Too many blogs fail way before they even get started. I think it is because they have such a difficult time picking the right niche. I’ve tried to start way too many blogs. I would lay in bed at night trying to think up that killer niche. Something no one has thought of before (ha, that’s a good one) or trying to find one that is not too obscure where there will be no traffic. I spent many sleepless nights throwing ideas around. Is this one too vague? Is that one too big where I’ll be one voice amongst millions? Does the audience in that niche spend enough money where my idea will be profitable?
I don’t think I’ve ever found the answer to any of those questions. But, I have had and still have some somewhat successful blogs. Here is what I ask myself now when I find myself again in a sleepless night looking for a blog idea. This blog evolved as my most recent answer.
Blogging Tips #1; If you could get up out of that chair and do anything in the world, what would it be?
Now, some of you might be a little snarky and say, “Get a glass of water.” Or, “Get something to eat.” Yeah, but I’m looking at the big picture on this one. The answer will be a lead on some great blogging niches. I’m talking about ideas like, “Starting a Family.” Then you could start a parenting and family blog.
How about a desire to, ‘Starting a Local business.’ Then you might want to start a blog documenting your steps on starting a local business. Do you want to do a project of restoring a house or old car? Document that through a blog. How about my favorite desire, “Breaking out of the 9-5.” Start a blog documenting your journey on breaking out of the rat race. Freeing myself from the 9 to 5 is the one that got me out of my chair. My point is that this is where your passion will lie. Passion will keep you grinding away blogging even when you would typically get tired and quit. Don’t let money be your only passion.
There are plenty of easier ways to make money rather than blogging. Blogging requires a lot of long, frustrating hours. Please don’t get into blogging just to make money. You’ll end up blogging about things you don’t like just trying to make money. After a while, your writing will be flat and have no pizzazz. Your readers will pick that up and stop responding.
That is what happened to one of my blogs. I lost interest. The passion was gone, so I stopped writing on it. It’s still there, and it still earns me a monthly income. I built up a sizeable stockpile of content when I was passionate. The system is set up to keep pulling in revenue even though I barely go there anymore. I believe passion trumps just about everything.
Blogging Tips #2; How big is too big? How niche is too niche?
Some people go by the number of searches into topics to determine what to use for a niche. I look at numbers and keywords a little, but I don’t rely on them solely. If you found around 10 two to three-word keywords all getting at least 5,000 page views in Google, that would be a pretty good start. Blogging to make money talking solely about 1960s vampire movies might be a little too narrow of a niche. If your goal is to retire with your blog, you might not get a yacht in the Caribbean.
Movies, in general, might be too wide of a niche. Here is the fun part about being too broad. You can always narrow it down as you go. You might start wide, then begin to narrow into the Horror genre. You might narrow even further into the “Monster” genre. Keep narrowing it down and testing the waters with articles ahead of you until you hit that sweet spot of the readers with the least competition. If your niche is down and your readership falls off, back up. You might have found your sweet spot.
Blogging Tips #3; You can always expand your blog if you do it right.
I started this online thing well before the Google slam down. That happened several years ago. If you weren’t around then, Google did a series of algorithm changes to squash spammy blogs that used black hat SEO techniques to reach the top of the first page for their keywords. Before the changes, people used very keyword-rich domain names. It didn’t matter how ridiculous they sounded, as long as it had the keywords stuffed in there.
You can do some of this now, and it will help searchers understand what you are about as soon as they see your domain name. The problem with this is if you got to narrow with your niche and you picked a domain name that included keywords that narrowed your niche, you will be kind of stuck. In this new area of blogging, I recommend more of a branding style of a domain name rather than something too keyword-rich.
Something like, “thevampiremovieguide.com” might be too narrow. “chillsinthenight.com” or “scarrydreams.com” might give you a little lateral to talk about different types of movies as well as open you up for Halloween promotions or other areas where you could make extra income.
By the way, after I brainstormed these ideas, I went and researched chillsinthenight.com. It was available.
Anyway, let’s move on to #4.
Blogging Tips #4; Check out what the competition is doing.
Now you have an idea to work around. It’s time to go out there and check out what the competition is doing. How narrow or broad is their niche? What kind of products are they selling? Is they affiliate products or are they promoting products they have created themselves? It’s also time to see the type of content they are putting out. Is a lot of their material ‘how to’ articles? Are they ‘review’ articles?
What are they giving away for an email opt-in teaser? The type of teaser will give you some insight into the mindset of their audience. If their blog has been around for a while, they have probably tested quite a bit of stuff and have a pretty good idea of what is working. Do you see any holes where you could do something a little different? Sometimes the ‘different’ is something they tried and didn’t work. Sometimes it will be a hole you could fill with your content angle. Researching your competition is probably right up there with passion. I continue to do this even well into the building stages.
It might not be a perfect solution to finding a niche, but it’s the path I used in the past in more than one blog. The big one is figuring out your absolute passion. Passion will be the driving force that keeps the blog going when you want to quit. Passion will put the emotion into words that will resonate with your audience. Keep refining and watching, trying new content ideas and strategies until something takes off.
Be safe,
Kevin