“Niche” – it’s a word that you will hear from every blogger.
Like everyone says – you need to find your perfect niche, it’s important to select a proper niche. But Why?
What’s the meaning of a “niche”? There are a lot of unanswered questions and we’ll answer all of them here.
It’s a lot easier when you’ve just started your blog, but the troubles start when you’ve to stick to a topic. You may have noticed that all of the popular blogs never lose sight of the main topic post only about a particular topic.
They focus on a well-defined audience. For example – TechCrunch only posts about tech news & updates ( you get the idea, right? ).
In simple words, a blogging niche is a topic on which you’ll be writing on your blog. You should think about your niche before starting your blog,
For example, Blogging Loop is a blog for bloggers and peoples who want to learn about blogging, SEO and affiliate marketing. It’s a part of the blogging niche.
Some of you may think why selecting a niche has so much importance?
It’s important because it makes you an expert in a single field. You will get more visitors when it’s clear that what they’re looking for is present in your blog. It’s much easier to build a loyal reader base when you have a specific niche blog.
You must do proper niche selection before starting a blog. It’s the first thing to consider when you’ve decided to start a blog.
Below, I’ll tell you about some steps that will help you in selecting a perfect niche.
5 Steps For Choosing The Perfect Niche
#1 Brainstorm about your topic
The first thing you need to do is to brainstorm about your topic. Start by writing down the things that interest you. Make a great list of the things you like.
The list can include professional or personal interests. You can find your interests by following these steps –
First, start thinking about the activities or things you like to do. You can also think about the things that you would like to do if someone gives you a chance. Do you like to draw? If yes, why not start a blog on teaching others about drawing. After all telling others about the activities we do can be much easier than a thing that we don’t like.
Next, think about the things that you enjoy learning. Say, you like to learn about cooking, you can start a blog about teaching others on how to cook delicious food. You can learn and while learning also teaches others about cooking. You will have the mindset of a learner and you can easily post what others might learn.
Finally, think about the things that you’re already learning and which you have some deep knowledge. You know I started this blog because I knew a little bit about blogging and I’m constantly learning much more, day by day. It’s fun to teach others about what I’m learning ( and the best thing – I never get bored. ) Teach others what you know about.
After following these steps you will find a lot of topics that you like. Choose the ones which you like the most, those are the best options for your niche.
List all the niche ideas which excite you, whether it’s only one or many of them. In the next step, I will tell you about how to check the size of your niche.
#2 Check the potential size of your niche
After you’ve decided your niche, you need to check if it attracts people or not. Your niche shouldn’t be too big or too small.
Let’s assume, I have an interest in “health” niche. But the health niche is just too big. So I decide to go into a sub-niche “weight loss”.
The sub-niche is not so small or not too big. You can take an example of this blog, its niche is blogging which is a sub-niche or sub-topic of Digital Marketing.
Digital Marketing is a very big topic. Choosing a too big niche is a problem because there are already big names out there.
It’s easy to find the size of a niche by doing proper keyword research.
You can check the keyword research with the help of both free or paid tools. Below is a guide on how to do keyword research with SemRush ( 30 Day Free Trial ).
Read – How to use SEMRush ( Tutorial + Review )
Some free keyword research tools are Google Keyword Planner, SERPs, Uber Suggest, etc.
But there’s a problem. Free tools like Google Keyword Planner aren’t that much accurate. For the best accuracy, you need paid tools like SEMRUSH, KWFinder, Long Tail Pro etc.
If your niche keyword has more than 20,000 – 30,000 searches per month, then it’s best for you. You’re ready to go to the next step.
#3 Check the competition of your niche
Once you’ve found that there is scope in your niche, you need to check what’s the competition level in your niche.
If you’re having competition in your niche, it’s a good sign. It has enough people talking about it so it’s worth pursuing. After all, why would people waste their energy on something that’s not important?
Back to the topic – If there’s competition in your niche it’s worth it, else if there is no competition it’s a sign that your niche isn’t good enough.
Now, How to check if the competition in your niche?
You can check the competition in your niche by following these three steps –
Go to Google. Search for best “your niche” blogs or best blogs about “your niche”. Check how much popular the top blogs in your niche are. See how many visitors they are getting on a monthly basis and also check their income reports (if they publish them). Don’t get afraid of them, you be as successful as them you just need to work hard + smart.
Go to Twitter. Search for twitter accounts of blogs in your niche. Check if those accounts are active or not. Also, see how much followers do they have? There should be at least 1,000 followers.
Or, Go to Facebook. Search for facebook page of blogs in your niche. Almost all of the top bloggers have social media accounts. Check how many followers your niche experts are having. It’s a great sign if they have more than 10,000 fan likes.
Follow these steps and you’ll know what’s the competition in your niche. Even if only the 1st point is positive it’s clear that your niche has huge potential. ( Beware – Most people buy fake social media followers)
#4 Check if the niche is profitable or not
Since you’ve now checked how many searches your niche has on a monthly basis and what’s the competition level. It’s time to see if your niche is profitable or not. But how?
Most of the people start a blog just as their hobby, but many people warn to earn money from their blogs ( and there is nothing wrong with doing that). Regardless of whatever niche you choose, it’s important to check how much money you can make from your blog. Many people are making a living from blogging.
The above point 2nd (checking your niche’s size) & 3rd (checking your niche’s competition) tells a lot about your niche’s profitability. It’s easy to know if your niche is alive and monetizable or not. How?
#1 If a niche has searches then there are surely many advertisers to sell products to the people who will come through searches. #2 If there are industry experts then they surely are making a hell lot of money that’s why they are still putting efforts to remain at the top.
Now, there are many other ways to check if your niche is profitable or not –
Check on Google for best “your niche” affiliate programs. If there are affiliate programs which pay more than 20$ per sale then your niche is profitable.
Does anyone sell any products related to your niche? If yes, there are chances that the affiliate program pays a good amount, it’s a sign that your niche may be profitable.
Are there any big advertisers in your niche? If yes, then your niche can be profitable. For example – in blogging niche, there are affiliate programs that pay up to hundreds of dollars per sale. It’s clearly a profitable niche.
With the help of these points, you will know the earning potential of your niche.
#5 Select the final option
The last thing you need to do is to select the best niche for starting a blog. You would have thought about many niche ideas for your blog in the 1st step. But it’s best that you only blog about a single topic.
Blogging about a single topic will establish you as an expert. And also having a multi-niche blog isn’t good for SEO either. Search Engines like Google will have a hard time understanding what your blog is about as it’ll have keywords from many niches.
Once you’ve completed all the steps you’ll have a clear understanding of the size, competition and the potential earning of your selected niches. Now, you just need to select the niche which fascinates you the most. The topic about which you can talk day and night is the chosen one ( you get the reference, right? ).
It’s good to select the topic that you know about, what you’re willing to learn, which has a good size, which has good competition and has enough ways to earn money. Blog about what you’re passionate about.
Final Thoughts…
It is important that you select the right niche for your blog. Your blog’s success depends on it.
When you select the wrong niche you’ll end up wasting a ton of time and money. It’s important to think of the long-term and selecting the proper niche will keep you interested. It takes a lot of time to build and run a successful blog.
After you find your blogging niche, the next problem will be – to decide the name of your blog. But, don’t worry we also have a guide on finding the best name for your blog.
Have you found your perfect niche? If not, feel free to ask when you’re having any issues and I will try to solve them.