Imagine starting your first blog and writing about all of your favorite things, but your blog never gets any traffic. That’s to be expected because you need a niche if you want to grow your blog.
Consider why you need a niche and how to choose one as well as your options if you can’t decide on just one topic. Here’s what you need to know.
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Why You Need a Niche
There’s no getting around it. You really do need to have a niche if you want to start and grow a blog either as a business or for your existing business.
Here’s why.
Establish Expertise
First, you need to establish yourself as an expert in whatever your blog topic is. If you have a lifestyle site where you write about anything from health to parenting, it will be hard for readers to see you as an expert.
Sure, you may know about a lot of different topics. However, you may not know a ton about all of those things that you cover on your blog.
You’ll have to work a lot harder to be seen as an authoritative source when you write about whatever. Niching down allows you to showcase your skills and knowledge to show your audience that you know what you’re talking about.
Set Your Blog Apart
Almost anyone can start a lifestyle blog and write about a lot of things. But not everyone can create a super niche blog about a specific musical instrument, for example.
If you choose a niche that you have a lot of experience or training in, you’ll get even better results. You’ll know what topics are important for that niche, and you can write from your perspective.
That way, you can not only build trust with your audience, but you can beat the competition. This is particularly true if other blogs in your niche are ran by people who have no industry experience.
Brainstorm Topic Ideas
You also need a niche if you want to simplify your topic idea generation process. When you have one main blog topic, you can make sure all of the blog posts you write have something to do with that.
I found it surprisingly easy to come up with blog post ideas after I started my first niche blog. Of course, coming up with ideas will be even easier if you choose a nice you’re an expert in.
Plus, your niche allows you to cover that one specific topic in as much depth as possible. On the other hand, running a more general blog allows you to only cover each topic at a superficial level.
Make More Money
All of the other benefits of choosing a niche can also help you make more money from your blog. By sticking to one overarching topic, you can build trust in the products or services that you offer or promote to your audience.
Readers will know that you’re an expert, and they may want to buy your products or services. If you focus on affiliate marketing, your audience will also start to trust what you recommend to them.
Compare that to a more general blog. Visitors may only be interested in one or two blog posts, so they won’t stick around to see what you have to offer.
And the fewer page views you get, the less money you’ll make, at least in most cases.
How to Choose a Niche
Now that you know why you need a niche, it’s time to choose what that will be. You can make a blog about almost any topic on this planet.
Some will be more profitable than others, so look into a few different things to decide which subject to pursue.
Start With Your Hobbies
An excellent option is to go through all of the hobbies you currently have or have had in the past. Hobbies make for the perfect blog niche because odds are you’re not the only one with that interest.
That means you can attract people to your blog who already have that same hobby. You can also share your experience and tips you have for people getting into the hobby.
Plus, you can review any gear or accessories you have related to the activity. Reviews are some of the best posts to write if you want to make money from your passion.
Consider Your Education
Along with your personal passions, write out any degrees and certifications you have. You can use your educational background and training to come up with more niche ideas.
For example, if you have a degree in finance, you could start a money blog. Even if this niche isn’t your favorite thing in the world, you probably have more experience with it than most of your ideal readers.
That can help you create informative, useful content to start and grow your new blog. What’s more, you can include your credentials in your author bio to further build trust with readers.
Review Your Work History
Next, write out a list of all of the jobs you’ve had. You can include traditional jobs that sent you a W-2 as well as any freelance jobs or gigs, like house or pet sitting.
Like your education, if you’ve worked in an industry, you have unique skills and experience. You can use that to your advantage when coming up with blog post ideas and writing the content.
Think about what you learned from each job. Then, you can figure out which job or industry you know the most about to help come up with the best niche idea.
Verify Profitability
Now, you could just pick a topic that interests you. But if you’re here, it’s probably because you want to eventually make money from your blog, which means you need to turn it into a business.
That means you should do some research to make sure whatever niche you go with will be profitable. Look up other niche blogs on the subject to see what they cover.
You can also use SEO research tools, such as Semrush, to get more data on website traffic. That will give you an idea of how much traffic you could get.
I’d also look into relevant affiliate programs. Consider how much commission each sale will get, and you can estimate how much money you can make.
What If You Have Multiple Passions
Very few people (if anyone) only have one interest. That can make choosing a niche more difficult because you may not want to narrow your focus to just one thing.
Fortunately, you can cover all of your interests in your new venture. Here’s how.
Start Multiple Niche Blogs
You need a niche if you want your blog to get anywhere. But if you don’t want to just blog about one of your interests, you can combat this problem by starting multiple blogs.
Many website hosts, including SiteGround, offer plans that allow you to host unlimited websites. You can choose one of those plans and add as many websites as you want.
Then, each website can focus on a different niche, so you don’t have to choose just one. Plus, owning multiple blogs can help you diversify your income and protect your earnings in case one blog has a poor month traffic or money-wise.
Choose One Niche at a Time
Now, if you want to eventually expand into multiple niches, that’s great. However, I’d start one niche website at a time so that you can learn how the process of starting and growing it works.
As you validate profitability, start with the niche that offers the most profit potential. That way, once it starts making money, it can help fund any future niche blogs you choose to launch.
Sure, you can start multiple websites at once, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Starting and growing a website takes a lot of time and money, and you don’t want to spread yourself too thin.
Test Niches on Social Media
Another great way to choose a niche for your next blog is to start a few niche social media accounts. They’ll still take time to start and grow, but you can usually do it for free.
You can use different marketing strategies to grow your various accounts on Instagram or TikTok. Then, you’ll be able to see if one niche gets more traffic than the rest.
If so, you’ll know which niche to use for your next niche blog. And if a niche flops, you won’t have to waste money on a domain or hosting.
Consider Hiring a Team
Perhaps you can’t decide between multiple niches to start. The next best thing is to hire one or more freelance writers to help you create content for your various sites.
I’d recommend hiring not only writers but also subject matter experts. That way, they can use their experience to help write good quality posts that you can then monetize and get to rank on Google.
Of course, hiring freelancers isn’t cheap. However, it can be well worth it if you want to grow your niche blogging business quickly and efficiently.
Final Thoughts
You need a niche if you want to start a successful online business. Luckily, you can look into your own background and do some market research to find the perfect topic.
That way, you can build trust with your audience and increase your earning potential.
And if you’re still not sure what niche to choose, give it a dry run on social media. Enroll in the Instagram Marketing & Sales Academy for more tips!