In short, the niche of your blog is the
topic of your blog.
While starting a blog is fun, the tough part of blogging is sticking to a topic. Many of us who are
new to blogging end up writing about one topic and then jumping to another one the next day.
You write about smartphones today, then you write about health
tomorrow, and then you start talking about politics next week. This kind
of setup has its own problem; you will fail to attract a targeted
audience.
For example,
ShoutMeLoud is a blog for bloggers and internet marketers.
Its niche is
blogging,
affiliate marketing,
WordPress,
SEO, and
so on.
I know it sounds like many topics, but if you look closely, all are
part of the online marketing/blogging/entrepreneurship niche.
Similarly, your blog needs to have a niche from day one.
A Few Tips To Decide On The Niche Of Your Blog
When deciding on a niche, you need to think about one very important thing:
If you’re
blogging for profit, you don’t want to choose a topic which gets tons of traffic, but gets no money.
Topic like:
- Free SMS
- Free wallpaper
- WhatsApp tips
- Free movie downloads
- etc.
These niches will get you a lot of traffic, but probably won’t get you very much money.
At the same time, you don’t want to pick a niche which is too tough for you to write about.
So what’s a good niche?
A good niche is one which is related to what you like, has good
traffic, and also has a monetary value. More than that, your niche
should have a future. Why would you make a career in the iPhone 7 when
the iPhone 8 will be coming out next year?
Here are 4 key things that you should take note of when picking a niche:
- Your interests.
- Business value (CPC).
- Monthly/yearly searches.
- Trend & future of the topic.
Now, let’s look at the ideas that will help you to pick the
right niche for yourself. If you have already committed to a niche
that’s not right, or you have been blogging about multiple things, don’t
worry, you can always change your niche.
Alright, with this let’s get on with our guide.
1. Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm…
What are the topics that interest you? Cricket? Bollywood? Country music? Make a list of
all of the topics that are interesting to you.
Don’t worry about the length of the list at this stage. It can contain 20 different things. It doesn’t matter.
2. Passion or Profit or Both?
“But shouldn’t I be blogging about the hottest topics? Things that everyone is Googling?”
Hmm…
Good point!
For example, technology is something that people all over the world
are Googling like crazy (No wonder 90% of the top Indian blogs are tech
blogs owned by geeks from the IT dungeons!).
But you’re a lit grad with zero interest or expertise in technology. Should you
start a tech blog just because it’s the hot thing?
Sure, if you put in the hours, you’ll be able to find enough information on technology to blog about.
But achieving blogging success is a long process.
You will get three visitors per day for the first three months.
You’ll be scouring the web for blogs in your niche, reading them (no you
can’t fake it), and
trying to make meaningful comments on them.
Are you sure you’ll be able to do this day in and day out, without fail, in addition to producing
quality content on a topic that’s NOT interesting to you… for one year, two years, five years?
The Golden Rule: Don’t pick topics that don’t interest you.
3. Competition: Cricket vs. German Shepherd Hair Care
So you’ve got your list of interesting topics and “cricket” tops the list.
You eat cricket, sleep cricket, dream cricket.
So should you just go ahead and start your cricket blog? There’s a tiny problem with that.
You’ll have a bit of competition from Cricinfo.com. And Cricketnext.in. And OneIndiaCricket.
Okay, so you strike off cricket understanding the competitive scope of that niche.
Now what? You go straight to another favorite topic of yours: Taking care of the hair of German Shepherds.
You do a Google search. Yes! There’s zero competition. So can you go ahead and create your blog on the German Shepherd thing?
Think again.
There’s zero competition, but what about the demand?
Will a sufficient number of people be Googling it every month?
The key is to
strike a balance among your interest, the popular trends, and the level of competition.
I chose love and relationships as my niche because I was always
passionate about improving lives through inner development. Also, no
dedicated information-based Indian sites existed in the love-and-relationships niche (unbelievable I know).
Then I made my proposition even more unique by adding sections like
free counseling, dedications, and a “complete your love story”.
4. Long-Term Potential
“Current events” is an area which is obviously very high in popularity. It may also be high on your list of interests.
But don’t start a blog site called www.USAElection2020.com – something like this will not hold value in the long-term.
Choose a topic which is timeless. One way to do this is to blog on
evergreen topics (or topics which have a high shelf life). You should
read
Harsh’s micro-niche blog case study to learn more.
You can search the trend for any topic or search term using
Google Trends.
Here’s an example:
5. Why would people listen to me?
So now you’ve narrowed down your list to 3 or 4 topics based on the
above criteria. Now you have to think about which of these topics
affords you the ability to
offer something unique.
It may be:
- Experience (traveling extensively is the only qualification that you need for a travel blog).
- Extensive studies of a topic at university.
- Even just basic writing (personal blogs in India are very popular).
In my case, it’s a combination of all three of these. I had
already been through a string of wrong relationships when I met a
charming man who soon turned out to be an abuser, and eventually that
relationship took me to the brink of not completing my MBA.
This catastrophic affair was a life-changing experience which made me
realize many truths about life, and how to stop getting into wrong
relationships.
Since then, I have dedicated myself to helping people in similar
circumstances by giving them the information, advice, and support that I
so badly needed in the past but didn’t find.
At the moment, I’m also in the process of getting a proper education in psychology so that I’m better able to help people.
So in a nutshell, when you choose your blogging niche, find a
long-term project that you love writing about. Find a topic which
fascinates you. Find something that you love more than anything else.
Blogging is not only about sharing knowledge, it’s also about educating yourself and furthering your own sense of understanding.
Here are some more articles on finding a niche:
Try going through these points and identifying a good niche
for you. If you want, let me know what that niche is in the comments
below!
And don’t forget to share this post!
