good way to get more readers.
5. Monitor your results and adjust your strategy
Blogging doesn’t end when a post gets published. It’s an ongoing goal-oriented strategy that often needs adjustments to work properly.
So, after all the niche-picking, think about what goals you would like to achieve with your blog. Your blogging goals should be:
- Specific – there is a certain area of improvement.
- Measurable – the goal has specific criteria and indicators of progress.
- Assignable – you have the knowledge and skills to reach the goal.
- Realistic – you have the resources to achieve the goal.
- Time-bound – you can achieve the goal within a given time limit.
This is a SMART model, and it works great to help you set clear and achievable goals based on the resources you currently have.
What happens after you’ve defined the goals and launched a blog?
For starters, you’ll have to continuously monitor your monetization efforts. In this case, you should assign each monetization strategy a set of performance metrics. For example, if you use affiliate marketing, you may have to track the number of clicks, the conversion rate, or the number of sales actions depending on your goals.
Also, you’ll have to keep expanding your blog content strategy to get more leads. You may experiment with collaboration, create online courses, offer exclusive checklists and guides, and so on. The goal is to keep your niche blog engaging and competitive.
6 Best niche blog ideas for 2021
Figuring out what to blog about can be quite a hurdle, especially if you have many interests. So, for those who want to start a blog but struggle with making the right choice, we’ve prepared a list of the six best blogging niches based on the study by The Blog Millionaire.
- Digital marketing – search engine optimization, link building, SMM, types of online advertising, content marketing, etc.
- Personal finance – mortgages, banking, investing, loans, insurance, retirement, etc.
- Food – baking, gourmet dishes, meal prep, diet-related recipes, drinks, and so on.
- Lifestyle – fashion, beauty, health and wellness, home décor, DIY, etc.
- Parenting – early childcare, the psychology of upbringing, child sleep, healthy recipes for kids, and so on.
- Travel – road trips, tours, hotel comparisons, etc.
According to the study mentioned above, food, finance, and lifestyle topics are the top types of blogs that bring money. But in reality, any niche can sell well if you’re passionate about it and smart about your blogging strategy.
5 examples of great profitable niche blogs
Let’s finish off our small guide on how to find a niche in blogging with a few wonderful examples. These blogs prove why focusing on a niche is the only way to successfully monetize your blogging efforts.
1. Adam Enfroy’s Blog
The goal of this blog is to teach future online entrepreneurs how to build their businesses through technology. Adam Enfroy’s blog focuses on reviewing different software types based on real-life evidence to help the readers find the options that suit their needs. The blog currently has half a million monthly readers.
2. One Hour Professor
The next one on our list of popular blogs is Ron Stefanski’s One Hour Professor. This niche blog is all about teaching internet marketing and blogging on YouTube, in particular. Ron grows his blog with free online courses called IGNITION and YouTube Secrets.
3. Pick up Limes
In the food blogging and vegan recipes niche, Pick up Limes definitely stands out. Sadia Badiei is a prime example of how you can turn your passion into a niche blog. Being a licensed dietitian, Sadia created Pick up Limes for those who struggle to find nutritious vegan recipes.
4. Teach4TheHeart
Education was not on our popular blog niche list, but since the pandemic outbreak, the topic of online classroom management has been gaining momentum. Teach4TheHeart is one of the blogs that uncover the topic of effective classroom management, with courses, books, a podcast, and other resources available for learning.
5. The Big Picture
We’ve mentioned that financial advice is among the top blogging niches, and The Big Picture is a great example of such a niche blog. It’s all about personal investments, mortgages, and financial education. The blog gets monetized through financial consultations.
Get to Blogging!
Blogging on its own is an excellent opportunity to let your creativity out. But if you want to know how to blog for profit, you need to find your niche first.
First off, analyze what you already know. There’s a possibility you are already good at something, so you can turn your knowledge into a blog.
In case your interests are too broad, browse trends on social media and Google Trends to find niche topics that can actually bring you money.
Next, validate your choice through research. Take a look at how other blogs monetize their efforts. Social listening can also tell if you’re moving in the right direction.
But all these tips aside, listen to yourself. Does a blogging niche give you the chills of excitement? If yes, then go ahead, set goals and KPIs, and start blogging!
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