How to Find Your Blogging Niche (Start a Blog: Step 8)

This is step 8 (out of 14) in a “how to start a blog” content series. See all steps here.
Download the entire content series as a free ebook here 📗

If you want your blog to be successful, you need to decide on a blog topic and stick to it.

It’s not that you will not see any success if you blog about anything and everything under the sun but if you want to build an audience and make blogging a career option in your life, you need to choose a singular topic to blog about.

Blogs about multiple topics are a thing of the past. 10 years ago, maybe, you could have gotten away without choosing a blogging topic. But today, it’s not the case.

Do you remember About.com?

Until 5 years ago, every time you searched something on Google, 5 out of 10 times a page on About.com popped up. But it’s not the case anymore.

That site is nowhere to be found. They wrote content about anything and everything.

There are some blogs that are famous even though they talk about more than one topic, but they are rare and their success was more dependent on luck than on hard work.

If you want to guarantee your blog’s success, you need to pick a topic and stick to it.

Here are some examples of insanely successful blogs that stick to one topic:

IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com – Ramit Sethi‘s blog on personal finance is one of the most popular personal finance blogs on the Internet. The reason for his blog’s massive success is that Ramit stuck with a single topic from the beginning.

NomadicMatt.com – A travel blog started by a guy named Matt Kepnes. The reason why this blog is one of the top blogs is that he stuck with Travel Blogging from the beginning.

Everywhereist.com – Another famous travel blog by Geraldine DeRuiter. Her blog is successful because she stuck with one topic, travel.

When you write to everyone, you’re writing to no one. To build an audience for your blog, you need to write to a niche audience that you can build a connection with.

If you don’t pick a niche, it will be difficult for you to build an audience and even more difficult to earn money from your blog.

Here are three simple exercises to help you define your goals and find a niche for your blog:

Quick exercise #1: write down your goals

Why do you want to start a blog?

It’s important to set goals for yourself and your blog before you start publishing posts. This way, you will hold yourself accountable and you’ll be able to achieve progress.

But to be able to define what your goals are, you need to know the reasons why you are starting a blog in the first place.

Is it to become an industry expert?
Is it to promote yourself, or your products/services?
Is it to connect with people who share your passion and interests?
.. Is it to change the world?

You should write down:

How many new people will your blog reach?
How often will you be publishing posts?
How much money will you make from your blog?
How much traffic will your blog attract?

Whatever your goals are, you need to make sure they are S.M.A.R.T.

S – Specific.
M – Measurable.
A – Achievable.
R – Relevant.
T – Time-based.

For example:
My goal is to publish 3 new posts per week.
My goal is to get 100 daily visits by the end of this year.
My goal is to make $100 per month.

Go ahead and write down your blogging goals. Be realistic yet ambitious, as you can change and adjust your goals later on.

Quick exercise #2: write down your interests

Make a list of all your hobbies and things you are interested in.

Include everything that you do as a hobby and everything you want to learn one day.

If you want to get better at cooking someday, add it to your list.

If you are good at managing your finance, add personal finance to your list.

If people compliment you on your dressing style, add fashion to your list.

The point of this exercise is to write as many ideas as you can and then choose one from the list.

Write down topics even if you think no one will be interested in them.

If you do something as a hobby, chances are there are a lot of people who like it too.

Quick exercise #3: have a look at AllTop.com

AllTop.com is a collection of one of the most popular websites on the Internet:

Their list includes a lot of different websites in a lot of different categories.

If you don’t have a good niche in mind or need some ideas for your list of niches, take a look at the front page of AllTop.com or go through the categories on the top to find niches that might interest you.

Feel free to open any of the category links that entice you and go through the list of blogs in the category to get some niche ideas.

Now that you have a list of blog topics you are interested in, it is time to answer some tough questions to find the best niche for you.

I recommend making a list of many different niches and then going through the below questions to find the perfect niche:

Do you care about the topic you’re blogging about?

If you don’t care about the topic, you will give up as soon as it starts to get hard.

The topic doesn’t have to be your passion. It can be something you like as a hobby or even something that you want to learn more about.

It is better to write about a topic that you have some interest in than a topic that you have no interest at all even if you think it will pay more.

Most people give up in the first month of starting their blog.

how to start a successful blog flowchart

Blogging requires some hard work and if you don’t even like the topic you are writing about you will give up really fast.

You will spend a lot of time on this blog especially when it starts gaining some traction. Do you really want to spend time doing something you hate just for money?

Pick a topic that you have some interest in.

Why should other people listen to what you’re saying?

Even if you are not an expert on the topic you want to blog about, there has to be a reason why people should listen to you rather than the thousand other bloggers who are talking about the same topic.

The best way to differentiate yourself from the crowd is to bring something unique to the table.

Now, this doesn’t have to be something Pulitzer Prize-worthy. It could be something as simple as approaching the topic from a new angle.

For example, if you are an entrepreneur and want to blog about personal finance, you could write articles on personal finance for Entrepreneurs. Or personal finance for mothers if you are a mother yourself.

You can always differentiate yourself by being open about being a beginner on the topic. Everyone else who writes about your topic tries to position themselves as the expert.

But if you openly admit on your blog that you are just sharing what you love, you will easily differentiate yourself.

Why is this a topic that you can add value to?

This is another question you need to answer.

If you are just going to copy everyone else, then there’s not much for you to blog about and no incentive for people to choose you over the others.

Going with a niche that you are already an expert in gives you a huge advantage.

If you are a certified financial planner, then it makes more sense for you to start a personal finance blog rather than a blog on gardening that you know next to nothing about.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to start a blog on a topic that you are an expert at. You just need to be able to add some value to your niche if you want your blog to be really successful.

Most people don’t even finish a single book every year. If you read even a few books on your topic, you will differentiate yourself from most of the other bloggers in your niche really fast.

Do people search for and care about your blog topic?

When starting a blog to make money, it’s important that you plan ahead and choose a niche that works for you AND it’s a niche that is popular and you can monetize.

To stand out, you need to find a niche that’s in demand.

Once you have a niche in mind you feel passionate about, you’ll need to find out if there’s an audience out there equally passionate or interested in your topic.

How do you do that?

It’s difficult to know if people will like your topic before you create your blog, but keyword research is a great way to find out how many people are searching for your topic on Google.

Tools such as Google Ads and Google Trends can tell you about search volume (i.e. how many people are searching for your niche on Google)

As you can see above the most searched for blog niches on Google are: fashion blogs (18k searches/mo), food blogs (12k searches/mo) and travel blogs (10k searches/mo).

For keyword research I recommend Ubersuggest. It’s a powerful, free keyword research tool that will tell you how many searches a keyword or topic get on Google.

In the next section here below, I will walk you through how you can start a fashion, food, or travel blog.

BONUS: Niche blog quickstart kit (travel/food/fashion/beauty blog)

All you need when starting a blog is three things: a domain name, web hosting, and WordPress.

Bluehost does all of that. Their web hosting plans come with a free domain name + WordPress pre-installed, configured and all ready-to-go.

But that’s only the beginning. Now that you have created your first blog, you need to make sure the design of your blog complements your blog’s topic.

To do this, you need to find a theme that offers a design that matches your blog’s topic. You will also need some special plugins depending on what topic you are blogging about.

Because there are thousands of themes and plugins, I decided to make quick start kits for a few popular topics. Below you will find lists of the best themes and necessary plugins for a few different blog topics:

How to start a travel blog ⇣
How to start a food blog ⇣
How to start a fashion/beauty blog ⇣

What you need when starting a travel blog

If you are starting a travel blog, then there are a couple of things you need to look for in a theme. The first is that it needs to be optimized for speed.

Because your blog will be image-heavy, it is really important that the theme that you use is optimized for speed otherwise it will slow down your website.

Next, you need to make sure the theme is optimized for image-heavy sites. That means the layout of your theme needs to put emphasis on the images and needs to be optimized to display full-sized images.

Here are a couple of travel themes that fit the bill for you to choose from:

Hobo WordPress theme

Hobo is a responsive travel theme that is easy to customize and looks great on all screen sizes.

It allows you to edit and customize almost all the elements. The best part about this theme is that its layout is really spacious and minimal. It will help you stand out.

100% Responsive.
Free WPBakery Page Builder.
WooCommerce Ready.
Minimal, Clean Design.
750+ customization options.

Vagabonds WordPress theme

Vagabonds is a beautiful, professional-looking theme that is designed for travel bloggers.

It comes with everything you will need to get your travel blog up and running. It offers a minimal design and great typography styles to set you apart from your competitors. And to help you kick start your blog, it offers many different premade page designs like About, Contact, and other pages.

100% Responsive.
Free WPBakery Page Builder.
Comes With Premade Page Templates.
WooCommerce Ready.

Fishing and Hunting Club WordPress theme

Although it’s not made for travel blogs, Fishing and Hunting Club is one of the best themes on the market for travel bloggers. If you want to be able to display your travel adventures in a beautiful way, this is the theme for you.

It offers a clean, minimal design with great typography. The typography and design go hand in hand to concentrate the reader’s attention on the content.

100% Responsive.
Multiple layout options.
Support for WPBakery Page Builder.
WooCommerce Ready.
Clean design.

Additionally, you will need a plugin to compress images that you upload to your blog:

Because your travel blog is going to be image heavy, you need the images to be optimized for the web. You do this by installing this free plugin called Shortpixel Image Optimizer or WP Smush.

Both offer similar functionality and both are free.

What you need when starting a food blog

A food blog will obviously be image-heavy and will require a theme that is optimized for speed. Not only that, but you will also have to look for an image that supports video embeds if you are thinking of embedding YouTube videos.

Finally, your theme’s design must be clean enough to not distract the reader while reading the contents of your blog.

Here are some themes for starting a food blog that fulfills the criteria:

Foodie Pro WordPress theme

Foodie Pro is a minimal theme that offers a clean layout. It is fully responsive and looks great on all devices. This is a child theme based on Genesis Framework, so you need the StudioPress Genesis Framework to use this theme.

100% Responsive.
Clean, minimal design.
Support for WooCommerce.

Lahanna WordPress theme

Lahanna is a theme designed for Food Bloggers. It’s a clean theme that offers a unique professional design that can help set you apart in your niche.

It offers dozens of interactive elements like Timer Links that start a visible timer for the user when they click the link. It also comes with a to-do list-style ingredients list with checkboxes.

100% Responsive.
Dozens of interactive elements.
Beautiful, clean design.
Full support for WooCommerce.

Narya WordPress theme

Narya offers a clean layout that is fully mobile responsive. It comes with a full-screen slider on the homepage. It also offers 6 different layout options for the homepage and blog to choose from.

100% Responsive.
6 different layout options for homepage and blog.
Free revolution slider.

You will also need a recipe plugin for your food blog:

WP Recipe Maker makes it easy for you to create and embed recipes in your posts.

It takes care of the technical structural data for SEO and allows you to create recipes without writing a single line of code.

What you need when starting a fashion or beauty blog

When you are starting a blog in the Fashion niche or the Beauty niche, you need to look for a theme that offers a minimal design and is optimized for speed and can handle image-heavy content .

Look for a theme that is “feminine” in nature. It should look minimal and focus the user’s attention on the content. Whatever theme you choose, you need to remember that you can always change the colors to fit your style/brand.

For now, all you need to focus on is finding a theme that is clean, minimal, and helps you stand out of the crowd.

To help make it easy for you to make a decision, here are a few themes that are well-suited for a fashion/beauty blog:

S.King WordPress theme

S.King is a professional looking theme that offers a clean, minimal design.

The best part about this theme is that it easily integrates with most of the popular tools commonly used by professional bloggers such as MailChimp, Visual Composer, Essential Grid, and many more.

This theme’s design is fully responsive and looks great on all devices no matter the screen size. If you ever decide to start selling your own products on your website, you can easily do so with this theme as it is fully compatible with WooCommerce.

That means you can start selling anything and everything on your website with minimal effort with a few clicks.

100% mobile responsive.
Clean, minimal design.
Free drag and drop page builder.

Kloe WordPress theme

Kloe is a responsive theme for WordPress that is designed for fashion and beauty blogs.

What I love about this theme is that it offers over a dozen different homepage designs to choose from. Whatever your style, this theme can easily match it.

It is fully compatible with WooCommerce, so you can start selling your own products without needing to switch to a new theme. This theme comes with hundreds of customization options and allows you to customize almost all aspects of the design without touching a single line of code.

100% responsive design.
Over a dozen homepage blog design options to choose from.
Full support for WooCommerce and many other popular plugins.

Audrey WordPress theme

Audrey is a beautiful theme that is built for websites in the Fashion industry.

Whether you are a blogger or an agency, this theme can be easily customized to suit your blog design needs. It offers a dozen different pre-designed pages that look professional.

This theme is completely mobile responsive and looks great on all screen sizes. It comes with support for all the popular WordPress plugins such as WooCommerce and Visual Composer.

Looks great on all screen sizes.
Dozens of essential pages like FAQ come pre-designed.
Clean, minimal blog design.

Recommended plugins

When running a blog in the fashion/beauty niche, most of your pages will have lots and lots of images on them. If you don’t want these images to slow down your website, you need to optimize your images for the web.

I recommend using Shortpixel Image Optimizer or WP Smush.

These plugins will optimize and compress all the images you upload to your website automatically and will also optimize the images that have already been uploaded.

The best part? Both of these plugins are completely free.

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