Choosing a blog niche can be difficult, especially at a time when it’s so critical to do so. While there are lucrative and highly profitable niches, they are not for everyone. So, you need to choose a niche that is right for you, and by that, I mean, choose a niche:
- That you love
- That people care about
- That you want to grow in and be an expert at
- That you are knowledgeable in
- That will prove profitable in the long run.
If all fails, you can always resort to blogging about what you love.
In this post, I will take you through a series of steps on how to choose a niche that will be profitable and sustainable down the down. But, before we dive in, let’s see why selecting the right niche is crucial when starting a blog for money.
Why You Need to Choose a Blogging Niche:
Blogging should be fun. We should all write about the things we love. So why in the world would you want to study the stats before venturing into the blogging world?
Well, choosing a niche will help you navigate through the blogging hurdles much faster and more efficiently. Some of the benefits of the blogging niche include:
- Helps you showcase your expertise and build a brand around it. It’s much easier being a master of something than a master of all. You become the go-to resource when it comes to a particular topic.
- Blogging niche helps you dominate Google ranks faster. This is because there are not so many people writing about the stuff you write about, and so you can focus on producing valuable content, engaging your readers, and ranking your way up the pages of Google.
- It’s easier building a fan base- your empire, which helps you build s loyal audience.
- This audience will make it easier for you to earn money blogging
How to Choose a Blogging Niche in 13 Steps
Choosing a blogging niche is like taking a journey through your life to discover that hidden gem deep inside. Of course, the journey has different paths, but all with similar results.
If you’ve ever wondered:
- How do I choose a blogging niche?
- What is the best way to start my blog?
- Should I write about what interests me?
- How can I turn this passion into a profession?
- How can I weave my professional skills into my blog?
- Or how do I blog about my profession?
Then this post will guide you through how to come up with a winning topic for your personal blogging niche.
Step 1: Examine Your Interests
To determine what type of content or topics interest you most, it is crucial to take some time and reflect on who you are and how you live your life.
- What do you like to read or talk about?
- What topics spark lively discussions at dinner parties, happy hours, or even around the water cooler with co-workers?
Take a piece of paper or open your notes app and highlight everything that comes to mind: You don’t have to be super specific, but also avoid vague or broad interests that are not representative of you. So instead of saying, watching, for instance, try love watching documentaries about acts of humanity
You want to blog about the things you enjoy doing and writing about. By choosing to follow your passion, you set yourself up in the right lane.
Make a ten-item list outlining topics that you are passionate about and arrange them in the order of importance.
Now, see the examples below for your inspiration:
- Weaving doormats,
- Home gardening,
- Decorating my living room
- Reading books about self-development
- Walking on the beach and collecting shells.
- Taking photos at corporate events, parties, dinners, etc.
- Journaling my day’s experiences
- Upskilling through YouTube
- Editing my photos using Photoshop and Canva
- Organizing surprise events for people I care about.
- Baking, decorating cakes, etc.
- Gift giving
- Learning about new technologies such as 3d printing, AI Writing, Machine Learning, Cryptocurrencies, etc
- Playing video games
Handpick 7 Interests that you are passionate about the most.
Now that you have a list of interests, go through each one of them while asking these questions:
- How much time do I spend doing this?
- How much do I enjoy this?
- If I was to write on this subject, would I crank 20-plus posts without much hustle?
- Why do I do this?
For instance, if you love painting, then your verdict might be:
I paint about one hour per day because my schedule allows me to have more time in the evenings. It’s not as if painting was really something that was ever difficult for me--I’ve always found painting to be so therapeutic for me, especially when I’m having a bad day.
Once you’ve selected your seven most preferred interests, continue to brainstorm other topics using the following steps below
Step 2: Consider Your Knowledge/Skills
You can also find a profitable niche by evaluating the skills that you already have. These skills will give you a competitive edge and so if there’s a way to weave some into your blogging venture, do it.
Ask yourself this question:
What subjects am I already educated on and might be interested in writing blog posts around them?
For example, if you have expertise in running successful businesses through Digital Marketing, then blogging on something along this line can be a great option.
Skills and Experiences such as:
- Running a successful business
- Social Media Marketing
- Graphic Design
- Digital Marketing
- Microsoft Excel
- Accounting
- Your college majors
can come a long way in building a successful blog
Again, highlight 7 of your skills and write them down against the seven interests you selected above.
Step 3: Explore the tools you use
Aside from the skills above, you may also know how to work with certain online tools and have some secrets and tips that you may want to share.
Selecting products instead of topics can also help cut down competition since they have more limited reaches because their target audience is smaller and more specific.
For instance:
- Spreadsheet tools like Microsoft Excel and Google sheets
- Social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook
- Content Creation Tools such as Audacity and PowerPoint
- Email Marketing tools, such as Mailchimp, Aweber, Mailerlite etc.
- Online web-design programs
- Blogging Platforms such as WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix
- Productivity tools such as Rescue Time, Time Doctor, Trello, Asana, and Evernote
- Social Media Monitoring Tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck.
- Automation tools like Zapier etc.
- Web Design tools such as Adobe Photoshop or Sketch.
Now, evaluate all the tools you’ve listed above and highlight 7 of your favorite, writing them down against the other 7 interests and 7 skills you’ve already chosen.
Step 4: Consider your values.
Do your values line up with what your niche is? For example, if you value creativity, sustainability, and simplicity, a topic like sustainable design may be a great catch.
Sustainability: Topics like waste reduction, sustainable products, efficient use of resources, living more sustainably, frugal living, environmental conservation, green energy DIY, etc.
Environmentalism: Think of areas like recycling, environmental conservation, sustainable packaging, green energy, energy-saving products, Animal rare species conservation, global warming, how to be more environmentally friendly,
Creativity: Ideas like how to create things with your hands and help others learn how too. How do you make beautiful art? What are the best ways for artists of all types to sell their work online or offline? Creative side hustles that pay off.
Frugality: Blogging about how to save money, how to make your money work for you, how to budget and how frugality can help you get out of debt.
Creativity: Fields like creative design, art, pencil works, workplace creativity, creative voice, how to be creative, etc.
Simplicity: Topics like how to simplify your life, how to reduce clutter, office organization, home organization, how to reduce stress, minimalism, etc.
That said, individual values are not always aligned with what is popular for making money. However, you do not certainly want to start a blog on a topic that is in direct conflict with your values.
For instance, if you are vegan from a strong ethical standpoint, then it might be challenging to start a blog around food recipes involving meat, however popular.
Like before, select 7 values that you are all about and jot them down against the others.
Step 5: Explore what’s missing from the market.
Discover niches that are not well covered using Google Trends and Google AdWords Planner. Make sure that the topics you end up writing down here pique your interest in a way, and they are things that you can write on.
To discover these gaps, use tools such as:
- Semrush: Just like Ahrefs, Semrush helps you determine the great opportunities that you can leverage.
- Google Trends to explore interest in your niche and related topics Keep an eye on the number of searches for a given search term over time.
- AdWords Planner Tool (comes free with AdWords) will show what topics advertisers themselves think are profitable.
- SpyFu: A keyword research tool that will show you the most profitable keywords and give you a rough idea of the competition.
- Ahrefs: A powerful tool for keyword research that will give you the search volume, competition, and top-ranking keywords in a given niche.
- KWFinder: KWFinder is a keyword research and analysis tool that will help you find profitable keywords by answering these questions – What are my top competitors? How many backlinks do they have? Which of their pages make money from advertising or pageviews? Who visits those pages? Etc.
Typically go for topics that are searched for at least 500 times a month and have a competition of less than 50%.
Step 6: Identify some of the problems you can solve.
Sometimes your right niche might stem from the challenges you’ve encountered yourself.
Write down those challenges and evaluate to see if you can create a blog around them.
For example, if you are not creative or skilled at design, finding great images and graphics for your blogging needs might be challenging. As a result, your solution would revolve around free stock photos and hacks to filter by a category, color scheme, font type, etc. This is something that you can incorporate with the other interests to make a suitable niche.
Other questions you might ask at this point include:
- What are the main problems that I see in my everyday life?
- What do I hate the most about my profession and day-to-day tasks at work?
- What frustrates me the most about my relationships?
- Is there an issue that is not talked about enough, for which I have unique insight or knowledge to share with readers on the subject?
- What don’t I like about the world right now?
- Is there an issue in society for which you want to create awareness and provide solutions, such as climate change, social justice issues, etc.?
- Are you passionate about something specific?
- What mistakes have I made in my field of work?
- What has frustrated me the most both in life and at work?
Inspired by these questions, identify 7 problems you aim to solve. This is the big ‘why’ you want to enter the industry. Is there someone else solving this particular problem, and how good (bad) are they doing it?
Step 7: Choose Your Best 7s.
Now that you have a list of nearly 42 (7*6) topics to choose from, spanning across interests, skills, experience, tools, etc., it’s time to narrow down those options to find the most suitable for you.
If you haven’t arranged them in a table format, go ahead and do so, as this will make it easier to visualize. Then, examine all the 42 topics, crossing those that are far too off and matching some that go well together.
Use these questions to help you further decide what topics to cross and what to keep:
- Which ones make me excited just thinking about them?
- Do I see myself developing content around it, and would others be interested in the said topic?
- Which ones make me happy when I think about how great it is to share my knowledge with others?
- What type of content am I most creative in creating for this particular topic?
- What ideas come easily to mind as you think about how much fun it would be for people reading them?
- Do I find any of these niches intriguing enough to spend time researching them on a deeper level and potentially invest in them?
When you cross-reference these questions with each other, hopefully, you’ll start noticing patterns in what niches seem appealing to you while others would be difficult for you to commit.
To give you just but an example:
If you have experience in Microsoft Excel and want to solve a problem of less productivity while working at home, then picking a niche like Excel Skills for Busy Moms or Work from Home Productivity can be a good fit.
Just keep in mind that if you hope to expand your niche further in the future, the niche that you pick should allow for this. So, if, for instance, you choose the topic, Excel Skills for Busy Moms, it will be hard to expand to other productivity hacks, especially if your blog name is branded around Excel Skills.
On the other hand, Work from Home Productivity allows you to introduce different verticals around the subject of productivity so seamlessly.
After you are done with these steps, you should have 7 solid niches that:
- You can comfortably write about
- you’ll enjoy researching and creating content on
- are in line with your dreams and passions
- are in sync with your values
- have a considerable demand
- are less competitive since they are super-niche specific.
Step 8: Examine Search Interest
Ask yourself this question: Would there be enough audience for my posts in this space?
Determine that the topics above have moderate to high search volumes. Feel free to drop any that has way less search volume. Browse around to see whether there are enough blogs talking about this topic. If others are blogging on the same, then it’s a good sign.
The next thing you need to consider is the competition. If high authority websites are ranking for the majority of keywords in this area, then chances are your topic is quite competitive.
If your topic is not well covered, there could be a goldmine of content and traffic for you or a sign that this is not a profitable field.
Step 9: Carry out extensive research about your competitors.
Let’s pick it up from the point above. First, identify anyone else solving/trying to solve the very problem you are solving. What is their target audience, and how established are they? Next, assess the competition in each of the remaining topics (seven, if you haven’t dropped any yet)
A competitive niche implies profitability but a hard one to break into. However, consider the possibility that you can still win in this competitive niche if you decide to enter it nonetheless.
Best indicators include:
- Low-quality content by your competitors
- Lack of resources and content diversification such as videos, eBooks, infographics
- Lack of transparency and personal touch. If your competitors’ approach is faceless and overly corporate, you can adopt an authentic and transparent approach and break through the industry.
Now ask yourself this question: How would the blog post content I am considering compare with what I see from other bloggers out there? What can it offer that is unique or better than what others provide?
At this point, drop the topics that are too competitive.
Step 10: Determine the profitability of the Remaining niches.
Now gauge the profitability of the remaining niches. Ask yourself:
- What are my competitors doing to make money in this niche?
- If I was to pick this niche, how would I monetize it?
- How relevant will it be in the future?
- What is my potential audience size for each of the niches that are left on my list? (Remember, we’re looking at how much money you can make from these topics).
- Are there digital products such as eBooks and online courses that are doing well in this niche?
- What are people paying for products in my niche?
- Does the average person purchase a product monthly or yearly?
- Are there profitable affiliate programs available to me in any of these niches that I’m considering writing about? If so, what is their commission percentage, and how many affiliates do they have on board?
- How many blog posts does the top blogger in my niche release each month/week?
- What are some low-hanging fruit ideas for me to write about in this niche that will make money?
Review your notes and think about what values would be
Step 11: Determine who is going to be your ideal audience.
Having a great and detailed audience profile can help you narrow your niche further. Some of the questions you need to answer so as to come up with your right audience profile include?
- Whom do you want to write to?
- Is he a man or a woman?
- What stage of life is he at now?
- Is there a specific age bracket that he must belong to?
- What challenges is he experiencing right now?
- What is his bigger goal/dream?
Where possible, try including the target audience in your niche topic to make it even more specific. For example, Blog Ideas for College Students, Vegan recipes for busy moms, Fitness for over 60s
Step 12: Brainstorm Possible Ideas for Blog Topics
If you are still in a dilemma on which of the remaining topics you should go for, try brainstorming possible blog post ideas for each to further evaluate search volume and profitability. By now, you should have about 3 of the seven topics remaining. So, brainstorming topical ideas shouldn’t take you much longer.
Start by making a list of all the possible topics that interest you for each niche. You’ll want to write down as many ideas as possible without overthinking. Next, examine various metrics of the said topics, including keyword difficulty and search volumes. This will help you determine which topic you should go for.
Step 13: Settle on a Niche
Fantastic! You’ve done it. Settle on a niche and proceed to start a blog that will not only make you money in no time but also on a topic that means much more to you than just money.
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Conclusion
The truth is, while you might stick with the niche that you choose right now, the direction and the approach that you take might change course several times over the years as you continue discovering yourself through blogging. However, if you find that you need to shift to a totally different niche, then it’s you might need to start a new blog instead of mixing different topics on the same blog.
I hope these steps have helped you to choose the right niche for your blog. Let me know how you arrived at your current blog topic in the comments below.
