How to Pick a Niche to Start a Blog

January 6th, 2009 • Related • Filed Under

Ok, you have finally gotten past the fear of starting a blog. You have decided you are going to go for it and become one of thousands of bloggers out there trying to make a living blogging. You are ready, but you have one problem, you don’t know which niche to start a blog.

Picking the niche to start your first blog can be overwhelming. If you read all the blogs out there on becoming a professional blogger you will find they make the choice even harder by talking about keywords, niche size, growing niches, shrinking niches, high pay niches, and so on. A first time blogger will feel like they are in waders with the water coming in over the top, they are lost in a world of terms and the blogsphere.

How can a first time blogger weed through all this and find a niche to start their first blog? The number of ways to pick your fist blog is equal to the number of bloggers on the net right now. Each person is going to tell you something different. As your brain starts to overload on blogging information, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It is a small light, but it will help you far more than professional blogging advice will right now.

K.I.S.S. – a rule to live by in times of confusion. What does K.I.S.S. rule mean? Although many people have taken this rule and changed it around the original meaning is, “Keep It Simple Stupid”. Sounds harsh but it also makes a lot of sense. So how can we apply this to blogging to pick our first niche?

Blogging is not a “get rich quick” business. It takes a lot of work, learning, more work, a bit of luck, yet more work, and time. The first few months to a year isn’t going to be that exciting, money won’t be pouring into your bank account. Most blogs fail because the blogger picked the wrong niche then got frustrated, bored, ran out of things to write about, or didn’t know the subject well enough to even blog about it.

When you start looking for a niche for your first blog, don’t look at keywords, high pay niches, fast growing niches, or anything else a professional blogger would be interested. Look at you, what are the subjects you like to learn about, hobbies you are interested in, topics you love to talk about, anything you feel passionate about. That is where you will pick your first niche is from yourself.

Those first six months of blogging is a learning curve and a test. You hve to learn how to set up the blog, learn how to make posts, deal with design, graphics, and other minor but important things. That is even before you decide how to montize your blog. If you are not a writer, that will also be a learning curve, blogging is writing and you have to be able to communicate with your readers. You also have to decide where to get photos, information on your niche, how often you will be posting, when and where you are going to write your blog posts, and other factors.

You first blog is also a test. You will be putting your heart and soul, not to mention hundreds of hours into your blog the first six months. Can you pass the test? Are you willing to do all of that to get your blog up and going, even though you haven’t made a dime blogging yet? There is a good chance you won’t make any money blogging the first six months. You are going to be tested in how far you will go to make your blog a success. Most people fail this test because of the niche they picked.

As you examine yourself for a list of possible niches to start your blog, write them down and once you get a good list (ten or so niches), ask yourself the following questions:

  1. Do I love to talk to people about this topic?
  2. Do I love learning about this topic?
  3. Would I love sharing what I know and learn about this topic?
  4. Would I be willing to work hard for six months on this topic without making any money?
  5. Do I love writing about this topic?
  6. Do I know over 200 things about this topic to discuss?

If you can’t answer “YES” to ALL of these questions, then the topic isn’t right for you to blog about. Picking the topic will be setting yourself up to fail. A failed blog is one that will discourage us when we decide to start a second blog to try again. Although we did learn a lot, a failed blog isn’t going to make the next blog any easier or harder. You will just be starting over on a timeline you can not rush.

All the professional advice won’t help you if you can’t get through the first six months of a blog. So K.I.S.S., don’t make your first blog harder than it should be to turn into a success. Find a niche you love, find a niche you know, and find a niche that you wouldn’t care if you made money or not. Once you get through the first six months and the start up phase, then you start looking at professional advice on how to monetize your blog. Once you get past the blogging learning curve then you can start worrying about finding a niche that pays more and is growing.

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Sara East

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