Welcome to the lesson on How to find a niche for your blog, in which I explain how to ignite the winning fuse for your blog, which is the first fundamental step in creating a successful blog.
Creating a successful blog isn’t easy for anyone
Starting a new blog and making it successful is a difficult process for everyone from the novice to the seasoned blogger. That’s why, alas, many give up after the first few months, or even before starting.
This first wall is not due to a lack of goodwill – not always at least – but to a classic blogger problem: putting the focus on too many unrelated topics.
Nothing more wrong! Opening a blog means first of all having something to say and to propose, but in an organic and targeted way.
You must immediately identify the peculiarities of your message and to whom it is addressed, to reach the largest number of users in the most effective way. Do not think that filling the text with so many random keywords can bring you public and visibility, on the contrary. Such behavior is easily traceable by search engines, and can penalize you a lot, especially if you are at the beginning of your online journey.
Identify a market niche
To start a successful blog it is necessary locate a niche: a single topic, or type of information, around which all your content will revolve.
This is the first fundamental step, to be done even before choosing the domain or the name of the site as you saw in the previous lesson.
Choose the niche that’s right for you it gives you the opportunity to be consistent and recognizable: a sector reference point that will attract an excellent volume of traffic in the long run.
Here are some examples of what a niche is:
- How to find work
- Lose weight
- Create websites
- Traveling alone
- How to write an e-book
- Recipes of exotic cuisines
- SEO
Rules for finding a successful niche
1) It is a niche that you are passionate about
At the time of locate a niche you can’t ignore who you are. Ask yourself what you like to do, what you are passionate about and what subject you would never tire of dealing with. You will find that your own personal interests are a great starting point.
If you spend hours searching the internet for all the news and information on new furniture trends, this is probably a direction worth exploring.
Managing a blog is a job: the more you are passionate about it, the more productive and effective you will be. If, on the other hand, you choose a topic that has nothing to do with you, each publication will be a painful birth, with the result that after a few months you will not be able to write anymore. Your blog will no longer be a pleasure, but a torture. In this way you will waste money and time, with the consternation of not having made your dream take off.
First of all then, remember that your blog is an expression of you, your personal style and your interests. Choose an aspect that you are passionate about, be it technological, related to fashion , education or anything else, and treat it with the passion it deserves. Do not think of dedicating yourself to a topic just because it seems fashionable to you, but because you really like it and you can deepen it with competence and authority.
2) Your opinion and experience bring added value
Why should people read what you write? I know, this question is scary and will surely come to your mind (or will come to you) at least once in the course of your blogging career. Better this way, it means that you are on the right path. A healthy feeling of self-criticism is always a precious ally.
If you want to make your blog successful, this is important locate a niche that may interest and involve a significant number of users. In this sense, it is always a good approach to choose a topic that also has a functional value, that is content that can serve a purpose – practical or intellectual. For example, by talking about a vegan diet, you will help those interested in starting it. If you want to talk about diving, you will give a lot of useful information to those who practice this sport or want to start it. If you talk about technology and phones, you will illustrate the latest news in the sector and recommend the best solutions in this area.
3) There are thousands of interested people
We have already said that a niche must have a correlation with your interests, so that you can explore it with maximum enthusiasm, and that it must give users a reason to be followed.
However, it is also important to make sure that the chosen topic is of sufficiently widespread interest from the outset and therefore that there are enough people who are looking for this type of information today. It does not matter that your content interests millions of people, but it is important that there is a slice of users who is potentially interested in the topics you will cover.
We will see this aspect better, and how to focus on it in content development, in the lesson dedicated to keyword research and search volumes.
4) It is an “evergreen” niche
Remember when in elementary school you were taught the difference between trees that shed their leaves in winter and evergreen trees? Today that lesson finally comes in handy, because the same goes for niches.
Find a niche evergreen means choosing a topic that remains current, as if it were impervious to the passage of time. This allows you to write content that will remain valid even in a year and this means that over time your blog will gain value. There will always be someone who will click on your posts, because the information contained in them will always be considered valid, useful and above all current.
If, on the other hand, you choose to create a news site, you are forced to publish an important volume of new content every day, because yesterday’s ones have already expired. This implies a rather large amount of work, and it is good that you know this from the beginning.
5) In this niche there are many products and services to offer
Of course, the personal satisfaction of knowing that tens of thousands of people on the net read your blog assiduously is priceless. But your time does come at a price.
Beyond the ideological achievements, you must consider an essential truth on the practical side. Creating, managing and updating a successful blog is a commitment that requires constant care and dedication. There is nothing more wrong than approaching a blog as if it were one of the many pastimes, to be taken and left whenever you want. It is an approach that may be fine for an amateur site, but not for those seeking success and also wanting to make money on the internet.
A blog consists of a real investment, both economic and temporal. There is nothing wrong with not being satisfied with glory alone and wanting a concrete return: that’s why we are here.
How can you make money with your blog?
There are several profitable opportunities that allow you to start a good round of revenue. Below you will find an overview, but we will talk about it in detail in a later lesson of the guide.
- Info products: these are products intended for online sale, usually in digital format. This definition therefore includes e books, video training, e learning, email seminars, DVDs, teleconferences.
- Services: You can use your blog to sell services relevant to your niche. For example, a graphics blog that develops logos at the request of its users.
- Affiliations: You can become a reseller of third party products and receive compensation on every sale made through your blog.
- Software: You can develop and sell your own applications or software, or sell those of third parties.
- Courses and seminars: Are you an expert in something that may be of interest to other people? Put this knowledge to good use by organizing seminars where you teach your users how to do something.
- CPA: or ‘cost per action’, that is the possibility of earning through web marketing.
6) Collaborate with other industry experts
Are there any prospects for collaborations? You could locate a niche that gives you room for growth through possible collaborations with other blogs in your same sector or in adjacent fields. This is an excellent strategy for acquiring new users.
A very good example in this direction is the site of Digital Nomads, which has managed to create an excellent active community of authors who collaborate with the blog by writing constantly updated content and enriching it with new and different points of view.
Now you have finally learned what a niche is and how important it is to find one in order to create a successful blog.
