How To Choose A Niche For Your Blog In 2021?
One of the most important steps when starting a new blog is knowing how to choose a niche for your blog?
Before we start, I just want to congratulate you on your new adventure. Running your own blog that brings an income is an amazing feeling that is hard to describe in words.
I remember when I first started, I had no experience at all. I did not even know what a niche was.
I was excited and nervous at thought of starting a blog. I did a lot of research but still felt I had a lot more to learn, I was not wrong.
Picking the perfect niche is just the first step, then comes keyword research, on-page SEO, and so forth.
I know starting your own blog can be a steep learning curve but I’m here to help you with your blogging journey.
I can tell you without a doubt that it’s worth it in the end. If you are willing to put in the hard work, then you too can have a successful blog.
So, before we start let’s quickly define what a niche is when it comes to blogging.
Basically, a niche is the main topic that you will write your blog content around for your readers.
For example,
if your niche is ‘gardening’ then you will write articles relating to gardening or if your niche is ‘motherhood’ then you will write articles relating to being a mother and so forth.
There are 4 important questions you need to ask yourself when you are trying to decide which niche you should choose.
- What Do I Enjoy Doing?
- If I Blog Will People Come And Read?
- What Is The Competition Like?
- Is This Niche Profitable?
What Do I Enjoy Doing?
Choosing the right niche for your blog is very important. It is not something you can decide by flipping a coin.
A lot of new bloggers get this important step wrong.
Take your time to consider all the possibilities.
This step shouldn’t be rushed, if it takes you days or even weeks to decide, so be it. It is better to get it right from the start than to realize later that you have chosen the wrong niche.
I have been blogging for many years and one key lesson I have learned over the years is:
“Always choose a niche that you have a genuine interest in.”.
If you choose a niche that you have a genuine interest in, you will find it easier to write articles around that topic making your whole blogging experience enjoyable.
When you work on something you enjoy doing you are more productive and because as a blogger you are working for yourself this also means more income.
I’m not saying it is not possible to have a successful blog in a niche that you’re not interested in. All I’m saying is you have a better chance of success choosing a topic that you enjoy.
In the beginning, you will probably have a list of niches that you are interested in, this is normal.
Ask yourself the following questions.
These questions will help you to narrow down your list.
- What do you enjoy doing?
- Brainstorm and write a list of all the things you enjoy doing.
- Next to each one, take note of whether it is a long-term interest or short-term interest of yours.
- Choose the top 3 long-term interests and ask the following question.
- Can you write more than 50 articles around these?
Now that you have narrowed down your list, ask yourself the following question.
If I Blog Will People Come And Read?
No point in writing lots of articles if no one is interested in reading them.
The backbone to a successful blog is traffic (readers). A website without traffic is like a store with no customers.
Therefore, it is vital to find out the level of interest in the niche you are considering.
There are many ways you can check this. I like to use Google Trends (free).
What Is Google Trends?
In short, Google Trends is a free tool by Google that shows you what is popular in Google search and what isn’t.
When it comes down to your niche research, it will show you 2 important data points.
- It will show you the level of interest in your possible niche.
- If the level of interest is going up or down.
Googles Treads is straightforward to use and best of all it’s a free research tool.
- Go to Google Trends.
- Enter your search term(s)
- Adjust your search parameters if needed (location, time range, etc).
- For the above example, we are looking at the gardening niche, traffic from the United States over the last 5 years.
This example provides us with plenty of useful data that can help us decide if a niche is worth investing time and money into.
This graph shows us that the gardening niche is seasonal, and peaks around May. Over the last 5 years, there has been a steady interest in gardening however, last year the interest was much higher than usual (2020).
What Is The Competition Like?
Now we need to analyze the competition. If the competition is tough, then ranking your articles is going to be tough but not impossible, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
For example:
If your niche is iPhones, then you will be up against the likes of Apple, which you probably wouldn’t stand a chance as a new blogger.
If you find yourself in a similar situation then you have 3 choices.
- Find a new niche that has less competition.
- Approach the niche from another angle. (instead of reviewing iPhones you could review accessories such as wireless charging docks for the iPhone)
How To Analyze Competition In Your Niche?
There are many ways you can analyze the competition you will face in your niche.
Other bloggers are always promoting this paid tool or that paid tool, but to be honest you don’t really need to spend any money for this step in the beginning. The more we save the better I say.
Don’t take me wrong, the paid tools make everything much easier, and they do much more than just analyze your competition such as keyword research which is very important as a blogger.
But in the beginning, you can use Google directly to analyze your competition.
Yes, you can use Google directly for this and it is very simple to do.
- Think about the kind of articles you will be writing in your niche.
- Type some of the titles of those articles into Google.
- Check who ranks in the top 10 places.
- This will give you a good idea of what your competition will be like.
Is This Niche Profitable?
Most people get into blogging to earn an income if this is you keep reading.
If you plan to earn an income from your blog, then you need to check and make sure that there are products you can sell and promote within your niche.
For example, If your niche is gardening, you have products such as garden furniture and gardening tools that you could promote.
The great thing about a blog is, that it can have more than 1 revenue of income.
There are 3 main ways that a blog can earn money.
Advertising
Placing ads on a blog is the most popular way bloggers make money.
Many advertising companies are willing to pay you for placing ads on your blog. They usually pay bloggers per 1000 views for their ads.
Some ad companies will accept you even if you don’t have any traffic yet, but these companies don’t pay well plus their ads are known to slow down websites.
Just a side note, the speed of your website is one of the key factors for Google to rank your articles. The faster your website the better your website will be in the eyes of Google.
You also get premium advertising companies who pay better per 1000 views, but they require your blog to have a minimum amount of traffic each month.
Affiliate Links
This is when you sign up with companies such as Amazon / eBay etc. and promote the products that they are selling on their platform by placing links on your website.
Then every time someone clicks through those links and purchases their product you get a commission.
For example, if we look at the gardening niche again, in this niche you could promote gardening tools and garden furniture through affiliate links.
When looking for products that you could promote through affiliate links, keep in mind the higher the price the more you will get paid in commission. So, if you were promoting a product valued at $500 and the affiliate commission was 5% you would make $25 each time someone purchased it through your affiliate link.
However, if the product you were promoting was only valued at $2 and the commission rate was 5% you would only make $0.10. So, you would need to sell a lot more to make a decent return.
Digital Products
This is where you can make big bucks. You can sell your own digital products such as
- eBooks
- Courses
- Step by step guides etc.
The great thing about selling your own digital product directly through your blog is that you keep all the profit but if you were to promote your digital product on another platform such as Amazon you will need to share a percentage of your profit with Amazon.
Selling your own digital product can boost your monthly income from your blog. I highly recommend creating your own digital products.
Let us look at some numbers. if you were selling an eBook for $3 each and your monthly traffic is 25000 and 2 % of your traffic buys your eBook (500 customers), you make $1500. As you can see there is a good return when you have your own product to sell.
BONUS: What Type Of Niches to Avoid
Google is the most popular search engine in the world so it’s important to keep Google happy if we want our blog content (articles) to rank well.
There are 3 niches that are known to be very hard to break into because the competition is just too high, and these are:
- Finance
- Weight loss
- Recipes
It is not impossible but just very hard. If you feel you are qualified and have the experience in these niches or any other niche that appears to have a lot of competition, then yes you could go for them otherwise beware these niches are very tough to get into.
As mentioned early, you can always narrow down on your niche which is known as micro-niche.
For example
If your niche is “saving money” (finance) which is a very broad niche. You could narrow it down to a specific area of “saving money” such as ‘saving money for teenagers at college’ (micro-niche).
Do not narrow down too much or you could struggle to come up with article ideas.
Avoid YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)
YMYL are niches/articles that are relating directly to someone’s finances and health.
Google’s algorithm is strict when it comes to YMYL topics. Google’s main role is to provide its readers with the best reliable and trustworthy articles.
If you are not qualified/experienced in finance or health, then it is likely Google will not rank your articles high in its search.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to choosing your niche take your time to examine all the possibilities.
Ask yourself the following questions to have a better idea.
- What Do I Enjoy Doing?
- If I Blog Will People Come And Read?
- What Is The Competition Like?
- Is This Niche Profitable?
Choose a niche that you have a genuine interest in. This will help you write articles a lot easier and you will enjoy the blogging experience much more.
Before you commit yourself to a certain niche always check the competition and check what products you could sell and promote on your blog.
Having your own blog is hard work and takes a lot of patience but in the long run, it is more than worth it.
I hope this article has made it clear how to choose a niche for your blog? I wish you all the success on your new blogging journey.
If you have any questions or any tips, please share them in the comments.
Happy Blogging!
