You want to blog and be successful, that goes hand in hand. To accomplish this, you have to select the right niche for your blog. Here’s exactly how you pick a blog niche!
Check out my Ultimate guide for beginner bloggers to find out more useful information.
A blog can be about what pre-existing knowledge you already have, want to grow upon or even following your life decisions.
What we know for certain is you have to pick a topic that you are interested in or you won’t be able to keep up the blog.
Easier said than done, right? This first step is not overcome by the many options that you want to blog because you can decide or niche down (we will cover this term more later).
So, you have got some ideas that you would enjoy writing about. How do you decide?
You must pick a niche that has an audience.
To validate if there are people who would want to read the content you are ready to make, there are 3 steps to confirm whether your niche can be successful.
Table of Contents
3-Step Blog Niche Success Checklist:
1. Check Blog Niche Size
Why do I need to do this? Even if you have an amazing niche idea, there is no guarantee that you will be able to attract readers.
For example, there are thousands of ‘amateur gaming’ blogs but it can be hard for new bloggers to stand out. So, narrow down your niche (also known as niching down) to concentrate on ‘league of legends gaming’ or ‘rocket league gaming tips for beginners’.
This gives you a smaller more specialised topic that a good number of people search for. Which are not as saturated as broader terms.
It’s a good idea to look at 10,000 searches in a month or less with your niche topic.
Heres how out can check out the volume of keyword searches:
Option 1: Let’s use Google as it is one of the most popular browsers.
- To find popular keywords your potential readers search for, type in the main search words that are relevant to your niche.
- You can also immediately see relevant questions people also ask.
- If you scroll to the bottom of the page there are more searches for a related keyword to your search.
- Moreover, you can see searches (not just other questions) that are relevant to your original keyword search
In this one single page, you have gained a lot of useful information. Repeat the process to compile a list of keywords for your niche to bring in readers.
OR
Option 2: Use a free keyword search tool like word tracker for quick results of relevant and similar words. For each keyword, we can also see its search volume highlighted in grey. An easy way of spotting if a niche topic has a lot or little interest from the general population.
Above, there are a lot of keywords under 10,000 searches, which is great news for you!
2. Explore Blog Niche Competitors
Why were those numbers great for you? That means less competition. Less competition means your blog has a higher potential of being read by your niche audience – instead of getting lost under all those other bloggers.
Saying this, do not be discouraged if your chosen niche has fierce competition. By making the right content you can still turn all those interested people into readers and followers.
Competitors are also not always the right label for other bloggers, as you will often collaborate and get to know those in your niche.
How do I review niche competition?
- Start with google search of ‘(insert niche) blogs’ or ‘best (insert niche) blogs’
This will give you the top dogs of your niche but also those who know how to get on the first page of google searches.
Their content and execution will be a great lesson, as we know the large majority of people only look at the first page results. So bear this in mind. This also gives you the chance to find their top-performing keywords in for example similarweb.
Where else can get information on my fellow niche bloggers?
Search for your niche here, the best will have thousands of people in their groups.
Don’t forget to check here, where they socialise with their audience. What kind of tweets get more retweets and comments? How much of a following do they have?
- Magazines
Does your niche have magazines that are known in its industry? How well do they perform (copies sold etc). The point is, if you find a good amount of following in the niche you have chosen, then you’ve found a successful niche to enter!
3. Analyze Blog Niche Monetization Potential
Make money while writing about your passion? Yes, please.
While you may enter the world of blogging to explore what you enjoy doing, you will soon realise that you can also make money from this venture. Many people have and will continue to.
This varies greatly from earning a little bit, on the other hand, people quitting their jobs and making more than they thought they ever could.
Now, if you completed step 1 and 2 then the answer to ‘is monetising this niched blog possible?’ would likely to be yes. But you have to make sure of what is out there and how exactly you can make money.
Affiliate marketing, it is one of the most popular options to monetize blogs. We’ll use this to test if your niche is a viable option.
What is an affiliate program?
This is the agreement where a business pays a business or influencer with a commission for sending customers to buy their product/service.
According to your niche, there will be programs that suit your potential blog well and others that have no relevance because it would be out of the topic of your blog to discuss. Let’s go straight to the source.
To find out what is available you need to look at the sites that are providing this service. Here are some of the top affiliate programs:
- Rakuten Marketing Affiliates
- CJ Affiliate Publisher’s Program
- Clickbank
- Amazon Associates
- ShareASale Affiliates
- Shopify Affiliate Program
- ConvertKit Affiliate Program
- Google AdSense
What information did you get from the 3 step process? When putting all the ideas you have gathered, by the end of this process there will be a clear winner of a niche to drive into.
Checking out affiliate marketing first is a quick way of seeing whether your niche has the potential to make money based on the quantity of services or goods companies are willing to pay you a commission on.
Now it’s time to start your blog!
Did you find anything helpful? What niche have you chosen? Let me know in the comments, until then.