How To Choose A Profitable Niche Blog Topic

Creating a profitable blog takes passion and drive for the topics you plan to cover. The pitfall many bloggers fall to is creating a blog without a specific topic or goal in mind – you need a niche.

Choosing a niche topic of your blog can be mind rattling due to the investment you must commit to lead your blog to success. Choosing the wrong blog niche can turn into a major hassle but landing the right one could be what leads you to success.

In this post, I’ll cover how you can easily choose a blog niche topic, determine if it’s profitable and share an over the shoulder guide to do so.

This post is part II of the ‘How To Start A Profitable Blog Series‘. To keep up with this series or read others like this, please consider subscribing to my blog.

What Is A Niche?

A niche, in short, is a highly focused interest within a larger market you or others enjoy. Think of niche as a hobby; something you spend great deals of time to learn and explore.

A simple example of a niche would be ‘freelance web writing’ or a ‘make money online blog’. Instead of focusing on a broad topic such as ‘writing’ or ‘money’, people drill down to the inner culture and topic within each interest.

What Is Niche Blogging?

Before niche blogging, people would meet to share their knowledge within a particular interest with group meet ups and other forms of socialization; blogging has simply allowed those people to share their knowledge online.

When a blog becomes too broad (much like business) it’s difficult for the blog owner to cover each topic equally and with the same passion and knowledge. This is why many opt to dedicate their blog to a niche topic; so they don’t burn out trying to do everything at once.

I believe the reason why most bloggers choose to niche blog is to focus their content, find others that enjoy the same interests and leave the opportunity to make a profitable blog.

5 Considerations For Choosing A Niche Blog Topic

Now I’d like to share with you some of the ways you can brainstorm a niche blog topic. These are predominantly based on my own methods; you may have methods of your own which work best for you.

• What Are You Passionate About? The first step in choosing a blog niche topic is to ask yourself what you’re passionate about. Think down the road, do you want to be regularly writing and committing yourself to a subject you don’t truly have an interest for? Try to base your decision on what you already love; this eliminates the chances you’ll grow bored with your niche topic.
• Do You Have The Knowledge? To blindly jump into a blog when you have little or no knowledge will show to your readers and yourself as you have trouble trying to think of new blog posts and your expertise on the topic. Yes, always keep learning as you go but having a solid foundation before you start will help accelerate your blog as you are just beginning.
• Are There People Interested In It? Just because you enjoy a niche topic doesn’t necessarily mean others do. Sure there are plenty of people that you can network with thanks to the internet but also consider if your niche topic is one that is actively discussed. I’ve tried a few niche subjects which were dear to me but the community simply wasn’t there and eventually lead to a slow death. To do a quick assessment, check if there are already forums, print and other media that covers your niche topics – if there are, you could be onto something.
• What Can You Bring To The Table? There’s a possibility there are already thousands of other blogs dedicated to your niche; what can you bring to the niche which others haven’t? You could know more than others, share your knowledge from a unique angle or have the connections to give readers inside information not available anywhere else. Ask yourself if what you plan to blog about will be remarkable.
• Give It A Test Run. It’s not a failure in simply trying out your niche blog topic; you’ll be able to learn heaps of information about the community and yourself during the process. If it turns out to be a success by all means continue with what you’re doing; if your niche blog topic doesn’t pan out, don’t be afraid to try something else.

What Is A Profitable Blog Niche?

By now you may be asking yourself wither the niche topic you have rolling around in your mind is profitable.

The purpose of this article is to help you determine a niche blog topic but without a doubt, if you’re reading this, you’re most likely considering a niche which eventually will earn you money online.

In my experience, virtually every niche blog topic has the possibility to become profitable with the correct marketing, passion and content. Certain subjects will be apparent right away such as internet marketing, technology reviews or celebrity gossip.

Before you finalize your niche blog topic consider that we all have our own ideas of success. Although you may not see a blog as profitable, the network connections could be in the long run. Keep in mind all of the other great benefits of blogging, profits may not be directly on the horizon for many niche topics but they’re still there.

5 Steps To Determine If Your Niche Is Profitable

Now we’re talking business, we need to check if our niche topic is profitable. Here are 5 simple steps you can use to determine if your niche is profitable or if it’s a flop.

1. Determining Traffic Value. First you’ll want to visit your favorite SEO or traffic tool – mine is the free Wordtracker tool. Type in the general keywords used for your niche and check if there is a considerable amount of searches for your niche topic. Secondly (and a no-brainer), use Google to do a general assessment to see the overall searches for your niche. Does your niche receive traffic? If so, move on to step 2.
2. Is It Just A Trend? Timing is often everything when launching a blog; if you enter early you can be there throughout the entire ride – too late and it’s going down hill. Use Google Trends to take a look at the overall interest about your niche, watch the chatter on Twitter (using Trendistic)  to see how active your topic is, check social bookmarking sites to view the overall interest, hell, ask other bloggers within the niche to see how it’s fairing.
3. Scoping The Competition. Now you’ll want to see what kind of competition you have out for you and your niche blog topic. Take a look through websites like Technorati, Best Of The Web or even doing a Google search for “Top ‘Niche’ blogs” to see what you’re stacked against. Take a look through the competing blogs and check if they receive advertisements; this simply trick will reveal that there is a market for your blog.
4. What Are The Advertisers Paying? A handy trick to find what advertisers are paying for PPC campaigns is SpyFu. SpyFu will show you a range of what advertisers are paying for on their AdWords PPC campaigns. Another great tool is browsing through BuySellAds; are there blogs offering advertising? If so, you may be onto something.
5. Does The Community Demand A Product Or Service? Finally, and by far the easiest to help you determine if a niche blog topic is profitable, is wither the niche community demands there be a product or service. Again, use Google to find forums and other blogs related to your niche, check to see if people are asking questions which aren’t being answers, requesting content or services that aren’t being provided; can you fill this gap with your own blog? If so, there’s a profit to be made.

These are but 5 steps you can use to determine if your niche is profitable. There are certainly other ways to help you determine if your niche is profitable but these will help get you on your feet in a jiffy.

A Profitable Niche Example Guide: Over The Shoulder-Ish

Now that I’ve given you the theory of choosing a profitable niche blog topic, I believe it’s also important to show you the process. This example is based on some of my own interests but can be applied to your own.

This subject is quite literally off the top of my head.

Step 1: Brainstorming

Taking a general assessment of some of my hobbies, interests and topics I enjoy talking about with friends I have thought of a niche blog topic: masks.

It’s something I am highly interested in and passionate which I believe I could continue to write for years to come.

It’s been an interest for a while, I’ve always enjoyed the ‘behind-the-scenes’ features where they show special effects such as creating masks and latex.

Step 2: Focusing the niche topic

Taking a quick look at Google, I can determine that simply focusing on ‘Mask’ is much too broad for a niche topic. I decide instead to focus on ‘DIY masks’ and other how-to related to the creation of masks.

I also notice after doing a search for ‘DIY Masks’ that the overall searches are still high (444,000) and the competition is generally low (Associated Content and Hub Pages). This tells me there is room for me to blog about this niche.

I particularly find an interest in modify and making my own masks which is in part due to the raves I enjoy – hey now, don’t give me that weird look.

Step 3: Knowledge and Expertise?

Now I assess my overall knowledge and expertise in this subject. On a 1 to 10, I would say my knowledge is a solid 6. I still have room to learn but I know enough to get started.

I would particularly cover modifying existing masks or creating simple ones using easy to find items at retail stores. At a later date, I could cover latex masks and molding.

Step 4: Determining the market value and profitability

Next I visit SpyFu and check what people are paying for AdWords. I’m using ‘Masks’ as a basis as Adsense will pick up on the overall keywords and display relevant ads.

As you can see, there isn’t much advertising being done for the term ‘Masks’ but this doesn’t necessarily mean the niche isn’t profitable.

Remember that there are many different ways to monetize your blog. Off the top of my head I thought of:

• Sell the supplies through affiliates or directly
• Sell blueprints for unique masks I create
• Sell masks on Etsy
• Sell an eBook or video series in creating your own masks

The possibilities are truly endless once you’ve developed your mindset beyond simple advertising.

Step 5: Is there a demand or can I fill a void?

Just from my general assessment, I believe this niche is severely lacking and tells me people are looking but they don’t have much to find. Coupled with the fact I’d love to talk about this subject, I believe this could turn to be a profitable niche blog idea.

Final Thoughts

I hope you’ve learned a great deal about niche topics and how to find your own niche blog topic. If you have the passion and drive to talk about your niche for years to come, you’ll find success.

With a little bit of research, you’ll be able to quickly find a niche blog topic that could turn to a profitable one.

My friend Pawel has a great example of a niche site, check it here: bike racks for garage

Good luck.

Image by Annie Mole