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Starting a blog is a great way to build an audience, connect with a community, and develop a reputation for your brand. To increase your chances of success, it’s important to choose a blog niche that fits your interests and isn’t already covered by several other websites. It’s hard to compete against high-traffic websites with tons of similar content, so focus on something that people want but that isn’t already out there.
Say you’re interested in writing about drums and drumming—there’s already a reasonably strong presence for drum-related content on the internet, so competing for that audience may be challenging. But what if you’re really interested in Latin drums and Latin drummers? This narrower focus means less competition for readers and a greater chance that your blog will rank high in search results for related topics — thus gaining more traffic and more opportunities for monetizing your blog.
Read on for advice on how to find a niche that will drive your target audience to your website, build their loyalty, and turn them into customers.
Should a blog be about a single topic?
If you’re starting a blog with the goal of earning an income, it’s often better to focus on one niche. It’s much easier for a single-niche blog to gain visibility on search engines than it is for a blog that covers several different topics. That will ultimately make it easier for your audience to find it.
Search engine optimization (SEO) in blogging depends heavily on showing that your blog is an authority in your niche. One way to do this is by developing what’s known as an internal linking network. This is when each of your blog posts includes hyperlinks to other related posts on your blog. These links signal to search engines that you have depth of knowledge on a particular subject, which helps your blog rank higher when people search for answers relating to that subject.
If you have more than one niche, you are more likely to confuse the search engine algorithm, because it’s less clear what your blog is about. If you stick to a single niche, it’s easier to build authority quickly and climb the search engine results pages (SERPs). For examples of successful niche blogs, check out some top examples from bloggers using Squarespace.
Choosing a blog niche you’re passionate about
Blogs that frequently have new posts tend to perform better on search engines. That’s why it’s important to find a niche that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about. If you have passion for a subject, you’ll want to write about it regularly. If you have knowledge on a subject, you’ll have lots to say and new perspectives to offer your readers.
A well-maintained blog takes a sustained effort. It’s about becoming a subject matter expert so that people searching for answers online come to value you as a trusted source of information. A blog that proves its subject knowledge by backlinking to credible sources on other websites or including insights from other experts—especially if they’re accredited in some way—will see more traffic than a website that doesn’t support its claims. Squarespace tools can help you understand the different optimization efforts you need to undertake as well as helping you to organize your content management system (CMS) and scheduling.
Each time you write a new blog post, set aside some time to conduct research into the subject beforehand. Consider interviewing another expert to add another layer of expertise. Then you can write both passionately and authoritatively about your focus.
Choosing a profitable niche for your blog
When it comes to making money from your blog, it’s important to choose a niche that hasn’t already been exhausted by other bloggers or well-known websites with a huge volume of traffic. The fewer websites there are focusing on your niche, the stronger your position can be in search engine results when people search for related keywords.
One of the easiest ways to narrow down the competition is to also narrow down the scope of your niche. In other words, don’t focus on broad subjects like “hard rock,” “art,” or “fitness.” Focus your blog on a specific aspect of the broader subject or give it a unique spin.
Extending the above examples, niches might include, “notable hard rock concerts 1974–1979,” “oil painting for beginners,” or “low-impact cardiovascular exercise.”
Before you commit to a niche, it’s a good idea to use a keyword research tool to find out how many different search terms there are related to your chosen niche. If lots of people are searching for keywords and topics in your niche, you stand a good chance of your blog being seen by a large audience. Even more so if there’s low competition among other websites for those search terms.
Study the results of your research to categorize the problems your audience is looking to solve. This will help to guide you when creating content on your blog.
For example, if a lot of people are asking, “What are low-impact cardio exercises,” you know that this is a topic you might want to explore in a post. You might even turn it into a series of posts about each exercise, which will signal to search engines that you have depth of authority on the topic.
Once you’ve chosen a blogging niche, it’s much easier to start planning your content. You’ll be able to start compartmentalizing your research into topics, mapping out your internal links, and understanding how to build things like sponsored content and affiliate marketing into your blog.