You want to start a blog, but just can't figure out how to choose a good niche topic. Or you have a blog already, and can't seem to figure out why your audience isn't as engaged?
Choosing a niche for your blog is one of the most overlooked steps in building a profitable blog, and one of the most important steps that will determine your overall success and online presence. That's why you make sure you follow an organized process, and ask yourself the right questions to find that profitable blog niche.
Here I'm going to introduce to you what a blog niche is, why it's important to choose a defined blog niche, and then I'll show you the 5 proven steps on how to choose a profitable blog niche. The end result: A fast growing blog and a faster growing passive income stream.
What is a niche?
A niche is a very narrow and defined topic or market. The easiest way to think of a niche is to think of a specialist. For example, there are regular doctors for general doctor check ups and health examinations, then there are specialists like an “ENT” doctor (Ear Nose & Throat Doctor).
A regular MD doctor would be similar to a market segment, and the ENT doctor would be the “niche” of that market segment. It's a very defined topic with a decent size audience who has an interest to that topic.
Some examples of a niche for your blog would be “Health & Fitness for Pregnant Women”. Another example would be something like “Nutrition Tips & Tricks for Men over age 50+”.
The whole point of choosing a defined niche for your blog is to become that “Specialist” who people turn to for advice on a defined topic. It is important to ensure your niche has an audience as well, otherwise you won't have many readers interested in your blog.
Examples of a bad niche idea may be simply “Health & Fitness”. The reason it's not a good niche is that it is too broad of a topic. Really anyone could relate to that topic but may not find what they are looking for because you don't have enough content to cover all the potential related “Health & Fitness” topics.
Conclusion: A niche is a market sector with a very defined audience. You are the “Specialist” of that topic and will be recognized as a “go-to person” for anything related to your niche blog. Niche's with too broad of an audience are harmful in that you will not be able to provide enough info for all potential related topics to your broad niche.
Why are niche blogs more profitable?
Let's relate again to the doctors as discussed previously. If you were to compare the income of a general MD family care doctor, to that of the income of an Ear Nose & Throat doctor, the ENT would defiantly have a much larger salary. Why? Because they are the specialist and people pay more for their specialties.
Allow me to explain with a story I once heard: (author unknown)
Two small business owners who ran a construction company very well-known in the area arrived to work one day to find one of their main pieces of heavy machinery was not functioning properly. They worked from day until night looking for the problem and how to fix it.
Both ended the day frustrated that they had wasted a day's work and hadn't even fixed the machinery yet. They agreed they had to call in a specialist for that specific piece of equipment.
The following morning they met the heavy machinery specialist and showed him to the equipment that needed fixing. The specialist took a look around for a few moments, looked at the engine and quickly knew what the problem was. He spotted there was a bad electrical connection in the motor and quickly fixed the connection issue within 5 minutes and said “That should do it!”
Amazed at the expertise, the two construction business owners thanked him for his help and went on their way. The next week they got an invoice from the machine specialist in the amount of $2,500. Both owners looked at each other in amazement and fury.
“There is no way we are paying $2,500 for hiring a specialist to perform 5 minutes worth of work! This is ridiculous!” one of the owners yelled.
They quickly emailed the specialist in fury and frustration for the high charge of the service asking why the price was so high. The specialist kindly responded with a breakdown of the cost as follows:
- Cost to repair the electrical connection: $1
- Cost for knowing where the electrical malfunction was: $2,499
Moral of the story: When you are the expert, you have the ability to attract a large demand and thus a large audience who have no other option then going through you for the answer. Choosing a niche website is similar to being the “specialist” that people hire for specific problems or questions, and that is a talent that pays much more then a generalist.
Do you see the importance of having a very defined niche topic for your website?
How To Choose A Blog Niche That Is Profitable
To make things less confusing and help organize your thought process when determining your niche, I've laid out a very simple and effective step by step process when choosing your niche.
5 Steps to determine a niche for your blog
Follow these 5 steps to choosing a blog niche. End result: A profitable blog and engaging audience.
Step 1 – Brainstorm
Make a list of at least 10-15 hobbies, interests, activities you do in your spare time, or even things that you are passionate about and would like to become an expert on.
Your blog needs to be about a topic of interest you are passionate about, otherwise you will get burnt out too quickly. Keep in mind this topic will be read about, writing daily posts about, answering questions about, emails etc. all within this niche topic. Thus, your level of interest is very important, not to be overlooked.
Step 2 – Narrow down your list
Choose your top 3 from your list of 10-15 topics. With each of the 3 chosen favorites, define the niche by going 2 steps deeper on each of the three favorites. Here's an example: Say your topic is Health & Fitness. To take that topic 2 steps deeper lets say Health & Fitness for high school kids (one step deeper). Now lets take it a step further and say “Health & Fitness for high school basketball players (two steps deeper). Make sense?
Go 2 steps deeper with each of your three chosen favorite niches from step 1.
Step 3 – Determine audience size for each topic
While it's important that you are passionate about the topic, you also need to make sure you have an audience big enough to build a profitable blog with.
With each of the 3 narrowed down topics from step 2, rate each one from biggest to smallest in terms of potential audience size. An easy way to do this is by using keyword research tools that give you the number of monthly searches for common phrases or terms related to that topic.
Step 4 – Determine your interest level
From the 3 chosen favorites from step 2, rate each of the 3 from most interested to least interested. While the audience size is important, it is also important that you have a strong interest in your chosen niche because you will be writing a lot about that niche.
The result of choosing a niche that you have no desire to be involved with is becoming burnt out very quickly.
Step 5 – Choose your final niche
With the information taken from step 3 & 4, your best niche will be the one that has the highest ranking in terms of the potential audience size and your current interest in the topic.
I've included a free training video that explains the process of choosing your niche in greater depth below:
The end result of choosing a defined niche for your blog
When following the 5 steps above, you have just defined your area of expertise and a well-defined blog niche. The result will be a larger amount of traffic returning to your blog because you are the “specialist”.
As the specialist, you will see much quicker growth and profits from your helpful advice. You will be more like the heavy equipment specialist who gets paid for “knowing where the electrical connection issue is” and not just for your time.
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