When deciding to blog, you must choose an interesting and profitable niche. It involves researching trends and audience requirements. Let us learn some common mistakes to avoid when choosing a niche for our blog.
Blogging is a profitable venture for those with a passion for sharing knowledge. The information that you share has the potential to reach anyone located in any corner of the world.
There are a million blogs available online on various topics. Earlier, bloggers mostly stuck to sharing stories, experiences, etc.
Once monetization became possible, bloggers started refining their content to become professionals.
With search engine optimization (SEO) and EEAT metrics set by search engines, getting their blogs to the top 10 ranks became every blogger’s priority.
A new blogger needs to learn some common mistakes to avoid when choosing a niche in their blogging journey.
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To prove that you are a credible blogger, you need to choose a good niche for blogging.
The blogging niche is the topic about which you would be sharing your experiences and expertise.
Blogging niches could be something you are passionate about. They could be something you have learned according to the latest trends and wish to share your views.
The more rich content you give on your blogging niche, the higher your authority as a domain expert.
So, choosing the right blogging niche to blog on is the first step to starting a profitable blogging journey.
Choosing a blog topic can catapult you to stardom or bring you down the drain.
New bloggers often make some common niche selection errors in haste. Such pitfalls in the initial stages would not fetch the required number of page views, eventually making them quit.
Why You Need to Choose a Niche?
As humans, we have a lot of day-to-day experiences. We excel in doing a lot of activities. We do some of it as a necessity, and we do some passionately.
You would have your own ways of doing something that can be helpful to others.
When you plan to blog, you must ensure you are sharing something new and unique. A million other bloggers would have shared experiences and learnings similar to yours.
Que: Then how can I make money from blogging?
Blogging needs a professional approach to see some profits. A crucial step in blogging is to find what audiences are seeking and whether you can provide it.
Choosing a good niche means the right blend of your passion and audience requirements.
A blogging niche turns profitable only if there is an audience for it. Blogging on one blogging niche regularly establishes your credibility as a domain expert and fetches more views.
Blogging several posts on your niche gets attention from your peers in the same domain. Link-building, influencer partnering, etc., take off once you are visible as a domain expert.
Does that mean you can blog only on one niche?
Not at all. You can blog on various niches that show your expertise. However, be consistent in giving content for all of them.
Beware of some common mistakes to avoid when choosing a niche. Avoid these when starting your blogging journey.
Scroll further to learn some niche selection tips to start a successful blog.
8 Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Niche
When choosing a good niche for blogging, many new bloggers decide in haste.
They commit some common niche selection errors without checking for a few parameters like;
- Whether they have sufficient content for at least 1 year, with 1 post a week.
- The timeframe for which their niche will be trending.
- Whether the niche has scope for innovation in existing content
- What are the ways to monetize from the blogging niche?
- Ways to compete with existing bloggers in the niche.
With proper analysis of the above points, here are some common mistakes to avoid when choosing a niche for your new blog.
Mistake 1: Focusing Solely on Profit Potential
It is no wonder that blogging is one of the best passive income sources. But, one common reason many new bloggers fail is to expect returns once they publish their first few posts.
Most new bloggers choose trending topics and write whatever they know about them. Many believe that when search queries and recommendations show such topics – their blog will fetch more views and pave the way for more profits.
As a blogger, one of the common mistakes to avoid when choosing a niche is to look at its profitability.
A trending niche does not guarantee profits for your blog. Blogging on a new or old trend does not denote zero profits.
For instance;
Starting a new cookery blog showing the same recipes prepared by other bloggers will not be profitable, just because you know it.
However, sharing different experiences for the same recipes can earn you profits.
You could do the same recipe without fire or electricity, source ingredients from your garden, etc. This way, your posts must focus more on originality.
Understand that blogging is a slow process. It may take months for your blog to get organic followers.
Viewers search more on a topic because of their requirements.
If you can address the exact requirements of your audience, you will automatically have more organic viewers coming to your blog.
With traffic increase, you can see your profits increasing!
In our example, if viewers are looking for ways to cook the same recipe without gas or minimal energy, your cookery blog can help them.
Choose a blogging niche that addresses a group of users’ requirements, whether trending or not.
Mistake 2: Choosing a Niche About a Product
Product reviews are definitely a popular blogging niche. Today, anyone can share product reviews online.
Some pitfalls in niche selection of product reviews are that most of them are either paid, spam, or copied.
Google ratings, recommendations, etc., help influence buyer patterns (only after they are reviewed by some expert in that field).
You may be interested or have a fetish for buying something. It could be anything like roadside artifacts, toys, imitation jewelry, dresses, electronic gadgets, cars, bikes, etc.
Many bloggers wish to try their hand at affiliate marketing and start writing blogs.
They find that writing about some brands and products has fetched many views on peer blogs. They write reviews by browsing similar blogs without researching.
One niche selection tip when choosing to review products is to be someone who has actual knowledge and experience in the working of the product.
- You should have tested and tried the product under various conditions.
- Compare it with similar products and give your verdict.
- Know its USP and describe how it makes a difference.
- Be clear and precise to justify the product prices.
- You must belong to the target group that the product is meant for.
While this is a routine template, adding your personal touch to every topic shows your expertise as an affiliate marketer.
Mistake 3: Choosing a Niche without Knowledge
When you choose a good niche, it must be something from your experience and passion.
It must also have a market to cater to the audience. The mistake to avoid when choosing a niche is to satisfy only one of the above parameters.
When you take up a hobby or a venture, you must put your heart and soul into it. Only then can you learn from your experiences and find out new ways or solutions.
So, when you choose a blogging niche, it must be something you are knowledgeable about.
When you start blogging, you may be confused if you do not have any areas where you are skilled.
There is nothing to worry about as you can take up a popular blogging niche, get your hands wet, learn from your beginner blogging mistakes, and then share them with newcomers.
Here is where bloggers tend to act in haste. They start blogging based on someone’s idea or suggestion and do not spend time learning.
They will write a few topics post in which they run out of content. Now, you must read the post on top blogging niches for new bloggers.
After reading it, you must spend time and analyze what works for you, aligns with your interests, and start learning about it. Then, find what other new areas are unexplored in those topics.
Blogging niche selection itself requires a lot of research and analysis.
— What you may be experienced with may be outdated.
— You may need to upgrade yourself and enhance your knowledge.
Then, you can share hacks or solutions relevant to current times.
Mistake 4: Selecting Too Narrow or Too Broad Niche
One of the clever niche selection tips is analyzing the market for your niche.
One common mistake to avoid when selecting a niche of your passion is not checking if it has a market or trend. Also, you need to check the spectrum of your niche.
The success of blogging lies in defining your perspective on the topic at the right time.
For instance;
A niche like healthcare is a broad niche. A lot of specializations are available to blog on.
Some specializations like pregnancy and postpartum healthcare should come from domain expert bloggers like gynecologists.
Any random blogger writing on such specialized topics may attract a low SEO rank, as search engines prioritize blogs written by niche specialists.
Some areas like nutrition, diet, and fitness can come from specialists or any consumer who has experienced any of these under the medical supervision of experts.
If you wish to blog on such a broad niche as healthcare;
- Find out which sub-domain or field you will contribute to.
- Then, you check the market for it and research more about your audience.
- The rule of thumb before selecting a niche is to ensure that you have unique content to share for at least a year.
Similarly, choosing a narrow niche (eg: home maintenance) without much to explore can be a burden.
You may run out of content within the first few blog posts, damaging your credibility and authority (as a blogger).
Mistake 5: Choosing Micro Niche for Blogging
Based on trends, a few bloggers take up a micro-niche from a trending niche.
The recent fad of posting blogs on trending topics like "A Day in my Life at …", "Get Ready With Me to…", etc., has seen a lot of bloggers gaining popularity.
Such lifestyle blogs have influenced a lot of new bloggers to blog on the same topics.
Some of them see success, maybe due to their other sources of traffic like a YouTube channel, media presence, being a celebrity, etc.
But for other bloggers still seeking recognition, such micro-niche topics with a short shelf-life can be a blunder. Beware of such mistakes to avoid when choosing a niche.
However, some micro-niche topics have long-term viability and are sustainable.
Take the case of cookery blogs.
The recent micro-niche in this topic is the preparation of pre-mixes to make instant meals (anytime or during emergencies).
Any new and innovative recipe posted on this topic has an audience and is received very well every time.
Hence, choose a (trending or sustainable) niche only when you can make the most of it with at least a year’s worth of content.
Trending topics may assure instant fame only if you are experienced in that micro-niche with unique content.
An evergreen content like cooking would crown you as a culinary expert. But, you will get fame only when you can furnish unique content.
Mistake 6: Writing Content Only for Money Ignoring Target Audience
Every niche in blogging has the potential to earn money. It is a matter of your passion and knowledge to turn your blog into a money-making tool.
But money should not be your only aim to enter into blogging.
Remember that blogging is a slow process. Today, even the most successful bloggers have struggled to make an income in their initial months or years.
Getting organic traffic redirected from the search engines to your blog requires a remarkable effort.
A niche with several successful bloggers earning solely with their blogs does not mean it will be the same for you.
Look at their history to know their efforts in their initial days.
A few may be professionals in other domains completely unrelated to their blogging domain.
Their knowledge, research, USP of their posts, writing styles, blog templates, etc., are what sets them apart.
These have been their core factors to attract a large audience. This audience does not spike suddenly. It happens gradually from where the monetization can happen.
At one point, your blog will make it to the top spots in search results, and there will be no turning back.
Until then, you must prove your credible domain expertise in the blogging niche. Keep giving regular content in your blog for this.
Mistake 7: Choosing an Over-Saturated Blogging Niche
The biggest pitfall in niche selection for beginner bloggers is choosing topics already overflowing with blogs.
As a new blogger, you must focus on what new content you can give to a blogging niche.
Being a popular and ever-trending niche and having many bloggers blogging their versions of the same content does not indicate a potential audience or market.
As we saw above, the area of product reviews is overflowing. Google a product, and you will find a million review posts.
I am not saying it is wrong for anyone to share review blogs. But, only authorized and expert reviews fetch top ranks in search engines.
So, should no new blogger get into such saturated niches like product reviews?
Yes, you can, but you will need to research a lot. Audiences expect innovative reviews these days that can help them make informed choices.
Recently, product reviews include comparisons with competitor products that most users switch to after reading one review.
This way, people spend more time on a blog than moving to other tabs.
Reviewing a local product in different continents to check its quality, durability, etc., is also a new area covered by reviewers.
When choosing such niches, identify if you have a good scope of growth to make it to the top ranks on SERPs.
Always remember that posting blogs on a saturated topic does not guarantee success.
Such kinds of common niche selection errors have brought an early end to a lot of new bloggers.
Therefore, when choosing such topics, create a completely new concept and add your experiences.
Mistake 8: Choosing a Niche Just Based on Keywords
The initial step that a new blogger needs to follow is to look out for trends in Google search.
It gives the top keywords and topics searched by online users in different geographies and time zones.
Do keyword research with tools like SEMRUSH, Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner, etc.
Targeting trending keywords is a primary focus area for all bloggers. But, this should not decide the goal of your blogging journey.
Deciding on keywords to finalize a niche and switching to trending keywords are some mistakes to avoid.
You must understand that keywords change with trends.
Hence, I always recommend doing keyword research for each blog post. Keep refining the keywords for the same content to match the trends.
- The procedure is to finalize your blogging niche based on your interests and audience expectations.
- Try to find the exact keywords used by your audience on Google search.
- Add those keywords organically to satisfy search engine bots and the end readers.
Most keywords die out thanks to ever-changing jargon and lingos used by online users. There may be various keyword combinations to target similar content.
As a blogger, you must target all possible combinations of keywords in your niche.
But ensure that the content you give is unique and not repetitive.
Secondary keywords can help target the same content for which it is necessary to include them in your blog posts.
Some Popular Blog Niche Ideas to Choose
By now, you would be aware of what not to do and what to avoid when choosing a blogging niche.
In order to see if you can convert your passion to a full-time profession, you will need to do some pre-requisites.
- Start with a Google search to know what topics are trending in your area of interest. Analyze potential trends through tools like Google Trends.
- Then, look for trending topics from top blogs/competitors in your domain.
- Following social media discussions and threads would give you an idea of domains that die with time and niches that are ever-lasting.
Let us see some popular blogging niches that have been profitable since the past decade;
- Money-making/Investment blogs: These blogs are ever-trending as money-making strategies change with time and trends. New bloggers must capitalize on this market and provide unique and helpful ideas.
- Health and Wellness blogs: New niche areas have come up in the field like mental health, reviews and analysis of fitness programs, parenting and birthing aids, etc.
- Cookery blogs: It is an oversaturated niche, yet an everlasting domain gives a new niche area for many to cover. The more native and mouth-watering your recipes are, the higher your chances to trend in these days.
- Educational/Technical blogs: This is the latest norm for professionals to teach skills like a university-style course. Makeup artistry, photography, cookery, pottery, and many more subjects were taught with blogs structured like a course.
- DIY blogs: There is never a dearth of “How To do …” queries. If you analyze and target the right audience based on what you know improves the winning niche.
Conclusion
We learned common mistakes to avoid when choosing a niche for your blogging journey. You may select one or more blogging niches, but plan content for all of them regularly.
Your blogging niche is the reflection of your expertise and knowledge. Hence, do a careful analysis of trends in that domain. We came across some ways to choose a profitable blogging niche.
Once you choose a niche, you must start with developing your blog. Let us see the steps involved;
- Start with registering a unique and relevant domain name for your blog.
- Purchase a shared hosting plan (initially) to host your blog’s website.
- Install WordPress(WP) and set up your website theme.
- Choose a theme for your blog and add relevant WP plugins for blogging.
- Research Keywords and prepare your content calendar.
- Create original and engaging blog posts.
- Check for grammatical errors and optimize each blog post for SEO.
- Promote every blog post across social media and other online platforms.
We at Online Home Income can handhold you at every stage of your blogging journey.
From helping you refine and filter a profitable niche to hosting your blog, marketing your blog, and fetching organic followers – we can do it all.
So start your blogging journey today and show us what you have got.
