How to pick a blog niche? It’s a question that every beginner blogger asks themselves as they decide to start a blog.
Maybe you have questions around a couple of niches you’re considering, or perhaps you’re at ground zero and have no clue where to begin. No matter what your situation is, this article will help you find a niche you’re passionate about – but also has the potential to monetize.
Before we dive in, let’s start with the basics…
What is a Blog Niche?
In its simplest form, a blog niche is what you’re going to blog about. It’s the topic you decide to write about, day in and day out.
You can see why picking the right blog niche is essential when you start your blog. Ultimately, your decision on what you decide to blog about can be the most crucial factor determining your blog’s future success.
Some bloggers decide to just throw up a blog and write about whatever comes to mind. While this can work, chances are not everyone shares the same exact interests as you. Blogs that have a specific focus and niche down find it much easier to make money.
For example:
Consider a mom with a newborn who decided to recently get into blogging because of maternity leave from her job.
Some of her interests include yoga, vegan recipes, and now newborn baby care – therefore, she starts to blog about all these different areas of her life.
The problem here is that a reader who finds her posts about yoga might not have a child or be vegetarian. This makes it much harder for her to relate to this specific blog and makes it easier for readers to leave.
The lesson here is that it might seem tempting to blog about everything in your life. Still, reality tells us if we want to build a blogging business that actually makes money (affiliate) – we need to niche down and serve a small pocket of people, not the masses. This is defined as a niche.
Niches with Proven Demand for 2021 and Beyond
Blogs all over the internet publish monthly, quarterly, or yearly income reports. Createandgo, Smartpassiveincome, and makingsenseofcents are a few of them. Is there really a better way to build up the motivation to start a blog than seeing other blogs make over 100k per month?
Below are a few niches to take note of to help get the gears turning about what direction to go with your blog.
Financial
Investments, personal finance, cryptocurrency, day trading…the number of potential niches in the financial world is seemingly endless. Lots of questions about financial problems are searched on the internet every day. The long-term outlook of a blog that assists people with their finances is looking pretty good.
Nutrition
The number of diets, fads, trends in the nutrition world is staggering. Nonetheless, it’s information that readers crave, and those that supply it are rewarded well. Food blogs surrounding keto and veganism are highly competitive. Fortunately, many micro-niches such as ‘vegan body-building’ and ‘nutrition for expecting mothers’ still have plenty of room to grow!
Health and Wellness
Be careful not to go overboard when giving health advice if you’re not a doctor. While it may seem like the health and wellness space is saturated – the reality is that everyone’s health and wellness needs are different but never-ending.
Fitness
The fitness needs of a 65-year-old retiree and a 16-year-old high school football player are dramatically different. This is why general fitness is a bad idea when starting a blog. Instead, aim for fitness for a particular group of people. Nerd Fitness (below) is an excellent example of a blog that could send the right message to a specific audience.
Travel
Readers love travel blogs, and for a good reason. Who wouldn’t want to live vicariously through someone who travels the world and writes about their experiences? The demand for travel blogs will always exist. Ads, affiliate partnerships, digital products are just a few ways to monetize your travel blog.
Outdoor
The number of outdoor niches is almost endless. Gardening, pole barns, landscaping, hunting, fishing, off-roading are some, to name a few. DIY info products do exceptionally well in this space. Many of these blogs also perform well as a lead gen source. If you can develop partnerships with local businesses and send them leads, it can become quite profitable for your blog.
Self-Improvement
Remember – health, wealth, relationships. If your niche fits any of those three categories, chances are there will be a constant demand for it. Self-improvement certainly fits in this bucket. Keep in mind the self-improvement vertical has become saturated in recent years, with many “experts” making outrageous claims of their work. Regardless, self-development is still a great niche; just be aware of the stigma that comes along with it.
Relationship
Ever took advice from an article online that taught you something like “how to talk to women” or “tips for connecting with your step-children.” Chances are it came from a relationship blog. Relationship advice never gets old.
Sports
People have an ultra-high affinity towards sports – in some cases may be too high. It’s undeniable that some people’s passion for their favorite sports team runs deep into their bones. If you’re educated enough to have strong opinions and share them with the world – blogging about sports could be the fit for you.
Make Money Online
Anytime you can bring helpful, informative advice on making money online, people will flock to your blog. This is another very competitive niche and sticking out from the crowd is not easy to do.
Gaming
I’m not even sure professional gamers knew that gaming would take off the way it has. Each generation seems savvier and savvier than the next. There’s enormous upside in the gaming niche if you know what you’re talking about and can build a following. The list of potential sub-niches in the gaming space is enormous and only growing by the day! Xbox, Playstation, first-person shooter, RPG, battle royale, virtual, interactive – the list goes on and on.
Green Living / Sustainability
Green living is here to stay. Similar to gaming, it’s a field that is constantly evolving as technology becomes better. Green living is always reasonably new in terms of mass adoption. As the planet becomes hotter, drier, and less livable – Green living will always have proven demand.
Pet and Animal
This is a fun niche with many passionate bloggers. You’ll find blogs about specific dog breeds, lizards, cats, insects, and even blogs about exotic animal ownership. Again, be sure you’re somewhat knowledgeable if you decide to enter this niche. There are far too many educated, passionate bloggers and readers who will see through uneducated claims or advice.
Technology
Technology is constantly changing. This can be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it. Evergreen content might be hard to come by, requiring consistent posting and constant updating to older posts to stay relevant to the advancements in technology.
There you have it! A complete list of niches with proven demand in 2021 in beyond. I hope this starts to get your brain churning with ideas. You’ll need plenty of them as we officially begin walking through the steps for how to pick a blogging niche.
Part 1: Brainstorming
The first step in identifying a blogging niche is brainstorming.
Start compiling a list of blog topics that you think would excite you. Yes, we will validate all of your ideas but for now, get those creative juices flowing and jot down some ideas you could potentially roll with.
Here are some categories that I wrote down that interests me:
- Basketball
- E-Commerce
- Athlete Workouts
- Dating
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Scuba Diving
- Camping
- Make Money Online
Everyone is different so just write down as many ideas as you can that interest you. Think about activities you like to do with your friends and shows/documentaries that you watch.
You can even think of niches that you’re new to but desire to become an expert in.
Take your time and make sure your list is thorough!
Once you have a substantial list of potential blog topics, let’s dive deeper into each of them.
Part 2: Validation
With each category on your list, let’s ask ourselves these three questions…
Question #1 – How passionate am I about this niche?
So many people are concerned about profitability over passion when they take on a blogging venture. What they fail to realize is that blogging is a marathon, not a sprint. Your love has to burn high even on the days you don’t feel like writing.
Could you see yourself writing about this in 10 years?
Would I be proud to tell my friends and family I own a ___ blog for a living?
Could I build the motivation to write even on days I don’t feel like it?
If you hesitate to answer any of these questions, there’s a good chance the blog niche you’re considering isn’t one you’re passionate enough about.
Question #2 – Are you an expert in this niche, or are you willing to educate yourself to become an expert in this niche?
It’ll be hard to sell people your advice if you don’t know what you’re talking about. It might sound, self-explanatory but you’ll be surprised how much confidence someone has in themselves to start a tech blog without knowing a thing about tech.
Is my knowledge worth someone else’s time and money?
How much expertise does my blog niche require?
Lastly, consider YMYL (your money, your life) categories where qualifications and expertise are a requirement amongst readers. Think health, finance, etc.
Question #3 – Is there an audience willing to pay for this?
So now that we have a niche we’re passionate and knowledgeable about let’s make sure there’s a market for your niche.
Before we dive in, have a little common sense here. Look up popular websites and products related to the topic of your blog. Are there reviews that prove demand in this market?
We’ll dive deeper into this form of validation in this post but for now, just use some common sense to determine if there’s genuine interest behind your niche.
4-Step Research Validation
Now that we’ve had an honest conversation with ourselves about the feasibility of the blog topic we’re going after, we can take it a couple of levels deeper. Let’s start with the 4-Step Research Validation formula.
This is designed to give you a more granular perspective about the potential that exists in your chosen niche.
Step 1 – Research Search Volume
There are many ways we can verify search volume for your niche we’re considering.
Youtube – A simple YouTube search can yield you a lot of useful data when understanding your niche’s search volume. Try to think of the most commonly asked question one of your future readers/customers would ask. Type that into YouTube and A -see if the videos that populate that search is relevant to your search query. And B – if they are suitable, how many views do the top videos have?
If the top results are relevant and have many views, there’s a good chance there are lots of searches related to your niche. However, further validation is needed to ensure we don’t overlook an underserved market if there aren’t many relevant results. Enter Google.
Google – Google has a gambit of search features that most users don’t even know exist. As a niche blogger, understanding how to use some of these features can play a significant role in validating search volume for your niche.
The first thing I like to do is search for the most relevant term for my business and see what shows up. Check to see how many results Google was able to pull. Check out the “people also ask” and “related searches” sections.
If Google is populating your results with lots of relevant (and recent data), this is a sign your topic has enough search volume to be considered viable.
Also, check to see if companies are advertising for the search terms you’re using in Google. If so, this is a sign that your queries are valuable, and businesses are willing to pay money to show up on Google for those phrases.
Keyword Research Tools – Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, SEMrush are keyword research tools that allow you to see how much search volume there is for a particular term and how competitive it is to rank for.
Unfortunately, these tools are not free. In my experience, Ubersuggest is the cheapest and easiest to work with. However, it can be very insightful to know what terms are getting searched on the internet.
Amazon – Amazon is the largest e-commerce search engine in the world. If you sell a product, it would be a good idea to spy on similar products being sold on Amazon. Check to see how many reviews are there, and always check the terrible reviews to find pain points and capitalize on them.
Future Potential (Trends)
If you’re not familiar with Google Trends, now is a great time to start. This is an excellent tool for seeing how trendy niches are over time.
You can easily see what trends are on their way to extinction and which ones are on their way to the moon!
Step #2 – Level of Competition (List of Competitors)
Next, research competitors in your space. Google is a great place to start by simply searching what your customers might be searching for and seeing who shows up.
As you start to get more familiar with competitors in your space, do your due diligence. Follow them on social media, subscribe to their email lists, read all their blog posts. You should have a firm idea about what your competitors are doing to profit and build their following.
The keyword research tools mentioned earlier are another great way to spy on competitors. Not to get too technical here, but you can see what sites link to them, their most popular pages, how much traffic they generate, etc.
Step #3 – Content Sustainability
Ever heard of evergreen content? When you start a blog, your content must be sustainable – meaning it’s suitable for a very long time.
This is a struggle that cryptocurrency blogs suffer from. The world of cryptocurrency changes so frequently that a blog post written in July of 21′ will not be relevant 6 months later.
SEO blogs suffer from the same issue since Google changes its algorithm so often.
You can do yourself a huge favor and save a TON of time for yourself by picking a niche with evergreen topics and driving traffic to your site for years.
Health and wellness is an example of a niche with lots of evergreen topics available. Chances are not much will change with regards to standard literature on how to lose belly fat. Content pieces you post about losing belly will still be relevant 5 years from now!
Keep this in mind as you continue to validate your niche – how much evergreen content potential does this niche have?
Step #4 – Additional Blog Niche Validation Techniques
By this point, we’ve asked ourselves if this is a topic we can indeed be passionate about and get behind as well as an issue we’re somewhat knowledgeable in. We’ve confirmed there’s a paying audience in this niche, and there’s search volume behind the phrases commonly searched in this space.
And lastly, we’ve identified the competitors we’re up against and verified the industry we’re in is trending and has evergreen topics.
Here are a few additional validation techniques for those of you who are serious about getting your blog started.
List of Blog Post Ideas
Now that you feel confident about the niche you’re entering – start brainstorming different blog post ideas. Don’t worry about competition or search volume. Just write down whatever topics you’d like to write about as they come to mind.
Make sure you can set aside some time to do this. You should be able to come up with 20-30 with ease. The rest might require a little more thinking, but all in all, 50 post ideas are how many you should have in mind as you get started.
Are you finding it hard to come up with ideas? This is a sign you might not be as much of an expert as you think you are. If your blog really starts to take off, you’ll be writing a lot more than 50 posts!
Guest Post
Guest posting can be a great way to get some quick feedback about a niche you’re thinking of entering without building out your blog.
You’ll also get a feel for whether or not this is something you would like to write about daily. If you’re one of those people that regrets every decision you make, maybe you should consider guest posting and see if this is really something you could get on board with.
Network on Social Media
Honestly, there’s no better validation than feedback from your peers and immediate network. Publish a post and see how your network reacts. You might discover that people are fascinated by what you have to say!
Join groups and follow pages to build out your network even further and develop relationships with people in your niche.
12 Profitable Niche Blog Site Examples
Below are some examples of niche blog websites and their methods of monetization. Each of these blogs is unique and serves a particular audience. Hopefully, this list will give you some ideas about all the different niches out there!
Example Blog #1 – Avocadu.com
Niche: Yoga, weight loss, nutrition
Avocadu was created by Alex and Lauren with Createandgo. Their mission is to help you be healthy starting from the inside out, meaning your diet. They also provide yoga workouts, supplement recommendations, and of course, all the delicious and healthy recipes you could ask for.
Example Blog #2 – TammieAllen.com
Niche: Side Hustle, Productivity, Entrepreneurship
If you’re not familiar with Tammie, it’s about time we change that. Tammie Allen is an Amazon author, blogger, entrepreneur, and pure badass. To put it simply – Tammie helps her readers make money, hustle, and take control of their income. It’s easy to see why her blog has taken off.
Example Blog #3 – ThriftyFrugalMom.com
Niche: Frugal Living
Want to learn how to live frugally? Lydia with Thrifty Frugal Mom has you covered. She teaches her readers how to save money and cook affordable recipes. Most of the content surrounds the recipes she puts together from scratch. Her blog is very niche but perfect for those needing to feed their family on a small budget.
Example Blog #4 – WealthyGorilla.com
Niche: Self-Development, Motivation
If you’re looking for motivation, specifically to become rich, WealthyGorilla is for you. This blog generates MILLIONS of unique visitors every single month. They shed light on the net worth of some of the most famous artists and actors today. All to motivate their audience and help them realize what’s possible. Motivating people with already ambitious minds is a tall order. Wealthy Gorilla nailed it.
Example Blog #5 – SidewalkDog.com
Niche: Pet and Animal
Sidewalk Dog has a very unique angle in the pet and animal niche. Most blogs you find in this vertical are either info-based or focused on training. Sidewalk Dog is fantastic because they help animal owners find social settings acceptable for dogs. Much of their content is prioritized based on geography to help dog owners find places to bring their dogs to in those locations. It’s a unique value proposition with an enormous opportunity to scale as they start blogging about new areas.
Example Blog #6 – Limitlesshiker.com
Niche: Outdoor, Lifestyle, Hiking/Backpacking
Jenny with Limitless Hiker is an outdoor lifestyle blogger who offers guides, tips, and even coaching programs for those ready to start backpacking and hiking. Jenny documents all her hikes and experiences and shares her stories with her readers. Limitless Hiker is an excellent example of how you can turn your lifestyle into a full-time income!
Example Blog #7 – FitFatherProject.com
Niche: Fitness for men 40+
As the name implies, Fit Father Project is a health and fitness blog tailored towards busy dads. I love this example because it’s obvious who’s being targeted. What started as a fitness blog has blossomed into a full-scale business offering fitness programs, supplements, apparel, and much more.
Example Blog #8 – MillennialMoneyMan.com
Niche: Side Hustle, Finance for Millenials
Keeping in line with Fit Father Project, I love this blog because there’s no question who this blog is targeting with their content – millennials. This blog covers a wide range of financial topics, including investing, budgeting, taxes, freelancing, and a massive catalog of side hustles you can learn about. I stumbled across this blog while I was in college and still credit Millennial Money Man for sparking ideas about side hustles and business ideas that I’m still pursuing today!
Example Blog #9 – HeathandAlyssa.com
Niche: Lifestyle
When you think of lifestyle bloggers, most people think of someone blogging in a beachfront villa surrounded by palm trees and luxurious cars. Heath and Alyssa do not fit this mold – and that is why I love their blog. When they got married, they decided they wanted to travel to all 50 states. 1 RV and years later, they now write about their lifestyle and earn a killing doing it. It just comes to show that even if you don’t live a luxurious lifestyle, it doesn’t mean you can’t start a lifestyle blog. Regardless of lifestyle, there are certainly people out there who can relate.
Example Blog #10 – NerdFitness.com
Niche: Fitness for nerds
Fitness for nerds? Who could’ve seen this coming? It makes perfect sense, though – just because people are nerdy doesn’t mean they don’t want to be healthy and fit. Nerd Fitness offers private coaching, free workouts, a massive nerd community to join, and of course, tons of free articles and content to learn about staying fit – even when you’re glued to a computer 10+ hours a day.
Example Blog #11 – TreeHugger.com
Niche: Sustainability, Green Living
Treehugger.com offers advice, clarity, and inspiration for both eco-savvy and green living novices. With the number one goal of driving sustainability mainstream, they’ve accumulated a following of over 2.6 million monthly users! The sustainability and green living niche will only grow as the problems on this earth get worse!
Example Blog #12 – TacticalBassin.com
Niche: Outdoor/Fishing
It’s not fancy, but it sure does get the job done. This fishing blog generates 50,000 users from the search engines per month! Just yet another example of ways you can build a sustainable business that’s profitable based on your lifestyle. This blog monetizes primarily through affiliate links for fishing gear.
Summary
There you have it! The complete guide for choosing a profitable blog niche. To jog your memory, we started off by explaining what a blog niche is and why it’s important to never stay too broad with your topic. After that, we reviewed a few niches with proven demand beyond to start generating ideas.
Next, we brainstormed all the potential blogs that fit our passions and interests. Once we finished brainstorming, it was time to validate our ideas. We did this by confirming search volume and exploring blog content ideas to write about.
In our final validation step, we pointed out 12 good blog sites to further instill the reality that you could be on your way to becoming a full-time blogger by picking the right niche to get started.
We hope you found this helpful! Please do use a HUGE favor by sharing your comments below! Was there something we missed? Anything you’d like more clarity on? As always, we’re here for you, and never hesitate to reach out if you have questions. Bye for now.
