The first step in launching your own website and starting your blog is to choose a niche. That’s the absolutely first you need to do.
Before registering a domain and setting up your website, you NEED to come up with a topic and niche for your blog. Without a clear vision and goal, starting a blog doesn’t make much sense.
A niche blog focuses on a specific niche market. The goal is to serve a particular group of people. You should never write just about something that comes into your mind but plan your posts strategically. For instance, a food blog provides value to people who are looking for recipes. And a “how to make money online” blog is for anyone who wants to make money online.
The niche you choose should preferably be very specific. When your readers visit your website, it should always be clear what they can expect to read on your blog.
On the other hand, the niche needs to be popular enough if you want to get traffic to your website. But don’t worry, though! There is an audience for almost everything. After all, these days, almost everyone is online, so there will always be people who are interested in your content.
As long as your blog posts are valuable to your readers, your blog is ready to succeed.
In this article, I’ll go through why you absolutely need to have a niche and what you’ll need to consider when choosing a niche.
Why do you need a niche for your blog?
I had my first own website when I went to first grade. I obviously didn’t have a clear goal nor a niche with my site back then. It’s was all about fun: listing and linking to my favorite online games, funny pictures, etc.
My site didn’t serve a specific audience. Well, actually it sort of did: it catered me. The website was made by me, for me. And it was fun!
But if you want to be serious about your blog, you definitely need a niche. Of course, if you’re going to blog just as a hobby and have fun, there’s nothing wrong about not having a niche. But, don’t expect to make your blog profitable any time soon with this approach.
I’m not saying it is impossible to monetize a blog without a single niche. But I’d say it is more complicated. Sure, many successful lifestyle bloggers write about several different topics, but they are more of an exception.
Especially at the beginning of your blogging journey, you probably are better off focusing on a niche market.
There is an audience for pretty much any topic online. But It’s highly unlikely the same readers want to read about anything that comes into your mind.
If you write about many topics, you end up confusing your readers.
That’s not what you want, right? When you write about a specific niche, your potential audience will know precisely what they’ll find on your blog.
1. Passion
When choosing a niche, the first question I recommend asking yourself is this:
What is the one thing you could talk about the whole day?
If you can quickly answer that question, you probably have your topic there.
I strongly suggest that you choose a niche that you are passionate about. Trust me, it’s so much easier to write about a topic you are interested in. If you are not, you probably will struggle writing anything. And more importantly, at that point, blogging won’t be fun.
However, being passionate about something doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be excited about writing about it.
I first started my blog about men’s style. However, I soon understood that I wasn’t actually passionate about teaching and advising people about what they should wear. Despite being interested in what I personally wear, my opinion is that style is not about rules, but personal preferences. That’s why I never felt there was anything I really should teach about.
So when picking your niche, make sure you feel enthusiastic about advising your audience on the topic. Not only will you write more valuable content, but you also will be more motivated to continue blogging long-term.
2. Your strengths, knowledge & skills
Start by thinking about what you are good at? Because to give value to your readers, you need to have knowledge about the niche you choose.
Obviously, if you’re passionate about something, you most likely already have a certain level of knowledge about the topic.
The topic could, for example, be related to your job, profession, education, or hobbies.
That being said, you don’t necessarily have to be an expert to teach and give valuable information to your audience.
In fact, your audience probably connects better with you if your knowledge is just above theirs.
An expert that knows close to everything in a particular topic usually isn’t the best teacher. Why? Because there is a good chance that their tips are way over the top for most people.
So you should have some knowledge of your niche, but you don’t have to know everything about it. It’s totally normal if you are worried that you are not expert enough. But always remember there are readers with different knowledge levels.
3. Profitabality
If you want to blog long-term, you need to monetize your blog sooner or later. You could profit from your blog from day one, or start making money once you have constant traffic to your site.
Any niche can be profitable, but some are easier to monetize than others. Display ads can be shown on any website. Still, if you can make money with affiliate marketing, sell digital and physical products, online courses, write sponsored posts, that’s even better!
The more monetization options you have, the better.
You should never start blogging just to make money. It could take a while before you earn, so you will quickly feel unmotivated with that attitude. You have to be passionate about the niche and have fun blogging before thinking about getting rich with your blog.
4. Audience
Without readers, your blog is not worth much. Your niche needs to be attractive enough to get traffic to your website, but specific enough to serve your readers.
Don’t narrow your niche down too much, or you could end up having too few readers. Consequently, making any income will be hard.
But the niche can’t be too broad either. Once again, readers need to know what they will find on your site. If you try to cover many topics, this won’t happen.
The good thing is that there is an audience for any niche. You just need to find it. Finding it will help you build a loyal community around your blog and clear your path to success.
5. Competition
Blogs have been around for a long time already, so whatever niche you end up choosing, be prepared for competition. Competition is not bad, however.
If there already are successful blogs in your niche, that just proves that there’s demand. There is always room for more blogs in the same niche. But make sure you find a unique angle.
On the other hand, if there is no competition, there’s a chance that there actually isn’t a large enough audience. Obviously, it could be a gold mine, too, but the former is the more likely reason.
Start brainstorming and choose your niche
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What are you passionate about? Maybe something related to your hobbies or career?
- What strengths and skills do you have?
- How do you plan to monetize your blog?
- Who is your target audience?
- Is there competition? If so, how can you differentiate from other blogs?
Now that you have figured out what your passions and strengths, and analyzed the monetization options, it’s time to put the pieces together.
You should have some ideas now about the niche. If you have just one, great! Choose that.
If you are thinking between several options, don’t spend too much time on it. Choose one niche and stick with that, and start blogging.
Once you have the niche chosen, it’s time to move on to the next important step: naming your blog and registering a domain.