When I first started blogging three years ago, I knew the topic I wanted to blog about right away– travel. So choosing a niche for my blog was fairly straightforward. But what I didn’t realize was that I had so many different interests that I wanted to incorporate to my blog and that I started veering away from my niche.
I thought it was weird. I was still creating valuable content but my traffic was getting lower and my follower growth was coming to a halt.
I had an inkling it was because I was posting content my travel-enthusiast readers weren’t interested in (some of them even unsubscribed). So as an experiment, I went back to travel content for the following month, and guess what, my traffic and followers went back up again.
If you have any questions about blogging, I have a Facebook group you can join so we can chat about it. Click here to join!
I hope this post was helpful. Let me know what niche you’re thinking of blogging about!
Before we get started, I want to mention that I have worksheets available for you to help you choose your niche. It’s perfectly paired with this blog post and it’s free for you to download! Sign up to download or click the button below.
The worksheet includes a questionnaire with the exact questions I asked myself when I started my blog and when I switched the niche of my blog.
And if any questions come up for you as you read, feel free to drop a comment below or join my Facebook group to chat with me about it! Click here to join.
Let’s get started!
What is a niche?
A niche is the main topic your blog will talk about. You can also call it the focus of your blog.
Think of your favorite music. What genre is that music? Pop, RnB, Rock, Jazz– a music genre is like a blog niche. All the songs in Taylor Swift’s latest music album revolve around pop music. So Taylor Swift’s niche is pop.
Now think of your favorite blogger, what is the ONE topic their posts revolve around? Travel? Fashion? Beauty? Lifestyle? Business? Whatever that main topic is, that’s their niche.
4 Reasons Why You Should Choose a Niche
At the end of the day, what is the one goal you want your blog to achieve? For most bloggers, it’s for their blog to become a trusted, and go-to resource. And one of the best & fastest ways to do that is by choosing ONE niche and rocking it.
- It’s one of the fastest ways to establish yourself as an expert by focusing on 1 niche and rocking it.
- By doing this, readers are more likely to follow you because they want to learn from someone who knows more than them in a topic they’re passionate about– resulting in higher blog traffic & faster follower growth
- You won’t overwhelm yourself creating content for multiple niches. You’re less likely to burn out. (Trust me on this)
- Blogging about multiple niches results in low traffic and slow follower growth
- If you blog about multiple different topics, you close yourself from establishing your expertise on what you know in a specific topic
- Most beginner bloggers don’t start with a defined niche that they wonder why their blog isn’t getting the traffic and followers they ought to be getting. This is the point where most beginner bloggers give up blogging.
As a blogger, you wear many different hats that you become a jack of all trades in content creating, marketing, SEO, etc. But don’t be a “master of none” when you create content.
Starting a blog can also be overwhelming taking into consideration that you’re still figuring out how to design your blog, how to create content, and how to drive traffic. So my advice to you is to stick with one niche to reduce overwhelm. You may have heard of this rule: K.I.S.S.– Keep It Stupid Simple. (Or Keep It Simple Stupid, however you like to read it, I prefer the first, it’s less grouchy.)
What to Blog About / Blog Niche Ideas
There are SO many niches out there. Anything under the sun is a niche! So you can imagine how long a list of niches can be. So to keep it short–
Here are the most popular & profitable blog niches
- Health & Fitness (weight loss, diet)
- Beauty (skincare, makeup)
- Fashion (trendy, minimalist, street)
- Food (diet-specific, regional cuisine)
- Lifestyle (mommy, travel, DIY)
- Business (how to make money)
- Personal Finance (how to save money)
If you would like a longer list of niches, feel free to download my worksheet that includes a list of niches for you to choose from. Click here to download.
How to Choose a Profitable Niche
A “profitable niche” can mean a few different things:
- It can mean brands in that niche pay very well (if you want to make money through brand sponsorships)
- It could mean there’s a demand for the products/services that you sell that speak to that niche
- Or it could mean the content you write about that niche is evergreen– relevant for years and throughout all seasons (so you can include affiliate links in your post and make a commission from anyone who purchases through it)
Sure, you can say there are more profitable niches than others (i.e. beauty vs travel) but above all, it’s the content you create in that niche that makes it profitable.
If anything, you can choose a niche with brands that pay very well, like the beauty niche, but if you create content that doesn’t speak to the pain points of your beauty readers, you won’t be able to grow your traffic & following enough to work with brands. So it’s not about your niche, it’s about your content.
7 Simple Questions to Ask Yourself to Find Your Niche
- What are you passionate about?
- What do you like talking about?
- What are you skilled at?
- What kind of advice do people come to you for?
- What are the niches of blogs you follow?
- Usually, the niches of blogs that people follow inspire them to create their blog in the same niche.
- What product/service are you selling and what niche does that fit into?
- What’s the most common/similar topic that showed up in the last 6 questions? That’s your niche!
If you’d like to answer these questions with a questionnaire, I’ve got a guided worksheet + list of niches for you to download below:
“I can’t seem to choose just one niche. Can I blog about multiple niches?”
Usually, most starting bloggers have so many topics to blog about that they find themselves split between two or three niches.
If you’re stuck between two niches and they’re NOT related to each other, the best niche to choose is the one that will provide you the better platform for you to impact your readers the most. Sometimes, this niche is the one you’re both passionate about & skilled at.
You can always expand to another niche AFTER you’ve established yourself as an authority in your first niche. This is useful if you have a lifestyle blog and you suddenly have a lifestyle change that would affect the content you create. Or you lost passion in your niche and have a new passion to blog about instead (this was the case for me).
OR if you’re stuck between two niches that ARE related to each other, you can blog about both!
“The niche I want to blog about is too small. There aren’t that many people interested in it.
There is no niche that’s too small or too “niche” to blog about. I’ve even heard of chinchilla blogs making money. So you can talk about ANYTHING under the sun and make it profitable. That said, I’ll leave it up to your judgment if you want to niche up to a broader niche.
“The niche I want to choose is oversaturated, I won’t be able to stand out.”
If this thought has crossed your mind, you’re in luck. It means your niche is popular AND profitable. No matter how many blogs there are in your niche, there will always be people searching for advice & tips about it.
Different blogs of the same niche speak to different audiences.
For example, Blog A & Blog B are both mommy blogs. Blog A has a happy & carefree personality and shares video tips about being a stay-at-home mother who works from home. Blog B has a grounded yet funny personality and shares long-form articles about being a mother with a full-time office job.
Blog A will attract work-from-home moms and Blog B will attract moms with full-time jobs. And they’ll all other sorts of readers/viewers based on their personalities and how they present their content. So even though Blog A & Blog B are both mommy blogs, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will attract the same audience. And because of that–
Your blog will NOT appeal to everyone interested in your niche
It’s important to know the kind of people who would be interested in reading your blog. Figure out what their pain points are and create content that speaks to their pain points. By doing this, you create valuable content that’s specific to this audience.
And together with your personality & the form of how you present your content (articles, videos, podcasts,etc.), you will stand out. And not to a general audience, but to a specific audience who appreciates the content you put out.
“I love talking about (niche) but I don’t know a lot about it.”
Here’s something for you: if you know more than a beginner in your niche, then you know plenty. The reason for this is because most people are searching for simple tips & beginner questions so as long as you know more than beginners in your niche, then you’re well-equipped to create content for them.
Also, you’re much more relatable when your readers find out you’re only a few steps ahead of them. They know they can easily achieve what you teach them because you did it yourself without being an expert.
And don’t underestimate what you know. You’ll find it surprising that your readers aren’t as knowledgeable as you are in your niche. That’s why they came to you to teach them.
Conclusion
And that’s it! Let me know if this post was helpful to you– drop a comment if you chose a niche for your blog! Feel free to drop any questions in the comments as well and I will get right back to you. I would really love it if you shared this post with a friend if you found it helpful.
P.S. I’ve also got a Facebook group for you to join where I’d love to chat with you and answer your questions! Click here to join.
Now all that’s left to do is take action!
If you’re looking for guidance to hone in on your niche, click the button below to download my Find Your Niche Questionnaire and List of Niches Handout to help you choose a niche!
Hi Jojo! Been “binge-reading” your contents and I’m loving itttt! I just downloaded your free worksheet and I must say it’s a HUGE help for aspiring bloggers like me. THANKS A BUNCH 😀
I’m so happy to hear that Alice!
Is it possible to have two niches? I want to blog about travelling, but as an artist I also want to blog about creating art while I travel
Sorry, I got really excited, I’m still curious if you think that creating art and travel have enough of a relationship to blog about both at once
If you feel that it aligns with who you are and the kind of person you want to be, then go for both!
yes girl! Talk about what lights you and up and what makes you happy and you will naturally attract people who love the same thing and share the same values as you.