Do you think about starting a blog?
Having a blog is a great hobby that you can turn into a business. But it can be difficult in the beginning. A lot of choices, but not a lot of knowledge.
Let’s talk today, then, for one of the first ones – possibly the first. Your niche. I’ll give you a few niche ideas for blogging, and I’ll tell you how to find the perfect niche for you.
What is a Niche?
A niche is a specific segment of a market. An “audience”.
When people start blogging, they usually target a specific audience. For example, if you blog about cooking, then your target audience is people who want to learn how to cook.
Why do you Need a Niche?
1. Knowledge is Power
The more you know about your audience, the closer you can get to them. You can understand them better and help them more efficiently.
2. We are not All the Same
If you write about a variety of topics, it’s not certain that your readers will be interested in all the subjects that are interesting to you. Actually, they probably won’t.
3. No Returning Visitors
And since they won’t be interested in a lot of the articles, they probably won’t come back for more. And it’s not easy to build trust with new readers.
4. Harder to Rank
If your content is spread out, it’s more difficult to rank on search engines.
5. Harder to Become an Authority
Also, it’s harder to become an authority. If you choose a specific topic for your site, after a while, people will recognise you as an authority on this subject, and they’ll come to you for advice.
If you don’t choose something specific, how can you be an authority on something with only a couple of posts on each subject?
How to Choose
Let’s see how you can choose YOUR niche:
Step 1: Brainstorm
Set a timer for 10 minutes, grab a pen and a piece of paper and write down everything you’re interested in.
Languages, arts, instruments, travel, cleaning… anything. No matter how stupid it may sound to you, write it down. No one will see this list, you can even burn it after you finish. The important part is to write everything you care about.
Step 2: Talking
Your niche must be something you like talking about a lot. You’ll write a lot of posts about it. Can you imagine doing this for things you don’t want to talk about?
I was talking the other day with someone who had decided to start a blog about her illness. It was a serious illness she had defeated and she wanted to help others that had it, so she chose this as her niche.
Guess what? After a few posts, she gave up because she realised she really hated talking about her illness.
So, scratch off your list anything that you don’t want to talk about.
Step 3: Choose Things you Have a Lot to Say
As I said before, you’ll have to write a lot of posts on your blog. If you decide on a niche that it’s too narrowed down, then you’ll run out of things to say fast.
Step 4: Choose Something you Love
Focus on the things you really love on your list and choose one of them as your niche. I’ve seen a lot of bloggers saying – writing, anyway – that it’s ok not to choose something you love as long as you make money from it.
I disagree. You may have started a blog to make money, but why shouldn’t you choose something you love?
I could include one more and tell you to write about something you know, but it’s ok if you don’t know a lot about it, but you want to learn a lot about.
Ideas
- Personal Development
- Travelling
- DIY
- Fitness / Weight Loss
- Photography
- Social media
- Gaming
- Lessons (languages, singing, playing an instrument, drawing, painting, writing, etc.)
- Beauty
- Fashion
- Tech (mobiles, cameras, laptops, etc.)
- Sports
- Environment
- Pets
- Cooking
- Parenting
- Lifestyle
- Movies
- Science
- Career
- Gift ideas
- Gadgets (kitchen gadgets, office gadgets, etc.)
- Wedding
- Interior design
- Relationship
- Jewellery/Clothing
- Business
- Marketing
- Hobbies
- Money
- YOU
Yes, you can even write a blog about you!
Succeeding in Blogging
Here are some tips if you’re a beginner in blogging:
Aim for 100+ posts before you give up
There are so many blogs out there that you have to write a lot before starting to get attention. 100 posts is a good milestone, so until you create 100 posts, don’t expect a lot of results.
Make this your goal and don’t give up until you achieve it. After you’ve done it, then decide if you want to keep going or not.
Promote like crazy
After publishing a couple of posts, start promoting your blog as much as you can.
Make a schedule and stick to it
Plan your days, so you don’t get lost. Choose how frequently you’ll write on your blog and stick to it. Your regular visitors will be expecting an article then. Don’t disappoint them!
It takes time so don’t get disappointed
And since we’re talking about disappointment…
Don’t get disappointed!
It takes time to make it as a blogger, so don’t get disappointed if you don’t see any results after a couple of months. I can tell you this from now. You won’t.
Try your best and keep going until you succeed!
Final Thoughts
I hope I’ve helped you with the ideas I gave you. Have you chosen a niche yet, or are you still struggling?
Let me know if you’ve chosen your niche and how happy you are with it. If you have any questions, I’d be glad to answer! Any suggestions are always welcome, so tell me about topics you’d like me to write.
And if you liked this, check out how to start your blog.
See you next time!
Nicely written Jenny. I like this post mostly because it talks about a part of blogging that is very important. Without choosing a niche, one cannot start up a writing. I also had this problem, I wanted something I could write about and something I could earn from together. It was hard to juxtapose between those two. In the end,one doesn’t need to know it because there something called learn while you earn. This is a great post! Awesome!