Choosing your blog niche is probably the most critical aspect of creating your blog.
In fact, if you choose the wrong blog niche, it’s your entire business that will collapse.
On the other hand, you highly increase your chances of being a successful blogger by choosing the right niche.
In this post, we will dive really deep and find answers to the most asked questions regarding your blogging niche:
What is a blog niche, why do you need it, and how to choose it?
What to do if you have too many ideas and don’t know how to sort them out?
Or maybe you just don’t know what to blog about!
We will also see the most effective way to validate your niche (5 niche must-haves). Here, you will also learn what to do if your niche misses one of the five points.
Finally, we will select and analyze two unpopular niches to see if each is a profitable niche.
I believe this guide is going to help you and change your perception of blogging.
So, grab some snacks, and let’s get started.
First, You Need To Know Your Why
Most often, when people start thinking about the blog they want to create, they start by looking around at what is already out there.
Then, they see a blogger who claims to make $100,000/mo, and they immediately want to do create a blog in the same niche.
But one thing that the most successful people or business leaders have in common is their ‘why’.
Why did they start their business?
What was their fuel, their fire, their most important reason?
When they encountered obstacles that almost made them give up, they thought about their ‘why’ again and again and kept going.
Today, they are millionaires and billionaires, owning dozens of companies.
You also need to know your why.
Why do you want to start a blog? Why do you want to choose a blog niche?
Now, there may be many reasons here.
Maybe you work for someone, tired of receiving orders and not having your schedule. You want to create an online business and be your own boss.
Or maybe your life isn’t what you expected. You have to take care of your wife and children, but things are tough. You want to create a blog, make money and fly them around the world.
Perhaps, you want that million-dollars house with a big swimming pool and cinema, or that Mercedes Maybach – but your salary isn’t enough.
Or you want to have a significant impact on people’s lives and change the world.
There is no wrong answer.
No matter your reason, you need to keep it in mind and continue fighting, learning, and practicing to achieve your goals.
Not knowing your why is like driving in the wrong direction of the road without enough fuel.
No matter how far you go, you will always meet a car that will stop you and find yourself in an irreversible accident.
So, be honest and find why you want to choose a niche and start a blog.
Speaking of the niche, let’s find out more about it.
What is a Blog Niche
A blog niche is simply the main topic of your blog.
It is the key theme your blog will talk about.
Most of the content you will write will be in some way connected to it.
An example of a niche is ‘WordPress blogging’.
This is my niche. Every blog post I write is related to it.
For instance, I wrote articles like how to start a blog, how much it costs, how to make money blogging, and many more.
Everything is related to the same topic: blogging.
Another example is the ‘dog’ niche.
A blogger in this niche will write content like: how to make your dog happy, how to take care of your dog, how to clean it, what type of food or breed to buy, etc.
Why Do You Need A Niche
Now that you know what a niche is, it’s essential to understand why you need it.
You need a blogging niche for at least two reasons.
The first reason is it helps you focus and serve people at a much higher level.
Because all your content is around one topic, you have time to learn more about it and teach it efficiently.
It also helps you stand out and become the king of your niche or market.
The second reason is a blog without a niche lacks identity.
Let me explain what I mean.
My blog, Nextwpfocus, teaches people how to blog.
Now imagine that you don’t know me and you see my Facebook profile for the first time.
Curious, you come to my website to see what I do.
You see one blog post, two and three. All of them talk about blogging.
But when you scroll down one more time, you find an article titled: 15 ways to make your dog happy.
How will you feel?
Lost right!?
You will be like: ‘Oh, what is this. Where am I? Is it another website?’
You might be tempted to click but at the same time, you will not enjoy reading it.
Why? Because you don’t know my area of expertise.
You will leave my website and probably not come again.
Now, you might say: but, which blogger will do it?
The truth is some blogs have two or more niches – the same person blogging about those topics.
When I see such blogs, I immediately lose interest and leave.
That’s why you need a blog niche and just one.
How Narrow Should Your Blog Niche Be
The thing to remember is the more specific your niche is, the better it is.
If you have two niches that aren’t related to each other, create two different blogs.
What do I mean by not related to each other?
Imagine you have two pets at home: a cat and a dog.
You are a good master, and you are very good at training your companions.
If you want to create a blog where you will teach people how to live with dogs and cats, you may be tempted to mix both topics.
But actually, it’s a bad idea.
I understand that both are pets and are somehow related. But mixing them is a bad idea for at least two reasons:
First, even though they are both pets, they still have different behaviors and different problems.
They don’t eat the same food, don’t always need the same attention, and are trained differently.
The second reason is your products, their identity, and your identity.
If you decide to create a product and sell it on your blog, what identity will it have?
If I come to your website and see a $47 dog training meanwhile your website is full of cats content, I might be confused.
I don’t know if you are better with cats or dogs.
That’s why your blog niche needs to be as specific as possible.
Don’t just blog about pets.
Choose one animal and focus on it.
And instead of talking about diets, choose one (Keto, for example) and focus on it.
What Should You Do If You Don’t Have a Blog Niche Yet
The best way to find a niche is to list down what you already know, have, or do.
No matter how stupid this advice is, it is what works best.
The best ideas are sometimes near us, you know.
Let’s follow two methods for finding a potential niche.
The Know, Do, Have, Method To Find Your Blog Niche
Although the method starts with ‘Know’, I will cover ‘Have’ first, and you will understand why later.
The Have
First, write down what you have (relationship) that makes your life unique. It can be your wife, your children, your pet…
Now, stand up and walk inside and outside your house (hall, rooms, kitchen, garden, etc.).
Note all the most important things you have (4K Samsung tv, fridge, gaming console…).
List them and cancel things you don’t like or don’t want to talk about.
Perhaps you like to talk about your children to everybody (keep it).
Or you like to tell people how you and your wife almost broke up, but you both tackled the problem (Keep it).
The Do
Now, let’s see what you do.
What’s your job? Do you like to talk about it? Or is it too boring for you?
What types of activities do you do? Fitness? Hiking? Golf?
Write everything down and delete what you don’t want to write about.
The Know
This time, what do you know?
Did you read a book that completely changed your mindset? Was it about marketing? Personal development? Relationship? Business?
When you spend hours on YouTube, what do you watch? Cars? Planes? Houses? Tech (phones,laptops, etc)? Games?
These are all things you know since you always read or watch them.
Now, if you see your paper, you notice that you didn’t know what to blog about at first.
But now, you have a list of things you like to learn and share.
I started with the ‘Have’ because it’s much easier to find things that we have than we know.
This method is simple.
Yet it is very powerful.
The Life Experience Method
Another great way to find a niche is to think about things that happened in your life.
Maybe you went through some serious situations and you know that millions of people have the same problems.
You can share that knowledge with them.
When I say this to people, they sit down, think, and then say: I have thought about some challenging situations, and honestly, I don’t think any of them is good enough to interest others.
Whenever I hear that, I smile.
I always reply: Don’t worry. The problem they are having now isn’t interesting enough for them either. But they will follow you if they know you were there.
Maybe you are an expatriate who couldn’t find a job, but now you have a good job.
You know that there are people who have the same issue.
Or maybe your pain was insomnia, a sickness, or divorce.
You invested money and time to solve the problem. So at this point, you have everything to teach others.
These two methods can definitely help you find a niche for your blog.
I recommend you sit down for thirty minutes and follow the process.
But If none of your listed things is good enough for you, there is still hope.
We will talk about it later in this article.
In the meantime, let’s assume that you have some ideas, and it’s time to validate each of them.
5 Key Must-haves to Validate Your Blog Niche
At this point, you have a list. But it’s not enough.
We need the next move.
Remember the ‘why’?
Well, this is where it plays a big role.
Unfortunately, I cannot guess your ‘why’.
That’s why I’ll mostly consider the thing that motivates people to create a blog: money.
I will assume that your ‘why’ is to make money blogging and change your life.
Now, we’ll see five key points to validate your niche.
Actually, I learned these Must-haves from Ryan Levesque during a Workshop. I found them so true that I wanted to share them with you.
By following this process, you will know if a niche or an idea is worth your time and efforts.
1. Evergreen
The first thing you need to identify is ‘evergreen’.
By ‘evergreen’, I mean a niche that exists now and will still exist in the next years.
An example is the fitness niche.
Definitely, people will continue to search for ways to have a good and healthy body.
And even if those who have tried several methods without success stop, new people will want to exercise.
Thus, fitness is going to stay around for years.
Another example is making money online.
As the world is shifting to a new normal, more people will search for ways to make money online.
More people will create blogs, YouTube channels, agencies, forums, etc.
It’s a niche that is also going to stay green for years.
2. Enthusiast
The second thing to check is: ‘am I interested enough in this topic.’
Let’s face it.
You are going to write 100+ blog posts.
In the beginning, very few people, if not nobody, will notice your content.
If this topic doesn’t interest you enough, you will give up after just a few weeks.
Let’s say you are successful some months after your launch. You already make $50,000+/month.
It’s amazing, right?
But there is a problem.
Although you are successful, you don’t like what you do, you don’t like the people you work with, and you don’t like your audience.
Then one day, you will ask yourself:
‘wait, what am I doing here? I have wasted my time. Let me shut this blog down and start a business I like.’
You will wake up and wish you had a boss who will fire you from your own business.
The last thing to check under Enthusiast is: ‘are people interested in my topic?’
If people are not interested in your topic, nobody will read your content, nor will you make money.
But how do you know if people are interested?
Though there are many ways to discover that, I will only share one here.
Since your primary source of traffic is Google (you are writing content to be discovered on Google after all), you can use a free tool like Ubersuggest to know if people search for your niche.
Go to Ubersuggest and type your main keyword(s).
In our example, we will use keywords like fitness, workout, etc.
As you can see from our screenshot, more than 200.000 searches are done every month on our topic.
We have enthusiastic people.
3. Urgent Problems
One more aspect of your niche is urgency.
Do people research my topic because they have urgent problems to solve?
Now, urgency varies depending on the niche.
For example, in the fitness niche, people might search for workout tips because some situation occurred in their life.
Or perhaps they are gaining weight and want to go back to the old days.
The truth is, not all the 200.000 people who searched for fitness have the same problem.
That’s why I said urgency varies.
In some niches, people don’t even know they have a problem until you show them a solution.
4. Future Problems
The fourth point for validating your blog niche is to know if there will be future problems.
It is often said that when you solve a problem for people, another problem arises.
It’s a fact.
Back to our fitness niche.
When someone buys your fitness course where you promise a nice body, it creates a new problem for them: ‘do I need equipment or not?’
Finally when they get equipment and start exercising, they are very motivated.
But most of them will give up (like me).
Have you seen the new problem?
They may now want one-on-one coaching. They want to talk to you and hear you motivate them (more cash for you).
So a blog niche that is so perfect that it doesn’t have future problems will not take you far.
5. Players With Money
The fifth and last characteristic for validating your niche is ‘Players with money.’
What it simply means is as a blogger and business owner, you have to know if people are willing to spend money in your niche.
Because, honestly, a niche without clients isn’t a successful one.
So, how do you know that people are willing to spend money in your blog niche?
A good and probably the best indicator is to check if other blogs or companies are buying ads in your niche.
For example, if I type ‘keto diet’ on Google, the first results are ads.
These websites are spending thousands of dollars on getting clients.
They are spending because they know people are willing to buy their product.
But the question is: what if I don’t see ads?
Not seeing ads does NOT mean your niche is not profitable.
It could simply indicate that bloggers in that niche don’t know the benefits of using ads or it’s too expensive.
They may focus on other ways like social media and SEO.
Blog Niches Validations Examples
There you are.
We saw five critical points for validating your blog niche.
Before giving my list of profitable blogging niches, I’ll pick two random ones and see if they are worth my efforts.
Both niches are from the list we created under the Know, Do, Have method.
Garden From The Know, Do, Have, Method
I will choose the garden in this example.
So let’s say I like to grow flowers in my garden and my preferred flower is Hydrangea.
How do I validate this niche?
Well, let’s follow the process.
Evergreen
According to Google Trends, the interest in the past five years has been quite good.
Enthusiast
It’s time to see if people show interest in this topic.
Over 450.000 searches are done on Google every month from the US only.
Urgent Problems
How do I know if people have urgent problems with this topic?
I have tried several ways to find urgent problems, and I think the best is visiting forums.
Just go to Google and type your keyword + forums.
Then, visit ten to twenty of them to see if people complain about specific issues.
Don’t forget to check other sites like Quora.
So, does this niche have urgent problems?
Yes. It seems problems occur after planting the flower (this is a good topic for a blog post or course module).
Future Problems
We can already say that our blogging niche has future problems.
If people decide to plant and grow Hydrangea, they will definitely meet unpredicted issues.
This will make them seek help.
Players With Money
The most crucial part.
It seems like the word Hydrangea doesn’t show me any ads (At the time of writing this post).
No problem.
But the real question is: are there people who will freak out and want to get everything right when they plant the flower?
Absolutely.
They will definitely come back for more because they know I am the expert in the market.
Hydrangea Blog Niche Validation Completed
'Sleeping' Niche From The Life Experience Method
I had sleeping issues for five years.
No matter how tired I was, I couldn’t fall asleep quickly.
And when I could finally sleep, I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep again till the morning.
Note: it’s an example.
I saw many doctors and got addicted to sleeping pills.
And according to medical tests, I had no sickness that was the cause.
However, the last doctor was able to treat my sleeping and dependence problems without any extra pills.
Now I want to start a blog in this area and help millions of people who have the same problem.
Evergreen
Is it evergreen?
Absolutely.
As far as I know, there have always been people with sleep issues, and there will always be.
According to Google Trends, the word ‘insomnia’ doesn’t almost trend down.
Enthusiast
Over 550.000 monthly searches for the keyword ‘insomnia’ in the US alone.
And 49.500 searches for ‘sleep disorders’. Quite enough.
Urgent Problems
Are there urgent problems?
Of course.
Future Problems
This is where I get stuck.
If I help someone overcome pills dependence and help them sleep better, what problems will they also have?
No idea.
The problem is my clients will only be one-time clients – which is not good.
Anyway, because I am a human who has feelings, I will still help people in this niche.
But If long-term profit is my main focus, this niche is not for me.
However, yes however, I can tweak it.
How?
Well, people who can’t sleep enough usually have one extra problem: they cannot plan their day, week, and month well.
Think about it this way: because I can’t sleep, I am more tired during the day, and I lose the habit of planning and executing things. Whenever I am tired, I want to go to bed.
My second product could be teaching best planning tips for ‘someone who has overcome insomnia’.
So, in this case, I may consider this niche.
Players With Money
I don’t need to talk a lot here because we all know that my clients spend a lot to treat themselves.
They go to the hospital, see the doctor, buy and take pills, and go back to the doctor.
If it doesn’t work, they change the doctor.
So, they have enough money to buy my product.
Sleeping Blog Niche Validation Completed
There you are!
We’ve crawled two blog niches to see if they are worth my time and efforts.
These are niches I will definitely consider if I want to start a blog.
The process is very simple.
By following it, you will make sure that you have a niche that interests and helps you meet your ‘why’.
But what you absolutely don’t have a niche?
27 Profitable Blog Niche Ideas
In case you still don’t know your niche and want more ideas, I’ve got you covered.
I created a list that is fully available for you here. In total, 27 blog niche ideas that I have personally validated.
Each niche successfully meets the five key points.
- Frugal living
- Budgeting
- Saving for retirement
- Home buying
- Minimalism
- Paying off debt
- Saving for college
- Freelancing
- Affiliate marketing
- Online courses
- Selling on Amazon/eBay
- Dropshipping
- New parents
- Raising young children
- Schooling and education
- Family activities and trips
- Exercise routines and tips
- Nutrition and meal plans
- Family Fitness
- Yoga
- Paleo diet
- Keto diet
- Vegan diet
- Family travel
- Solo travel
- adventure /tourism
- Starting a blog
But there is more! If you want a more complete list, check out 152+ more blog niche ideas that really make money.
Now It's Your Turn!
In this post, I have tried to be as clear as possible.
Choosing your niche is the most critical blogging step. If you choose the wrong niche, all your projects will fall.
But if you choose the correct niche, you increase your chances of being a successful blogger.
Now it’s your turn.
Which part is the most difficult for you? Is it finding your Why? Or is it brainstorming your niche ideas?
How many must-haves does your niche have?
Just drop your comments below.
This is great. Honestly, I had so many blogging ideas but I didn’t know how to check if I could make money using them.
Does the validation process work for any idea?
Glad to hear that you could already validate some ideas.
And yes, this validation process works for any idea, even if your idea is “knife” or “smartphones”. It validates everything.
Does this work for any blogging idea?
Hi Aria,
Yes, it does. The point is that any idea you could have is just an idea. You need to validate it to make sure you can be profitable.
So yes, use this process for any idea, and you will be amazed at how well it works.
Wow, I didn’t know that something like “future problems” exists. But it totally makes sense.
Glad to see that you learned something new.
I think this is one of the best blog niche posts I’ve ever read.
Thank you very much, Robert. Gald to see that you enjoyed reading it.
Is the Future Problems mandatory? I have a niche idea but I don’t see any future problems with it?
Hey Brian,
Thanks for your question.
I am sorry to hear that it’s hard to identify future problems in your niche. Based on my research, blogs that make more money in the long term all have future problems.
If there is no, at least one, problem, you will find yourself sending emails to your clients without having anything else to sell. I have noticed that, sadly, many of your clients will lose interest in your emails.
But instead of thinking about it alone, contact me (https://www.iconicblogging.com/contact/) and we will both try to find these problems. They are certainly hiding somewhere.
I see,
Thanks for your detailed explanation, and thank you very much for offering your help. I will contact you right away.
Thanks again.