One mistake that most beginner bloggers make is that they try to cover too many niches without a clear plan on who their target audience is… aka. Who they want to help with their content.
This then makes it harder to:
- Rank in Google because Google will not recognize you as an expert in any of the topics.
- Serve your audience and help them solve their problems because your content goes in so many different directions.
- Keep readers, as your visitors may not be interested in your future content about a different topic.
My advice in picking a niche is to go for something you are interested in and knowledgeable about. This way, you will find it easier to create genuinely engaging content and not just a mashup of what everyone has already said.
And you will have more experience so you will have a better understanding of your audience's problems.
Note : How To Start a Blog – Step 1: Choose & Understand Your Niche (full free course )
Blog Inspiration & Ideas
To give you an idea of how big your blog can grow and how other blogs are operating – I wanted to walk you through some successful blogs.
This way, you can see how they are creating content, engaging with their audience, and monetizing their blogs – so you can get inspired by them.
On the SuperstarSEO blog, we like to teach our readers how to get better at SEO & rank. Our target audience is small business owners, SEOs, and bloggers, who need to learn SEO to make the most out of their profession.
Our aim with the content is to teach them SEO so that they can conquer their industries.
Legiit
The Legiit blog focuses on two things:
- Helping freelancers make more sales
- Helping business owners grow their business and invest in the RIGHT talent
As a company that connects businesses with freelancers, this helps us (I am the CEO of the company) serve both of our ideal customers – while educating them and pushing them toward their own goals.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the most popular SEO tools, and as you might guess… Their blog covers SEO.
However, I chose this one as an example because they use their tool and create tutorials with it.
So they can help visitors achieve a particular result IF they sign up for their tool… which leads to a flood of trial signups/customers.
CopyBlogger
CopyBlogger is another huge blog that focuses on content marketing. According to TargetInternet, it is generating a whopping $33.1 million per year, mainly from their services and info-products such as their academy.
The goal of their blog is simple: Find Entrepreneurs and business owners who want to invest in content marketing – then give them A LOT of value upfront. Then, if they want more, they can sign up for their paid products and services.
This is an approach you can take as well to build your audience.
Are Others Interested In Your Topic?
While you don't want to go too broad on the niche, you also want to make sure that others are interested in it too.
There are two ways of going about this:
A) Checking that there are similar blogs online
B) Looking through the Google results to see that others have used similar topics.
Another approach you could take is checking that there are YouTube videos around the topic. If it's popular on YouTube, it will likely be so on Google too.
Also: Don't worry if others have covered the same topic as you – you can always add your twist through personal stories and life experiences.
Just make sure that you aren't trying to rank for super-competitive terms like “weight loss pills.” While this may be possible, it's going to be very hard if it's your first blog.
Don't Go Too Broad
One mistake that I've seen so many beginners make with their first blog is choosing broad topics:
- “Make money online.”
- “Health”
- etc.
While there sure are people interested in this topic – you'll also be competing with an INSANE amount of competition. And, because these topics are so broad, it's usually tough to get past all of this competition – so only the top dogs do it.
Here are some examples of niching down that will multiply your chances of success:
- Instead of “make money online,” you could focus on “Dropshipping with WooCommerce.” – then cover specific WooCommerce plugins, tutorials, etc.
- Instead of “Health,” you could create a blog about “Living as a Vegetarian.” – then cover getting enough Protein, vegetarian meals, etc.
Of course, these are just examples, but they will help you serve your target audience better AND show Google that you're an expert.