Well, here you are ready to start a blog and you don’t know what to blog about.
What the heck happened here?
You wanted to start a blog and now you’re hearing about niches and about being too broad and narrowing it down and all you wanted to do was start a dang blog!
In this post, I’m going to talk about choosing a niche, being broad, and narrowing it down but of course, I have something extra.
I do a lot of research for a post and I read a lot of information, a lot! I’m that one that will read 25 pages of posts in Google because I want to know what others are saying and I’m learning and finding out a lot of things and these things make me wonder, who is really right?
There are two sides to every story and turns out this topic is no exception and I’m about to share both of them.
To Niche or Not to Niche, do you really need one?
Let’s find out…
Why Do You Need To Choose a Niche?
Well, you really don’t, but I’ll get into that later, right now I’ll explain why it is suggested that you choose a niche:
1) A niche will help you to figure out who your audience is, the exact reader that you want to come to your site and turn into customers.
2) Then a niche will help you focus on what content to write for your specific audience.
3) And also what products to create for them.
4) And focusing on a specific topic will help you to become an expert in that niche, which will help you to become an online authority.
So, those are a few examples of why you should choose a specific niche.
But what is it?
What Exactly is a Blog Niche?
A blog niche, because that’ what we’re doing, blogging, is a topic of focus for your content. Niche blogging is creating content for a specific market. It’s a specific topic for a specific group of people, that you’re trying to reach. You’re not talking to everyone.
But after you decide on a niche, you need to figure out if you can narrow it down.
What Does It Mean to Narrow Your Niche Down?
Narrowing down is just focusing on a topic that has been broken down into a smaller topic, to talk to a smaller audience.
If you’re blogging about recipes, that’s a good niche, but it’s very broad, and broad means that it can cover a lot of topics, and there are all kinds of recipes, but if you blog about southern recipes, vegan recipes, or just baking, that’s narrowed down.
Another example: there are very popular sites that blog about traveling, that’s broad because you can travel anywhere, anytime, to any place, in all kinds of transportation, but there are sites that blog about traveling with kids, teens, best places for families; their audience is families that want to travel with kids to do family stuff together on vacation, that’s narrowed down.
You’re choosing one audience for one topic but you don’t want to go too narrow because then you won’t be able to venture out and talk about other things.
Take, for example, baking. If you blogged about vegan baking, then you’re only vegan baking, and your audience is for vegans, but if you blog about baking but posted about gluten-free baking, vegan baking, and regular baking, you grew your audience and added more content to publish.
So how do you find a niche, know the why?
The Purpose of Blogging
First, to find a blog niche, you have to know the purpose of blogging.
1) The main reason people want to start a blog is to make money.
2) But the main purpose of blogging should be to help someone.
And this makes a lot of sense; when you think about the last time you looked up a search inquiry in a search engine, how did you do it? Most likely in the form of a question, because you needed information that was going to help you. When I think about how I search, I use terms like “what is”, “how-to”, “explain”, or “define”.
And that is how other people search the internet also, they’re looking for help, a solution, a tutorial, maybe a guide or an idea.
When you’re trying to figure out if you should blog in a certain niche, you need to ask yourself, “what will you be able to provide to your reader that will help them?”
Because if you have nothing to offer them, how will they ever be interested in what you’re selling?
Now, how do you decide what you want your blog to be about?
Finding Your Passion
Some say to figure out what your niche is, you should go with your passion.
What does that even mean?
Passion is defined as a strong feeling.
Something you feel so strongly about and maybe it’s something you already know and have been doing way before you ever thought about blogging.
Are you passionate about exercising? Maybe bike riding? How about healthy eating? Are you passionate about grammar mistakes and writing? What about writing reviews? Do you love creating crafts?
USE IT!!
If you already know what interests you, just go with it! You don’t need a quiz or a post to help you figure out what you already know. Don’t start searching the internet because you’ll just confuse yourself trying to take in more than you can.
You already know this!
If you love what you’re passionate about and can write about it because it’s something you enjoy doing, then use it!
Popular Money-Making Niches
Now, we all know you’re not here just to blog, you’re blogging to make money and even though it’s not a guarantee, you still want to try with a profitable niche.
And there are hundreds of profitable niches out there.
And there are tons of niches out there that people think are not profitable but those bloggers are making money.
The thing about choosing a niche just because it’s a popular money-making niche can totally backfire on you.
- What will you be able to provide to an audience in this topic?
- Can you go up against authoritative sites that are ranking on page one with what you know or don’t?
Because blogging is all about your content and making yourself an expert.
And if you think that you can just throw up a site because it’s in a popular niche and start making money the next day, you’re fooling yourself.
Just because you decide to blog in a niche based on the fact that it brings in tons of money for other bloggers doesn’t mean it will for you.
Not everyone can do everything.
If you’re not willing to put the work into learning it inside and out, then don’t do it.
You need to be honest with yourself, you could pick any niche, but can you make yourself an authority? Are you going to stick with it and are you going to invest your time, money, and energy to creating a business around it?
Blogging in a Niche That Interests You
Now, I know I just finished telling you not to waste your time on a money-making niche, and I meant; if your ONLY purpose was to blog in that niche because you think you’re going to cash in on it, without putting in any effort.
Remember, the purpose? you need to help someone.
So, blogging about something that is new and exciting, because it really interests you is totally different.
And choosing a niche that interests you and still happens to fall in the money-making niche area, can help you get to where you want to be.
I started a food blog, and here I am blogging about blogging. I picked one of the most popular hardest competitive niches to get into.
Why? Because at first I was really really really like extra really frustrated about this blogging thing and how to do it. I couldn’t figure out crap, signing up for a host was super easy, but of course, they would make that the easiest thing, because they want your money, but it was afterward that had me losing my cheese!
I looked high and low for information; blogs, websites, guides, tutorials, books, anything I could find and I just couldn’t get all that I needed, it’s like everything was a secret and I thought, “if I’m having this much trouble someone else has to be experiencing the same thing”.
And I was right, for over a year, I was on every blogging group I could get on because that’s what I thought I needed to do and where I needed to be and I was shocked but not sad that I wasn’t the only one who has cried while trying to start a blog, in fact, many have.
So, long story short, if you want to know the rest you’ll have to read my about page, but the point of this story is; I have always enjoyed researching, I love knowing stuff, and the more I got into this blogging thing and figuring it out, the more it interested me because it has something to do with what I enjoy; researching and helping people.
Blogging in a niche you know nothing about but are super interested in, is perfect. You just have to put the work into it. I’m not gonna lie, it takes me about 2 weeks to write a post and that includes researching it. But I really enjoy doing it and giving the best that I can give.
So, if you’re interested in something that you’ve never done before, take a look at this post, blogging in a niche you know nothing about.
And if you know that you have something you can offer and it’s valuable and you’re going give it you’re all, because that’s how much it excites you, then do it!
Because any site can be outranked.
So How Do You Decide on the Right Niche for You?
Blog about something you already know, something you feel strongly about, something you apply to your lifestyle every day. What do you already do?
Or
Blog about something that interests you, having a hard time? Think of it as starting some courses that you have to pay for, what classes would you take? Then check into it and see if it does really interests you.
How to Choose a Profitable Niche?
I’m about to get real with you and I’m going to tell you straight up, just because you choose a profitable niche you’re passionate about or interested in doesn’t mean it’s going to be profitable for you.
Can you make money from it? Yes, I believe you can, anything is possible.
Will you make money from it? We don’t know that.
The reason you’re going to read a lot of me saying, “it doesn’t mean you will” or “trying” or “it’s not a guarantee”, is because too many people fall into the trap of thinking: “start a blog and make a full-time income and then some” because every site you’ve read says they’re doing it and you can too.
Of course, you can too. I’m not saying you can’t make money, but you’re only going to go as far as you want. If you’re not making it in 6 months, you might quit, if you’re only making $10 in 9 months you might quit, but then again if you hold on for 2-3 years you might start making a full-time income, you never know, it might even take 5 years, we still don’t know.
So choosing a profitable niche, means you’re going to have to work for it. It’s not automatic.
Almost anything can be made profitable with a plan.
Decide what you want to blog about; passion or interest.
Search for “types of blogging niches” and read the posts that give lists, sometimes seeing something visually makes a world of difference.
You have to do the work into this, no one is going to hand you over a plate of success, you need to know what you’re getting into and what you can do to make it a business and that means starting now.
Take your niche and research it, look at what other bloggers are doing:
- How many searches is it getting?
- What are they writing about it?
- Do they have a lot of posts?
- What are the people saying in the comments?
Now:
- What kind of ads do they have on their sites?
- What kind of affiliate links are they promoting in their posts?
- Are they selling digital products they created?
When you think about what you want to blog about, ask yourself:
- Can I make this profitable?
- What posts can I write that will provide valuable information and keep bringing readers back?
- What resources can I recommend to start my affiliate marketing?
- Are there any course, guides, templates or an eBook I could create?
- What freebie can I create and offer for an email sign up?
These are the questions you should be asking yourself to figure out if your niche is profitable or not.
Because to make money you need to turn your readers into customers and only you can do that, with your wonderful content creations.
When checking out other sites, you don’t have to read every site out there, pick the top three sites that you’re interested in, that you think would be your competition, and do it better than them. Way better!!
Now, I’m not telling you to copy them, never ever would I tell anyone that, and if you’re not familiar with that, then you need to read “blogging etiquette”, where I break down the one ultimate rule, every blogger should know. What I am telling you is to use those sites as inspiration and then create our own original content.
Then, of course, some have a hard time trying to decide about a niche, so if that’s you, here’s that extra I mentioned…..
Can You Start a Blog Without a Niche?
Yes, just start! If you’re looking for a potential niche and can’t decide on one right now, just start!
A lot of people start without a niche and will put content out there, I mean that’s one of the reasons we wanted to start blogging, right? To get our stuff out there.
It’s after the content is out and getting views, that they see what types of posts are picking up traffic and that is when they start to realize what their niche is or should be because whatever is getting the traffic is what people want to read about.
Another way newbie bloggers will figure it out is when they actually start blogging and posting, then they start to realize what interests them and what they enjoy writing and learning about.
Remember, what I said before? I started a food blog, but I really enjoy writing and learning about blogging.
So, yes, you can start a blog without a niche and figure it out as you go, the most important thing is to START.
Don’t let not having a niche hold you back, just get out there.
START!!!
Now if you think that you can’t start because you don’t want a niche, think again….
Do You Really Need a Niche?
No, you don’t.
First off, you don’t have to do what everyone else is doing or just because other bloggers say you need one to be successful and make money.
Having a blog niche doesn’t mean any of that, that’s them and what works for one may not work for others.
There are tons of bloggers, very successful ones, that are not niched down and blog about many things and still have an audience and have made themselves into an online authority.
And if this is the route you decide to go, you’ll work your blog just like a niched blogger.
You just need to create a way to get yourself to stand out and get noticed so that people will want to come to your blog, the same thing bloggers have to do that have a niche, it’s no different.
And
- You’ll need to market yourself, which you still need to do with a niche.
- Build your brand, the same way other bloggers do.
- Write excellent quality content, the same.
- Focus on keywords in your posts, still doing the same thing.
- Make yourself an online authority, nothing’s changed, still the same thing here.
Promote yourself:
- Run some Facebook ads, like other bloggers.
- Contact other bloggers that are multi-niched and sell yourself for a guest post. Non-niched bloggers have guests posts too, you know.
- Go where your audience hangs out on social media and interact with them and promote yourself there. Sell yourself, share your stuff and bring people to your site, because even though they come for one post, another post may catch their eye, just like other sites.
All you need to do is lead the way and get them to your site and if your site is worth something, they may become your audience, niched or not.
If you’re great at a lot of things and you want to explore writing about different things, there is no law that says you need to choose a niche and there is no guarantee that a niche blog will make you successful, the same as a blog without a niche, but in order to head in the direction of being a success you need to enjoy your blogging journey so that you can write what people want to read.
And if you want proof of being successful without a niche, check out this post from Helene who blogs without a niche and also has an entire list of other bloggers for you to read about.
And Mommy On Purpose, another successful multi-niche site that makes over $5,000 a month, not bad for not being niched down, right? Carly has also a list of other successful non-niched blogs.
Final Thoughts on Choosing a Niche and If You Really Need One
Do what is best for you and what will make you happy, whether you choose to niche blog or not because if you’re not enjoying what you do, you won’t put you’re all into it for your readers.
Find what excites you and go for it, if it’s one thing or two or multi, just make sure you treat it like a business with a plan.
Choosing to niche or not, you still need to do the same thing as all bloggers to grow your site, build your audience, become an online authority, promote your blog and write valuable quality content.
Your success as a blogger is all on you and how far you go doesn’t depend on your topic, but on you; you write the posts, you create the products, you promote other resources, you sell yourself, you, you, you and you’re only going to go as far as you allow yourself.
I wish you the best of luck in this new and exciting blogging journey and I hope to hear what you’re blogging about and I definitely want to hear how you’re makin’ shit happen!!!
Now Go Do That Blog Thing!!!!!