There are bloggers who started off by writing about whatever they felt like writing about, built up a readership and ended up rich and famous as a result.
I’m sure that you will join me in saying, we are all very happy for them, but the truth is that the great majority of bloggers that are able to make money from their blogs started out on a vehement mission to serve a niche.
The Intention
There are basically two types of bloggers, bloggers who write with themselves in mind, and bloggers who write with their readers in mind. And the same rule applies in any type of publication, the successful ones serve a niche.
Imagine if a writer from “Highlights for kids” wrote an article for “The Wall Street Journal,” she would either need to change their writing tone, or forget about being published in an adult publication.
The following are four simple steps to choosing a blogging niche that you will be passionate about and have potential to make money with.
List your passions
This is the fun part, take out a piece of paper, or open up a notepad on the computer, and start listing off things that you love.
Don’t be worried at this point about being practical, this is just the brainstorming stage. If there is something that you are interested in learning more about, but are not yet an expert in, you are welcome to write that down too.
If you have trouble coming up with ideas at first, that isn’t because you aren’t interested in anything, it’s just because you probably haven’t been educated to follow your interests. Even some of the best formal education programs tend to have that effect on students.
Sit and relax, and I’ll be surprised if you don’t come up with at least 100 interests.
Now that you have a list of what you are impassioned about, let’s begin to pinpoint the subjects that have the most potential.
Is the niche a good size?
Defining the ideal size for a niche would be difficult to do, since the ideal niche size is different for everybody and every niche.
But one thing is always important to be sure of, are there enough people involved in the niche that could potentially be interested in your blog?
For instance, if you are considering starting a blog about “The history and legends of Bumbleboonies Idaho,” although you might be passionate about the subject, there may not be enough people interested in it to make it worth it, while a good blog about personal finances, on the other hand, could potentially appeal to a wide audience.
Sub-Niching
For some big niches it might be a good idea to whittle down the niches vastness to meet the needs of a more specific audience. For instance, if you wanted to write a blog about personal finances, you could try to appeal to the vast amounts of people who are interested in learning more about the subject.
Their obviously a lot of potential in the general niche of personal finance. The only problem is you will also be forced to compete with all of the bloggers who write about personal finance, not easy to do without a sub-niches support.
Instead of writing a blog about personal finances in general, consider choosing a community to serve within the topic. For instance, a religiously affiliated group, or age group, or even a politically affiliated group.
That way you will be able to engage them, and communicate to them in their vernacular. In such a case you will not need to compete with the best personal finance bloggers as much, since you will offer your niche some things that the champs can’t.
What are they willing to pay for?
The final yardstick is to consider whether people are willing to pay for things within any of the niches you are interested in serving.
Any niche that meets the above requirements has potential to be a profitable niche for your new blog. Good luck with yours!
Susie Brown is a FastUpFront Blog contributor and business author. Fastupfront offers loans for businesses and advances based on business cash flow. Click here to apply for a business loan via FastUpFront.com.
It can all boil down to what you like to write about and talk. You will be doing a lot of that.
Finding the edge in a niche can be a small indicator for you to move forward in that niche.
That’s the point Sam. Finding the edge is crucial~
If someone is just starting blogging,one should chose a niche which he/she is comfortable in,,,and as time passes and one gets more experienced than one can build a community around high paying niches also
Yes Santhosh. It is always good to have multiple streams of income - this is possible when we manage to also cover profitable niches.
Derek Maak says
Hi Susie,
I would be interested in learning about “The history and legends of Bumbleboonies Idaho”. Maybe that’s because I live there. Well, not in Bumbleboonies, but in Idaho. The best types of niches are always those that both serve your passions and also have the potential to make money. When you’re lucky enough to combine the two, that’s when things really get fun.
Dilawer Pirzada says
Hi Derek Maak,
You are interested, don’t make sense that also interested in the niche. You must cover all the parts of confusions.
Choose something what others, but also an ordinary person also interested in. As madam Susie also mentioned above that:
If you are interested in starting a blog about “The history and legends of Bumbleboonies Idaho”, although you might be passionate about the subject, there may not be enough people interested in it to make it worth it.
Hope you understand.
Anyways, the post was very amazing!
Hey Susie,
What if you’re a new blogger and haven’t been introduced to blogging before? Don’t you think it will be a little difficult to list down 100 interests? When I started out blogging I hardly came up with 50, because I didn’t know much about it.
Hey Allen, to jot down 100 interests I don’t think you need to be a blogger. You just need to unearth yourself to find out your interests. And OK 50 is fine; you still have a good number of interests, right? Just start rocking
No matter what niche you choose, you should always make sure it’s something that you truly enjoy pursuing. Unless and until you do what you enjoy, chances are you won’t get success with your niche.
Thanks.
Amen to that Faissal. If the niche is boring and uninteresting to the blogger, then one cannot expect the blog or online business to be exciting and interesting to the others.
Susie - This is the 2nd article I am reading about “blog niche” today!!!
Yes, i agree that a niche is required if you want to make it big in ‘internet marketing’, but I think a niche is not a must for a blog to become successful. My blog is a mishmash of a variety of topics and I have it all covered from technology to SEO to travel to philosophy and so on.
Good read. Thanks for sharing.
Praveen what you say makes sense. But from my experience, running a multi-niche blog is painful, mainly because you cannot hit/attract target audience. If you have read my story about Find All Answers and how I dismantled it into 5 different blogs, you will know.
But I am not saying that multi-niche blogs will be un-successful. But it will be quite hard to hit the target since you have many.
Hello Susie
I am agree with all of points of article but failed to understand Niche Size. Please make me understand
Nawaz, niche size just means how big the market is. If you do a Google search with your primary keyword and see how many results you get that will give you an idea - although this is a very coarse/crude way of finding out the niche size. But I hope you get the idea.
You just need to find
how many people are interested in that niche,
is it evergreen,
how many are your competitors
and so on.
Hi Susie,
the first blogger category is nice indeed, but with the market situation these days it seems almost impossible. You are quite right about choosing a niche. It is far easier to promote a blog if the niche is good and you have done your homework on it.
Mariella
Mariella Lombardi recently posted..The Jillian Michaels 360° Weight Loss Navigator – Does it Work?
Mariella -well said! It becomes quite easier to promote and market a blog/online business if the niche is just right. Although promoting any niche is possible, things get quite easier and done faster if we are into the right niche!
hi,i´new to bloggging so have taken note of the advice here, I´ve made a decision to make sure I come from my heart a lot of the time and not becometoo business orientated coming just fromthe head, after all,we are humans dealing with other humans, in todays fast pace of life we sometimes tend to forget this
I think it boils down to what you have a passion about, period. If you do not like what you are blogging about then it will be almost impossible to make your blog a success. Plus, it is so much easier to be able to write content on a regular basis when you know what you are talking about, and you just love talking about it.
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Sabyasachi Patra says
I guess you are right that one should choose a niche. I believe even if an area is not niche but you are passionate about it, then you can do well and attract visitors to your blog who can lateron become regular readers.
Sabyasachi Patra recently posted..Wild India: Elephant Attacks
Aditya says
Choosing a particular Niche is very important.If the niche is of great interest of the blogger then its better than the niche he is trying to write about and doesn’t know about it.Once you started earning from it its time to move forward and target much bigger niches which will make you good money.
Hey Susie,
Niche match is very good for your websites because it gives more traffic and derive link juice.do work in niche can make money soon.
Great tips Jane, It is crucial to choose a lucrative and profitable niche before starting to put countless hours of effort on it and later disappointment for lesser returns. So this is a must reader for those who want to start a blog
Well nice Idea of eveluating the niche before creating a blog in specified niche. There are several tools online by which we could do that like Google keywords tool , free but still effective.
Hey Susie,
Whittling down a niche we are passionate about and then break it down further in these times the only way to make an impact on a particular market. The more specific we can be the highly the targeted the visitors we can get. Focusing down the niche as much as possible, but large enough to make money.
Alina Sofia says
Great content. I would say the most challenging part to start blogging is to select your niche wisely. You have to take great care about a niche which is rewarding as well as will produce quality content.
hira says
When I started out blogging I hardly came up with 50, because I didn’t know much about it. thank you for the tips, it will help me
Shalu Sharma says
There is always something one is good at. My personal opinion is to ditch the idea of a blog that is good for making money and choose something that one is passionate about. This is because there is always a chance of a person losing focus some time down the line.
Shalu Sharma recently posted..What do Indians wear?
This is something I read at right time as this will going to help me to plan the things for my upcoming blog
.
Patricia Weber says
I did things a little backwards: I started writing through article websites and gained a following in my niche of introverts and reluctant marketers. Then, I added a blog. The truth is, some of the larger article sites have vast more exposure – simply a mathematical benefit when article sites have thousands of writers with thousands of articles they can leverage. So I’m luckier with attracting paying clients through that visibility than my own blog. I would blog regardless because I have to get things said! But the niche thing – that IS so important.
Patricia Weber, LinkedIn Group BHB
Yeremi Akpan says
Sub-nicheing is especially valuable when you are targeting a broad niche. The time it takes to struggle for space in a saturated niche is enough for you to build multiple money niche sites in less saturated markets.
Be smart -specialize…
Yeremi Akpan recently posted..10 Ways to Optimize your Blog for Subscriber Opt-ins
Useful tips for a newbie who is about to start blog.
Sub-nicheing is very good but before taking it confirm twice, as once you select Sub-nicheing you can`t change it!
Susan Cooper says
I’m like Patricia, I started out just writing about things that interested me and then it became something others seemed to enjoy as well. It all landed on a lifestyle type of blog where I talk about life lessons, food and wine. I tell you stories, feed you and share some spirits to liven thing up a bit. Who knows it actually may become something someday.
Hi Susie
I am also looking for an appropriate niche so that I can raise my profit funds. And, your post will really help me out for finding it.
Leora says
I have two blogs: one in which I write from the gut (or more like post photos that I love and talk about them in detail) and one in which I write from the head (my small biz tech blog).
I am ever so happy when I connect on either of those blogs. Even though I have been blogging for years, getting the right tone of voice and the right niche is still a battle or at least a task that I work at.
Leora recently posted..9 Posts on Website Security
Bindhurani says
This is a great article for those who want to start blogging. I like the tips. My passion is crafting. I love to crochet. So, my niche is Crochet. Now, I have to find ways to monetize it.
David says
Definitely gonna start a new blog with pre-planned stuff but I always get pissed off while continuing it.
Bellaisa says
I have seen the people who just write about their lives and gain thousands of followers instantly it seems. I wish I was that personable, but I’m happy for anyone who can do that. And I’m usually following them right alone with the thousands of other people.
I have so many passions that I once had a total of 11 blogs running at one time. Needless to say this was a little overwhelming and I couldn’t keep up without outsourcing, so now I have 2 blogs that I try to focus on with 6 others sitting around waiting for attention. There just so many options and not enough time.
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Nizam says
Well, one should start blogging with the niche in which one is interested, but sticking to a particular niche is really important for non-personal blogs. Thanks Susie for this wonderful and interesting post
Thanks for the tips here. The challenge is finding a unique niche, isn’t it! I’m still trying to find that, so this has given me a few ideas.
Listing and identifying your passions is such a great recommendation. At the start of an internet marketing effort, it is easy to follow the path opf looking just for the most popular trends, etc. What happens without the passion is that you run out of ideas and energy for a niche you really aren\’t interested int.
Adil says
Great post. When someone enters in to blogging usually his passion to write overrides the purpose of serving the visitors or niche.
Here I want to appreciate you for elaborating the selection of blog niche, importance of sub-niche etc. These things are essential for adopting the blogging as a profession. But let me confess that I was enabled to pick these things earlier in the career.
Thanik
Hey,
Your article is very helpful for new bloggers.Niche is required in internet marketing.Your post will help to find a proper niche to make profits.
Regards,
Mohammad
george says
Here’s a quick tip: if you do a search on Google for a topic and people are paying money to run AdWords ads on the right side, they are making money. If you see TV commercials or magazine ads about your topic, they are making money. It’s a good bet that you will make money too! So get started today and pick that lucrative niche that you will dominate!
Rafi says
It is better start blogging with the niche in which one is interested, but sticking to a particular niche is really important for non-personal blogs.
I picked my niche based on trying to be a source of information in the auto detailing industry in San Diego. Only problem is I don’t think very many people who are looking to get their vehicles detailed are online looking for blogs on the service. I need to figure out how to spin it!
samuel says
Thanks buddy for this awesome post, i have always adviced people to blog on what they love doing and not just only for the profit making but it may sound weird but someone could end up making nothing if he is just for profit making, thanks again
Hi,
Great work you have done Susie, really appreciate your post that your share on probloggingsuccess, I think that this 3 Simple Steps are good and you also cover them I deep to the point. Keep it up, share more.
Thank
Kamran
Kamran recently posted..Fort Lauderdale House Cleaning Service: No after Party Headaches!
Hi Jane,
Just thought to visit your blog. It is packed with useful posts. Susie, you have written some good points here. Finding a comfortable niche is often hard for me.
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When i started blogging i thought i could cover different niches all in one blog. So i started blogging on technology, seo news e.t.c .
But i later realized i can’t cover all niches at the same time so i created a micro niche blog focusing on cydia and am making a good income from adsense and affiliate sales more than i do on my general topic blog.