If you already know why to start blogging, first thing on your way is to pick the right niche for your site. In this post I’ll describe some important steps you have to follow before you decide what to write about. For those who don’t want to read the whole article I’ll just name the headlines from this post to summarize it:
Brainstorm what you are interested in and good at, choose the best niches you brainstormed and consider traffic potentional, competition on the market and making money potential.
1. Brainstorming- What are you interested in?
First step I recommend is brainstorming. For those who don’t know what brainstorming is, you can look on Wikipedia or just keep reading. In fact, it’s really simple. All you have to do is to grab a paper and a pencil, and write down topics you are interested in. After several minutes sort a list of your passions give to the best items on the list priorities (use numbers 1 to 10).
My unsorted list:
- Computer
- Software
- Internet browsers
- Photoshop
- Dreamweaver
- Windows operation system and its features
- Music programs (editing, recording)
- Internet
- Blogging
- Affiliate marketing
- Managing web pages
- Monetizing sites
- Getting traffic
- Forums
- Selling staff online
- Gadgets
- New technologies and products
- New gadgets on the market
- Music
- Playing saxophone
- Listening jazz and famous jazz players
- Music improvisation
- Learning how to play on music instruments (methods, courses)
- Travelling
- Around Europe
- Famous cities, pure nature, tramping
- Around USA
- National parks, American culture, living in US
My sorted list I’m interested in:
- Blogging
- Affiliate marketing
- Monetizing sites
- Playing saxophone
- Music improvisation
- Travelling around Europe
- Travelling around USA
- Gadgets
- Dreamweaver
- Selling staff online
2. Brainstorming- What are you good at?
Do the same things again, but now brainstorm about topics you do well and you are good at. First make a net of topics, sort them and give them priorities. You will see many items from your previous list will appear here. For me it’s almost the same, so I’ll just show my sorted list.
My sorted list of things I do well (or a lot):
- Monetizing sites
- Affiliate marketing
- Blogging
- Travelling around Europe
- Playing saxophone
- Selling staff online
- Windows operation system and its features
- Music improvisation
3. Choose the best niches
After this you can congratulate to yourself, because just finished the first and very important step. Now you have to put these two sorted lists together and pick up maybe 3-5 best topics you’d like to focus on.
My choice:
- Blogging
- Affiliate Marketing
- Monetizing sites
- Saxophone
- Traveling
Good question can then cross your mind: “Is the topic popular and is it going to be popular in next several years?” . In order to get an answer, you can simply google some keywords related to your topics and check out number of results founded by the search engine. If there are a lot of sites- good for you.
Keywords:
- Blog- 2,900,000,000 results
- Blogging- 149,000,000 results
- Affiliate marketing- 19,200,000 results
- Monetization- 21,300,000 results
- Saxophone- 11,300,000 results
- Travel- 976,000,000 results
4. Traffic potential
One thing that goes usually together with popularity is traffic potential. You have to be sure people want to read (watch or listen) what you write about. You should always find a niche that will solve someone other’s problem or (and) will help people who struggle with something. You can check search volume in Google Adwords administration. It’s called Keyword Tool and it tells you how much and what are people trying to find.
5. Competition
Competition of your niche is also important. If so many people already run a web site about your topic, it’ll be harder to succeed. In my case there is a big competition in “Blogging” niche. But after all I decided to face it, because I’m sure I can succeed. Maybe it will take longer time, but I hope I’ll find patience for that.
6. Making money potential
Next step is potential of making money. If you are interested in making money from your blog, this step is solid for you. First of all you have to use your common sense and think if people buy something you describe or write about on your blog. It can be either product or service. Then you can go on Google and search your keyword. On the right site you’ll see Sponsored Links. This is PPC (Pay Per Click) advertisement that is paid by companies and webmasters. If you see some ads displaying here, you are on the right track. If you cannot see any Sponsored links, there can be two reasons for that. One of them is the fact that the word is too general. If not, you’ll struggle to earn some money with this topic because you will not have anything to sell or promote. You can do the same research on Yahoo.
Some people think it good to see no sponsored links because there is place for you to get a high traffic for pennies. That’s right, but if you want to make money out of that and no one advertise in this topic, you won’t earn much. If you want to do more for your research, you can look on ClickBank products, things selling on eBay and into Amazon store. If you find something you can promote or sell, there is some money making potential. But let’s talk about that later.
Keyword competition on Google:
- Blog- 6 ads
- How to blog- 2 ads
- Affiliate marketing- 8 ads
- Monetization- 0 ads
- Saxophone- 2 ads
- Music lessons- 5 ads
- Travel- 8 ads
As you can see keywords “How to blog” and “Blog” didn’t show so many Sponsored Links. If you thing (like me) your keywords have bigger commercial potential than it seems from previous results and you have access to Google AdWords, you can use Traffic Estimator Tool and type in your keywords. You’ll see average cost per click (CPC). The higher cost the better. For me it looks good:
Average cost per click in Google AdWords:
- Affiliate marketing- $2.98 - $4.03
- Blog- $1.60 - $2.40
- How to blog- $1.90 - $2.85
- Monetization- $1.68 - $2.18
- Music lessons- $1.13 - $1.46
- Saxophone- $1.00 - $1.27
- Travel- $1.78 - $2.36
7. Specialization
Today I’m going to finish with my last advice for today. You have to specialize! If people enter your blog, they are probably looking for something. How would you feel if you found information about blogging, music lessons, traveling around USA and cooking together on one web site? I would be confused and leave the site pretty soon. Pick something you want to write about and stick with it. Only exception is personal blog about your life where people go because they want to read all information about you. Disadvantage of this type of blog is hard monetization (to make money).
That’s all. Keep in mind that my way of doing this isn’t the only way. Maybe you know about better system or you’ll find something else that works too. If you do, you’re welcome to post a comment below this post about how you do it. Next time I’ll help you to pick a right domain name and we will continue with setting up a successful blog.
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