Before you start a blog, make sure you have identified a niche that will drive interest and traffic regularly. One mistake some bloggers make is they start writing their blog posts before they have done this step, and they end up writing about anything under the sun. I guess this is ok if you aren’t looking to build a solid audience. If you’re starting a casual blog where you write about whatever you want, that’s fine and dandy, but if you are like most bloggers, earning income and building traffic is critical. Here’s where identifying your niche immediately is important in driving traffic to your blog.
How do you find your niche?
Research other blogs. What makes them tick? How are they soliciting feedback? How are they drawing in readers? I’m definitely NOT saying plagiarize! Researching other blogs can give you good ideas on how you can structure your own blog’s content.
Write about what you know? Do you know a lot about cooking or education? Chances are, you’ll have a lot to say about something you are good at versus writing about cars if you know NOTHING about cars. Write about what you know. Write about your personal experiences. Find ways to make your content and expertise valuable to your readers. Remember, you are writing for your readers first…then yourself.
Do Google searches for topics and keywords that rank high. I know, I know, everyone says keyword research and SEO are both important in driving traffic. This is a true statement. Before you decide on your niche, do research on what other people are searching for in your niche, and cater your blog’s content to addressing those topics.
My rule of thumb: If you have to scratch your head day in and day out to find a suitable post topic, you’ve picked the wrong niche. I can think of tons of topics on blogging I can write about, and I feel like the sky’s the limit for new topics. Another piece of advice is don’t pick a niche that everyone and their mothers write about. If you do, you’ll just be posting into a flooded market. If you want to start a parenting blog, pick topics few parents write about. Make them unique, valuable, and even controversial (whether to or not to vaccinate a child is a great controversial topic, for example, if you are a parenting blogger). If you’re making someone’s skin boil just reading your post title, chances are, they’ll read your post (and probably comment too!)