Niche Blogging –Everything You Need To Know And How To Get Started
In this post, you’ll not only learn more about niche blogging but also find out the key steps for starting your own niche blog.
What Is a Niche Blog?
A niche blog is a niche-focused blog; this means that the blog is managed with the intent of targeting a certain, usually small, niche (market). While traffic is highly required for the sustenance of a niche blog, the niche blogger generates traffic for the blog via any of two effective means –search engine optimization (SEO) and paid advertisements.
Traffic is not the only requirement for keeping up the niche blog; the niche blogger also needs to prioritize top-quality content which will likely keep the blog’s target audience engaged. With that noted, high-quality content will also prove very useful if the niche blogger wishes to leverage SEO for driving traffic to the blog. This is simply because high-quality content is an indispensable recipe for SEO (i.e. gearing up a website/blog for high ranking on search engines).
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To be considered high-quality, the content of a (niche) blog should not only meet up with certain SEO requirements, but also appear up-to-date and relevant. Whether the niche blogger seeks to drive traffic using SEO or paid ads, the blogger’s ultimate aim for running the blog is to either generate traffic (for an affiliate site) or leverage pay-per-click ads for making money.
Bearing in mind that they might not succeed with their attempt to use a niche blog for a purpose (generating traffic for an affiliate site or monetizing pay-per-click ads), some people choose to start niche blogging using a free blogging service such as Blogger. This way, such people might not have to incur any (significant) expenses during the startup phase of their niche blogs. However, they’ll likely want to transfer to paid blogging services (which let them exercise more control over the blogs as well as enjoy more features) once they have succeeded with the niche blogs.
With respect to its focus on a specific, and usually small, market, a niche blog, which is bound for success, must be able to engage audience in its niche (market). This is why the niche blogger needs to create regular high-quality content that appeals to the target audience. If, for instance, the blog focuses on weight loss supplements, the niche blogger should be able to create high-quality, relevant and engaging content that details testimonies and other positive indications which testify the efficacy of the supplements. This way, the target audience –specifically those trying to find out effective weight loss supplements –might be encouraged to click the blog’s ads or repost the blog’s content.
Getting Started with Niche Blogging: Steps for Starting a Niche Blog
It’s natural to assume that starting a niche blog entails the same steps that apply to a general blog. While the steps look almost the same, the big factor that distinguishes these two major blog types is that the process of starting a niche blog appears more rigorous in terms of decision making.
Especially if you’re looking to monetize a niche blog, it behooves you to consider all the necessities for blogging about something (very) specific rather than general.
We’ve broken the process of getting started with niche blogging into four insightful steps. We’re pretty sure that if you devote attention to reading all of these steps, you’ll have a clear grasp of how you can get your own niche blog off the ground.
Step I: Firmly Choose a Passion
For the fact that niche blogs considerably differ from general blogs, we just can’t overemphasize the need to have a passion before thinking about starting a niche blog.
Because the goal is to run a niche blog, you’ll not only need to gear up yourself to write but also write about something (specific). You need to have a passion and remain firm about that passion before starting a niche blog that revolves around it. That passion could be photography, health, cooking, coffee (making) etc.
If you choose to blog in a niche you’re passionate about, you’ll –to a large extent –ease your task of writing regularly in that niche. Bear in mind that “passion” itself is a strong liking and this strong liking could be the fuel that would sustain you through the process of niche blogging, especially when it’s for the long term.
“To firmly choose a passion,” you need to consider an activity you’re not only passionate about, but also passionate about writing extensively on.
Step II: Consider How Long You Want to Run the Niche Blog
There are, of course, niche blogs that tilt towards certain things that are in vogue but which are rather short-lived. Such things are considered trends and examples may include popular TV shows. Creating your blog around a trend –such as an ongoing popular TV show –does have its own advantage.
The advantage could manifest as high traffic resulting from the fact that the TV show is one “blockbuster” trend that pulls hundreds of thousands of followers. If you want to cash in on this high traffic, it would be great that you run a blog that revolves around that TV show. What you must note, however, is that a niche blog created in this regard will hardly continue to pull traffic when the TV show is over.
The bottom line about “how long you want to run your niche blog” is that it’s up to you to decide whether you want to quickly cash in on a trendy event –such as a movie, TV show, etc –or painstakingly carve out a lasting niche. The good thing about the lasting niche is that it doesn’t have to depend on any faddish or ephemeral event.
Step III: Decide the Ideal Monetization Strategy for the Blog
If you’re keen about making money from your niche blog, then it goes without saying that you must be ready to decide the ideal monetization strategy/program for the blog.
There’s no denying that there are people who don’t seek to monetize their niche blogs. But the truth is that such people represent a minor fraction of the entire population of niche bloggers. In other words, majority of niche bloggers intend to make money with their niche blogs.
Courtesy of their ability to attract advertising and affiliate marketing programs, niche blogs are really a great way to make money online. Meanwhile, monetizing your niche blog would prove especially easy if you seem to have chosen a niche with a high concentration of affiliate marketing products and programs.
Truth be told, it is not every single blogging niche out there that has the potential of attracting affiliate marketing programs. Before finalizing your choice of blogging niche, it’s therefore advisable that you check whether trusted and well-paying affiliate marketing programs exist for your preferred niche.
As for monetizing your niche blog, advertising comes as an alternative (monetization route) to affiliate marketing. If you’d like to go with advertising, there are conditions you should meet, otherwise your likelihood of monetizing the niche blog might get frustrated.
The first condition is furnishing the blog with relevant content, while the second condition is growing the blog’s traffic to a reasonable level. In all this, the truth we can’t refute is that more often than not, advertisers have target audiences, and these advertisers are most likely to prefer only the (niche) blogs whose content targets such audiences. Also, most advertisers are concerned not only about the kind of audience your niche blog attracts, but also the level of traffic the blog has reached.
If your niche blog seems to have fulfilled the key conditions that interest most advertisers, there are chances that a couple of advertising programs will want to pay to advertise on the blog.
Step IV: Decide How to Get Precise Keywords for the Blog
The process of starting a niche blog doesn’t end with deciding how to monetize the blog. Quite frankly, this process further entails deciding the suitable way to fetch accurate keywords for the blog.
While you may have envisaged writing extensively in a particular area (niche), just as required in niche blogging, it’s very important to have a regular way of generating precise keywords in that niche. Whether the focus is on a very popular niche, such as photography, or one that appears less popular, we can’t gainsay the fact that you need to use the right keywords while creating the blog’s content.
Using the right keywords also has the advantage of getting the content of your niche blog in front of your audience. While it’s understood that this audience represents the horde of Internet users that your niche blog is focusing on, having a focused audience tends to bring about long-term benefits in terms of traffic and monetization.
The commonest –and perhaps “the best” –keyword-planning tool is Google’s Keyword Planner. Luckily, you wouldn’t find Keyword Planner difficult to use as Google readily provides guidelines on how to use the tool. By planning your niche blog’s keywords in the right way, you’ll not only end up with relevant and quality content, but also build a focused audience for your niche blog.
Benefits of Running a Niche Blog
The benefits of (running) a niche blog can be felt in the areas of (easy) monetization, audience reliability and in-depth coverage of topics. If you approach niche blogging in the right way, you’ll likely enjoy each of these three benefits:
Easy Monetization
Generally, how you approach blogging, coupled with the resources you commit to it, is what influences your chances of monetizing a blog. But there’s no denying that you’ll have an easier shot at monetizing a niche blog.
Compared to general blogs, niche blogs are not hard to sell to advertisers who’re willing to advertise their products, services, etc., on blogs that focus on what the advertisers do. Due to this ease of attracting the advertisers whose products/services align with the focus of your niche blog, it becomes pretty easy to make money through their adverts.
If your blog is rather multifaceted, it might be quite hard to tell which advertisers would be particularly interested in advertising through your blog.
Audience Reliability
A niche blog is not one that seeks to thrive on random audience. It instead relies on the engagement the niche blogger has built with audience in a specific niche (market). By consistently producing the content that appeals to a specific audience, you’ll likely have a real shot at building a powerful email list or other channels of engagement with the audience.
If you stick to high-quality content as a niche blogger, there are chances that you’ll build a reasonable number of subscribers for your niche blog. And the good thing is that you’re unlikely to lose these subscribers because your blog focuses on an area they consider interesting.
In-depth Coverage of Topics
Variety is perhaps the selling point of blogs that deal with general topics. While variety does have its good sides, the resulting downside is that it stimulates blogs to cover so many topics, thereby making it impossible or difficult to give depth to the topics.
If you really want to get exhaustive online information about a particular topic, probably by reading several in-depth posts about the topic, niche blogs are more than likely your best bet. This is because focusing on specific niche(s) makes it easy for niche blogs to cover several parts of a particular topic exhaustively.
Normally, a blogger operating a niche blog wouldn’t be tempted to hastily write about a topic all in a bid to quickly proceed to a different topic. The (niche) blogger would instead take their time while writing on a particular topic just to ensure depth is adequately given to the parts where necessary.
