Are you thinking about starting a blog?
You’ve probably visited a ton of other mommy blogs or lifestyle blogs and thought, why not? And you’re right – why not?
You can totally start a blog, have fun and earn an income too! I’m proof it works.
Blogging is a great way to connect with others similar to you and give you the opportunity to earn some cash on the side.
But you know what ends up happening to many of these newbie bloggers? They start a blog and blog about anything that comes to their mind. I mean, who wouldn’t? It is YOUR personal blog right? You can write about whatever you want.
Maybe you have one post about your favorite Mexican Enchilada recipe passed down from your grandma. Another post is how to be sane when your toddler tantrums. Maybe you have a post on how you style your office.
Your blog caters to everyone, but is this the right thing to do?
But, wait? Do you have a blog?
Before you get into the nitty gritty of this post, if you’re reading this and don’t have a blog, but want to start one, I have an easy step-by-step tutorial on how to start a blog using SiteGround!
Why You Need a Niche
Can I tell you a little secret? The best blogs out there are the blogs that talk about one central theme, one topic, or one niche.
These are the blogs that have the best information within their niche. And they have the audience and engagement to prove it.
So, should you have a niche as a new blogger? Hell ya! Having a niche is crucial to your blog’s success.
But, what’s so great about having a niche? Let’s look at four reasons.
1. You Grow a Following A Lot Quicker
People fall in love with your blog faster if you have a niche than if not.
When they find your post on Pinterest, click over to read it and if they love the post, they’ll start looking through your site for more posts like that.
What if they don’t find any similar content on your site? They see a post about exercise next to a post about top tech tools for kids. And what does this person do? BOUNCE!
But, what if they finish reading that epic post, look through your blog, and see even better posts? They stay longer and most likely will sign up to you list.
Having a niche means you have an engaged and excited audience than if you wrote about everything under the moon.
As an example, Allison from Wonderlass has a huge following and she does a great job focusing her content to help other entrepreneurs and solopreneurs have a successful business. Look at her most popular posts:
2. You Become an Expert
You know how you went to school for four or six years to become an expert? Well in the blogging world, you can become an expert in way less time.
Start a blog, write about one theme and provide your best tips. If people learn from your posts and you help people with your tips, you will become an expert. This is a great thing to have if you want to eventually monetize your blog.
Let’s look at Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. He didn’t start out writing about passive income. He was just writing about what he was doing online and as a result, he’s the go-to fella to learn about passive income.
3. You Can Make Money Faster
You know one of the things I learned from launching my first course for freelance writers, was that in order for someone to feel comfortable to buy, they need to trust the person they are giving their money to.
And an easy way to build trust is to provide high-value content in your niche. This shows your expertise, credibility and it helps convince future buyers to trust what you have to say.
Melyssa Griffin was able to grow her blog and launch several successful courses because she was able to attract the right audience with her focused content.
4. It’s Super Easy to Come Up With Blog Post Ideas
Do you find it hard to come up with your next blog post idea? For a lot of us, pumping out post, after post, after post can be a challenge.
But, not so much when you have a niche. Your niche can provide you with a ton of blog post ideas.
So, how do you find blog post ideas in your niche? Here are two quick ways.
1. Use Pinterest
Pinterest is a great place to find related topics in your niche. For example, here are the Pins for the search term, “frugal living.”
You can find a ton of ideas about frugal living from saving money to DIY products. Just plug in any niche topic and see what Pins show up.
2. Use BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a site that tracks what’s trending on social media. Simply put in your keyword and see if it’s a popular topic.
Here’s my result for “frugal living.”
It looks like how to make your own popcorn is a popular topic and something you can incorporate in your content schedule.
Once you have a niche it’s super easy to come up with several blog post ideas.
But, what about my Twins Mommy blog? Is this blog a niche blog? I do have several topics I write about: productivity tips, mompreneur tips, working from home, blogging tips and life with my twins.
Why am I writing about finding your niche when it looks like my blog doesn’t really have one?
But it actually does and here’s how.
Types of Niche Blogs
There are generally two types of niche blogs – those that focus on one topic only, like blogging tips, and ones that focus on a group of similar topics, like working from home.
My Elna Cain site focuses on only one topic: freelance writing tips for new writers.
Twins Mommy, on the other hand, focuses on a group of similar topics helping moms become mompreneurs. This audience can benefit from my blogging tips or my productivity tips because the central theme is working moms.
But one thing to remember is that if you cater to a certain demographic, it doesn’t mean you have to write about everything that demographic likes. For example, if your readers are young entrepreneurs, there’s no need to have posts on styling your outfit or home. Those just seem out of place.
Okay, now that you’ve decided to find a niche, how the heck do you actually find one?
Find Your Niche By Asking These 3 Questions
Hitting the bullseye with your niche doesn’t have to be hard. It might take some time though.
When I first started my freelance writing site, I had no idea what to blog about. I wasn’t too sure on the niche I wanted to get paid to write in either, so for my blog, I ended up just blogging about freelance writing. It was a new subject for me, and I used my blog to help me learn about freelance writing in general.
It was almost two years later that I started another personal blog (this one). And even this blog is somewhat similar to my freelance writing blog since at the end of the day, I blog about making an income online, right?
If you’re having trouble coming up with your perfect niche to rock your blog, here are the three questions to ask yourself.
1. What Am I Passionate About?
What is the one thing you’re totally passionate about in your life right now? It might be natural health or email marketing or fitness.
Since your blog is something you have to keep up with for many months and possibly years, you’re going to want to ensure you wake up each morning excited about your blog.
Because who hates waking up to a job you hate?
And having that strong motivation – the why behind your blog – will protect you for what comes down the road. In all honesty, most blogs fail. Bloggers have good intentions, but if they don’t see their hard work pay off, what’s the point in keeping going, right?
Well, if you have a niche you’re passionate about, having that desire and exuberance can create a buffer for you when times get rough!
So, pick a niche you LOVE writing about or thinking about or reading about.
2. Is There a Need For My Niche?
Okay, let’s get real here.
If you want people to come to your blog, read your posts, comment and share, there has to be a genuine need for your blog.
For example, if your niche is crocheting, is there a market for that? Maybe (I don’t know), but if you want to succeed, you need to find a niche that people want to know more about.
How do you find out?
Easy. With Facebook.
Find Facebook groups where your audience hangs out. If you know your audience are mostly mommy bloggers you can search in mommy type groups.
All Facebook groups have a place to search the threads. Type in your niche or general keyword associated with your niche and see if people need help.
For example, if your niche is branding and social media, you can search in groups for people asking questions about Pinterest and branding.
From here you can find what people are struggling with. In this example, people need help branding their Pinterest profile, grahics and generating more followers.
These topics can be future blog posts for a branding blog.
3. Can You Monetize It?
Finally, you want to see if your niche is profitable. At the end of the day, most people end up bloggin to earn money, but if you don’t have a niche or you have a niche that no one cares about, you’re not going to earn an income from blogging.
Finding out if you can monetize it depends on how popular your niche is and how helpful you are. Look at your competition to gauge whether or not you can profit from your blog.
Just remember though, don’t start a blog simply to make money. Start a blog out of the desire and passion first.
Ready to Niche Down?
I hope you’re still excited about starting a blog! Finding a niche isn’t that hard once you answer those three critical questions.
And when you niche down, you can rock your blog’s socks off!
Over to you – how did you find your niche and was it easy? Share your niche story with me!
This is the first post in my Blogging Basics series. I’ll be talking about the importance of having a Gravatar next month!