What is a blogging niche? An in depth explanation in simple terms

"It all starts with the niche. once you get that narrowed down your audience awaits."

Niche, niche, niche, What is a blogging niche?

This article aims to explain exactly what a niche is, and how to choose the right niche for YOU the first time.

Niche selection is critical for any blog that aims to make profits. Do not rush when choosing your niche.

Your niche needs to fit you

Before we get any further into what a niche is I want to tell you some things to keep in mind while reading further.

"I am a firm believer in choosing a niche that you either love deeply or want to learn everything you can about."

The reason??

You are going to be spending a TON of time writing, researching, and immersing in this subject or "niche."

It's not always fun, the work required to make a great blog will get to you at times.

Blog burnout

The dreaded "blog burnout," this is when you are burnt out and don't wanna work on your blog what-so-ever.

You are tired of your niche, your blog ... you have given up, "whether you know it or not."

One week turns to two, two turns to four.... Next thing you know your blog is abandoned and outdated!

This is almost guaranteed if you choose the wrong niche when starting a blog, I have been down this road a few times and it sucks.

You start out strong, writing articles and getting it done, then one day you realize that you either don't have anymore to write about, or you are just sick of the subject.

The interest slowly dies..... Along with your blog.

In my article What is a blog and how does it work? I explain how your blog is an extension of you, your personality, and your knowledge of a certain subject.

It's critical that you stay the course and still have interest in the subject you are writing about weeks and even years down the road.

This is a very important thing to remember from here on out friend.

So what exactly is a niche?

A blogging niche is basically a topic of interest, maybe you are into cars, or computers, maybe even silverware.

This niche will be what your entire blog revolves around, you are writing about this subject to bring real value to people, "your audience."

The options are indeed endless, if there's something out there that you are interested in, there is someone else who wants to read about it!

Here's a few things to remember with this "niche" stuff...

• There is no such thing as a "wrong" niche
• You must be able to continuously write and create content around it
• Your niche and target audience go hand and hand (more on this later)

"Listen here, there are around 4.7 billion people around the world, many of these people are online. This presents a HUGE opportunity for you to choose a niche, put in the work, and get huge traffic and returns for your efforts."

Niche and "target audience"

So we have a good idea of what a niche is, basically a subject of interest, YES?

There are many subjects of interest that a blog can revolve around, however it's important to choose a niche with a target audience that will stay engaged and will be able to provide you with some profits for your effort.

The niche and target audience go hand in hand, you must always keep strategy in mind when starting a blog.

Some questions to ask yourself...

• What products can I promote in this space?
• Is there enough in this niche to create content around?
• What audience will be interested in my niche? Middle class, moms, dads, etc.

I have started (and put a lot of time) into blogs that simply did not generate any income because the niche had nothing to sell or promote.

Broad vs. narrow

There are two kinds of niches, broad and narrow.

A broad niche simply means a subject that has a lot of subjects to cover within that niche, take parenting for instance.

In general there are endless things to write about with parenting, any of you reading that has some rugrats knows exactly what I'm talking about.

A narrowed down niche is a sub niche of a much bigger niche, using the parenting example you could "niche down" and create a blog around strollers as an example.

Your target audience would be people that are looking into the best stroller for a child.

A quick breakdown of this target audience would be ...

• New parents
• Grandparents
• People looking for a shower gift
• Joggers (best stroller for jogging)
• Compact strollers
• Best stroller for travel
• etc

"This is just a tiny section of people you can "target" with your blog and content, these people are searching for answers and advice, create your blog around helping these people!"

Deciding where to head

There are a few ways to go here.

If you want to just get blogging you can start in a niche that is broad, such as "parenting"

This would be a cool niche, I have two rugrats myself so I know a thing or two about diapers and bottles.

What's wrong with too broad?

A broad blog niche such as parenting is very hard to become successful with however... Let my explain why.

Competition for Google's love

Online content is served by search engines, Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.

These search engines are in business to make money, don't lose sight of this.

"Google and all the rest of the search engines are after information, why else would they deliver what you want when you punch it in the search bar... for free?"

These guys are in business, their main focus is providing quality content to people that answers their questions and brings them value.

If they serve people garbage websites and blogs when they ask a question or look up a term, they will lose business and control over the internet.

Have you ever wondered how websites that show up on the first page after you search a term got there?

In one beautiful word: Rankings

How does ranking in search work?

Every article on your blog should revolve around a certain keyword or search term.

"Keyword research is something that is super important and we will be covering it much more on the site, be sure to subscribe so you get the latest!"

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No spam, no ridiculous claims, just good blogging advice.

For now just know that Google and the rest "rank" articles and content.

Think of it as being graded by search engines, the better your content is for a keyword or term, the farther up to the first page it will be seen on a search for that term.

"Above all else when blogging, your content needs to be quality, useful, and just plain done well."

When you start creating content in a broad niche you will encounter a lot of competition for the coveted #1 position in search. Your target audience is huge and it will take a very long time to gain traction.

Take our example of "parenting"

This niche can go in a million different directions...

• Car seats
• Raising teenagers
• Baby monitors
• Baby's health
• Baby food
• College

There's a ton of ways to branch out in the parenting niche. Make sure when you choose a direction for your blog you set into a niche you can gain traction with and really bring value to online. '

Wrapping up what a blogging niche is ...

The simple version is that a niche is simply a topic, YOUR topic that your entire blog, brand, and online presence will revolve around.

When choosing your niche remember that the more narrow you go, the better chances of getting rankings you have.

You can absolutely go broader with your niche, just know that these tend to have much more competition than narrow "isolated" niches.

Loving the blogging tips?  

Now that we know what a blogging niche actually is, we are going to be diving into some awesome stuff!

Be sure to subscribe so you get my articles that will walk you through the entire process of researching and choosing your niche!