How To Select A Good Niche To Blog About

The aim of blogging is to create value. If you have something valuable to offer, people will always come to you for what you have and if they are satisfied with what you give, they will indirectly want more by becoming your faithful blog readers who come to read your blog regularly or even better every day. They will become your faithful evangelists spreading word about your blog which is good for you and will bring you new prospects. Your loyal readers will start to trust you over time and become more prone to buying products and services which you may then offer later to them. Now value can be anything real or imaginary. 

Solving a problem, Telling people “HOW TO” do something, making them laugh, entertaining them, helping them save money, make more money, get their ex-girlfriend/boyfriends back, lose weight, expert advice, be a source of inspiration, talk  about sports, tell funny stories or give them current news and updates on their areas of interest. The things mentioned above and a whole lot more you can think of is of values to so many people. 

Whatever you can do that other people perceive as not so easy to do is probably of great value to them. Now in order to build an audience, we need to focus on a set of people as not everybody is concerned about what skill you have, what you can do or what you want to say. You will have to concentrate your efforts on those people who are really interested in you and this is where area of specialization or niches comes to play in the blogging world. Nobody really trusts a jack of all trade. If you blog about being happy today and tomorrow you talk about  auto insurance (because it has a high paying keyword)and the next time you’re showing people how to build a blog you may be seen as a floater without any concrete knowledge on any particular area instead of the guru in the area they are interested in. You can’t please everybody so you should concentrate your efforts on those people who are interested in what you do. (Your niche).

What is a niche?  A niche is a subset of a market in which a particular product is tailored for. It at identifies a market and satisfies the specific needs tailored to that audience while also providing useful tips and updates that can help the group in that market get the a better experience on that subject area. In lesser grammar, a niche is that particular set of people we choose to concentrate our blogging efforts on for maximum impact either because we are experts in that subject area or because we think the niche is really profitable. Example in the broad category Fashion, you can choose your niche as designer items (bags, shoes etc.)  If you know about designers and can talk about them or offer tips on how to buy designers. Also in the Health category you may choose weight loss as a niche or the cancer niche or even concentrate on pregnant women. (All very profitable).If you know how to cook traditional African soups I bet you can hit a gold mine blogging and teaching people how to cook African meal. Try to identify your target audience example in the Love and relationship category; your prospects are singles, couples, and families.

How Do You Choose A Niche?  

First know your aim for blogging then consider your area of expertise or other areas you think will be profitable for you.

Get inspiration from the events around you and have the open eyes to recognize a business opportunity when you see it. You can visit directories, forums or places like eBay and Clickbank to check out potential niches then Check sub categories and identify your area of interest.

Analyse your chosen niche using Google Keyword tool, Google trends and eBay pulse (all free). What you should note are the Keywords (short and long tailed) used in your selected niche, the total number of local and monthly searches, the number of competition and the CPC. Note that GOOGLE is your best friend when it comes to niche selection and you should take advantage of this great free research tool. If you have a little money and want to use premium tools for more in-depth analysis of niches then you may try Market Samurai or Word tracker Keyword Elite. (Just Google them).By the time you do keyword research, you should understand more on niches.

With this information, add your own unique ideas and try to build timeless contents that will be relevant in your niche in over 10 years to come. The best kinds of contents should be how to, list articles, controversial stuffs, resource report and blueprints. Now these are characteristics of a good niche:

1. Passion & Profitability: You should be passionate about your niche and it should be profitable too. But whether you choose passion over profits or profits over passion, or even both, the choice is yours. You will be more conversant if you blog about your area of expertise but the good thing about blogging is you can choose to blog for profits and select an area you know almost nothing about but with constant hard work and research, you can turn it into something profitable (fake it till you make it lol).
2. Audience: Your selected niche should have an audience hungry for the kind of information you provide and better still an audience willing to part with their money is even sweeter. Your niche should not have a very small audience neither should it be too broad that you don’t know your audience. If you think your audience is too small, you may want to expand your concept to encompass a broader but related audience in your chosen category.
3. Competition: You should find other bloggers doing something similar to you. It shows your niche is profitable and the good thing is you can spy and learn from them or model them but it is advisable not to steal their blog posts instead rewrite them and make them unique.  There is almost nothing new out there. What is new is your own uniqueness and creativity. If you have an idea and you do not find similar blogs on such, it is either you’ve hit a gold mine or your idea is not viable.

Personal lessons learnt so far. If you are not blogging for fun and you really want to earn some income out of blogging, I will suggest you do not choose a niche targeted at the Nigerian audience. This is because the CPC of Nigerian keywords are very low. In my first 3 months of blogging, I got less than 1 Euro daily on AdSense but in my 5th month of blogging, things started to improve and I was able to make up to 30 Euros that month. That is small compared to what the pro bloggers here make on a daily basis but I was happy because it signalled an improvement for the better. Then a sensational international post I made attracted a flood of international audience even more than my Nigerian audience and I was able to make between 2 -4 Euros daily and I know things will get better from there.

Secondly, most Nigerians do not buy affiliate products so you cannot promote affiliate products to Nigerians. I hope my points are noted.  Not everything works for everybody so you will have to apply these rules as they relate to you. Think outside the box and add your own unique way to things to distinguish yourself from the crowd.