So you’ve decided to start a blog for your company or business. That’s great – but taking that first step is just that, a first step. It’s still necessary to lay a lot of groundwork before your blog can really take off. One of the most important parts of that groundwork is choosing a niche for your blog. It’s important not to be too broad with your blog, as this can appear unfocused and, ultimately, will appeal to nobody by virtue of trying to appeal to everybody. But similarly, too esoteric of a focus, and you run the risk of alienating potential readers and turning them off altogether.
There are a lot of factors, then, that go into carving out the perfect niche for your blog. In this article, we plan to delineate some of the best tips and tricks for choosing a blog niche. And once you’ve hit upon that niche, the only way is up.
Without further ado, let’s examine how you can choose the perfect niche for your blog.
Table of Contents
10 Considerations to Find the Perfect Niche for Your Blog
Follow the 10 considerations below to find the perfect niche for your blog.
Brainstorm A List of Niches
Before you can get off the ground, you need to narrow the playing field vis-à-vis your perfect niche. It can be a little hard to decide what that niche is, initially, or where to begin.
Let’s say your business manufactures luxury soap for men, and has cultivated a stereotypically masculine image. Should you have a blog that focuses entirely on men’s soap? That’s likely too niche. What about men’s hygiene, then? That’s better – it gives you more scope for blog content and more flexibility – but might it not be so vague as to lack focus?
Before you get started, then, it’s a good idea to sit down and think about potential niches – that is to say, themes – for your blog going forward.
For instance, if we run with the above example of a product that we’ll call, say, Man Soap, you might brainstorm the following:
- Male hygiene
- Traditionally masculine pursuits (hunting, fishing, shooting etc.)
- History of male toiletries
- Men’s fashion
- Toiletries in general
- Male-dominated sports (soccer, football, baseball, boxing etc.)
Remember that you’re just spitballing at this point, so you can put things on the list that only tenuously belong there (e.g. men’s fashion in the above example – it doesn’t really have too much to do with soap for men). The point is that you’ve got a list to work from – you can go from there and try to find something that will work for your niche.
The most important thing, ultimately, is to make sure that your niche is broad enough that you can get plenty of regular, ongoing content out of it – but not so vague that you lose focus.
To find out if there is enough traffic on a topic, as well as not too much competition, we recommend using an SEO tool. This can really help you to narrow down and choose a niche for your blog. Our firm favorite is Semrush – the leading all-in one SEO solution on the market.
Choose Something You’re Passionate About
Nothing can tank your blog faster than writing about something you find dull, unengaging or tedious. Blog readers are extremely perceptive, and if you’re not into whatever it is that you’re writing about, they’ll quickly pick up on it – and share your lack of enthusiasm for the content.
On your end, too, writing about something that you’re simply not interested in will quickly destroy any motivation that you have to continue. It’s a blogger with iron willpower that can sustain consistent content on a subject they find boring, and you’re unlikely to be that blogger. And even if you were – why write about something that you have no interest in?
If your blog is in your area of expertise (and if it’s a blog that you’d ultimately like to use for content marketing, this is almost certainly going to be the case), then this passion will inevitably be part of that expertise. And if it’s not – or, for whatever reason, you’re simply not that passionate about your area of expertise – then remember that you can always engage freelance writers to bulk up your content.
Develop A Clear Understanding Of Your Target Audience
Remember that you’re not (or you ought not to be) writing for yourself. You’re writing for a specific type of person that you’d like to attract to your blog – and, from there, to your products or services.
It’s therefore crucial that you understand the people in that target audience before you choose the niche for your blog. What demographic(s) do they belong to? What sort of content would they find interesting or engaging? What blog posts are they likely to read, and what sort of CTAs can you expect them to respond to?
By researching this target audience (perhaps with a good dose of market research before you begin writing) you can develop an understanding of the type of content you should be putting out in order to catch their eye.
This understanding will inform everything you put out going forward, and shape the entire theme and direction of your blog. And with that in mind, you’ll find that formulating a publishing schedule and deciding on future content will be that much easier.
Think About Monetization
Depending on the purpose of your blog, you might want to be thinking about monetization. Some topics are harder to make money from than others, of course – if your blog is about common house spiders, you might have a hard time turning a profit from it – but generally speaking it’s a good idea to look at niches that will be easier for you to monetize that other examples.
That monetization, of course, may be in-house – e.g. you are linking back to your own company’s products and ultimately pushing readers to purchase those products – but there are other ways to monetize your blog. These include:
Premium Memberships
Charge a fee for access to premium content, e.g. videos, blog posts and other content not made available to casual readers. If you sell goods/services, these memberships could include discounts, invitations to VIP meetings and loyalty gifts included.
Sponsored Content
Invite guest bloggers to publish their content on your blog for a fee. With this one, it’s important to ensure that their voice and content are consistent with your own.
Affiliate Links
Affiliate links involve your recommending a specific product or service and then linking to it within your content. Every time a reader clicks through on that link and makes a purchase, you will earn a small commission.
Affiliate links can be very profitable, but they can also hurt your credibility if overdone, as they make you seem disingenuous and only interested in turning a buck. Furthermore, if you’re largely interested in blogging to promote your own business, then you might not want to lean too much into affiliate links (as they’ll detract from your own marketing).
Paid Advertisements
You could permit ads on your website, which will earn you a small commission every time someone clicks on them. Note that this may detract from the content of your website, and may run afoul of ad blockers (which are used more and more as internet browsers tire of ubiquitous adverts).
Any and all of these monetization methods can be used on your own blog in order to turn a profit from it. Just remember not to overdo it – if readers feel that your blog is nothing but a mouthpiece for advertisers, in one form or another, then you’ll inevitably turn them off.
Ensure That Your Niche Has A Large Enough Potential Audience
So you’ve decided upon something that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about, and you’re confident that you can produce content on it indefinitely. However, if that topic is something that isn’t really searched for on Google, is it really going to attract an audience? Before choosing a niche for your blog, you should ensure that it has enough traffic potential.
Let’s return to our previous example of Man Soap. By using a free tool like Google Trends, we can easily take a look at what kind of searches will attract a good amount of interest – and which countries search those terms the most.
For instance, if we wanted to see what kind of interest we might get for different niches – i.e. what people are searching for – we might consider researching the following terms:
We can immediately see that ‘soap for men’ is the most popular overall, with high search rates across the globe and particularly in the Philippines and India. “Male hygiene” is generally not popular (except in the Philippines) and “toiletries for men” is generally popular only in the UK.
Alternatively, we can use an SEO tool to figure out how much traffic potential there is for a topic, and how competitive the chosen niche is. Our firm favorite is Semrush – the leading all-in one SEO solution on the market.
What does this mean for your niche? This is obviously a limited example, with not nearly enough research done, but if we were to take this as the basis for our blog, we’d choose to focus on ‘soap for men’ because it is the most broadly appealing search term on a global basis. If we were based in the UK, India or the Philippines, however, we may choose to shift our focus to accommodate local markets.
Bottom line: take the time to do your research and find out what sort of things people are searching for that’s related to your potential niches. You can do it without spending a dime, and the data you get back can be invaluable in making sure that you’re focusing on the right areas.
Consider Your Blog Name Carefully
Your blog name is going to be vitally important when catering to the potential readers that fall within your purview. Before settling on something, you need to ask yourself a few questions:
- Does the name of my blog represent the niche in which I operate?
- Is it catchy and memorable?
- Is it misleading?
All of these are important in making sure that you’re onto a winner – it should not limit you in choosing a niche for your blog. You need something that readers can immediately associate with your chosen niche, as this will be both thematically appropriate and build brand awareness. Furthermore, it shouldn’t be too wordy, as nobody will remember it in this instance. Finally, it should not be misleading in any way; this just means that anyone who ends up on your blog will feel duped, and they’ll quickly leave – never to return.
Whatever you end up going with, make sure that it’s appropriate for the niche that you’ve chosen.
Assess The Competition
In this day and age, pretty much any blog is going to run into some form of competition. And while it’s inevitable that you’ll run into some sort of competition (unless you’re going very niche, in which case you’ll likely run into the problem of failing to attract an audience), you don’t want to spend your time trying to elbow out dozens of rivals in a crowded niche.
However, it’s unrealistic to expect no competition, as we said below. As long as you’re operating within a niche that people have interest in, there will inevitably be competitors. So how can you deal with this?
You can tackle the issue head-on, by trying to put out higher-quality content than your competitors. This can quite often be accomplished quite easily. Simply research the sort of blog posts that your competitors are doing, and put out blog posts of a similar nature – but better. This means ensuring optimal SEO (search engine optimization) but it also means making sure that your writing pops more and the content is more interesting and engaging.
To assess the specific competition you’ll have on a selected range of topics, we recommend using an SEO tool. Our firm favorite is Semrush – the leading all-in one SEO solution on the market. It can help you choose a niche for your blog where competition is not too high.
Another approach is to ensure that you provide content that others don’t, by further specializing within that niche. How can you do this? With sub-niches.
Establish Sub-Niches Within Your Niche
You can further diversify within your niche – and distinguish yourself from your competition – by establishing sub-niches within your chosen area of expertise.
Let’s return to the Man Soap example. There will, inevitably, be competitors in this field (hygiene products marketed specifically for men have always been around), but there are ways to distinguish yourself further in this area. You could specialize in blog posts about high-end soaps for men, for instance, in order to appeal to an affluent clientele; you could also go the other way and write about products for those on a budget.
There are, of course, countless other ways in which you could further specialize, and provide further content for your target audience. As with your main niche, it’s important to exercise due diligence and ensure that you’re providing content that people actually want to read.
Try To Go For An ‘Evergreen’ Niche
If you’re looking to hit on a blog niche that is going to be a keeper, you need to make sure that that niche is ‘evergreen’. What does this mean? Much like evergreen trees always have leaves on their boughs, evergreen content is something that’s always going to remain relevant – and so will always be searched, always have an interested audience, and will always be profitable.
Evergreen content generally does one of the following:
- Answers a common question (or questions)
- Addresses common mistakes made in [your niche]
- Offers resources
- Provides a history of something
- Offers a comprehensive glossary
- Is an ‘ultimate guide’ to something
Something else that’s great about evergreen content is that once it’s up, it practically takes care of itself. And if anything changes, you can simply tweak the existing content to make sure it stays relevant. That’s it! Successful evergreen content will keep attracting likes and shares even without input from you – but you should still share and promote it regularly, nonetheless.
Choose A Sustainable Niche
There’s no sense in choosing a blog niche unless you can commit to producing an indefinite amount of content for it for an indefinite amount of time. The best blogs are sustainable, and will always find a way to put out new content.
When selecting your niche, you need to put your blog idea to the “in a year’s time” test:
- Will readers still be interested in this sort of content in a year’s time?
- Will I still have relevant content to produce in a year’s time?
- Will I have the motivation to keep putting out new content in a year’s time?
If you’re not able to answer ‘yes’ to all of the above, then it might be a good idea to consider switching tack and looking at something else.
That said, if you’re willing to involve other parties in your blog, then it may not be necessary to commit quite as hard to your topic. If there is going to be relevant content there in a year, but you may not have the motivation or the interest to keep going, then you can always outsource the work to freelancers. Nobody said you had to write every single blog yourself!
Conclusion
Though there is a lot to think about when choosing your own blog niche, the fact is that it’s very much worth giving careful thought to all of this. The last thing you want, after all, is to pump time and money into your blog theme, only to find that you’re attracting 20 readers a month. By exercising due diligence and carefully looking into your potential readership and what they’re interested in, you can save yourself a lot of time and effort down the line and get off to a flying start. And once the hard part is over, you’ll quickly start to see results.
