Discover How to Find Your Niche in 5 Simple Steps

Need Help Figuring Out How to Find Your Niche?

So you want to start a blog, but have no idea of how to find your niche.  I can help you with that.

Have you ever heard billionaire Warren Buffet’s most famous piece of advice?

“If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”

Starting a blog is a great way to make passive income. Blogs provide an opportunity to advertise on your website, and each time your blog is viewed, you can make money from those ads.

However, for your blog to be profitable, you need to focus on finding your niche. What makes your blog unique? Will readers find your place interesting?

It can be challenging to narrow down to a niche that will make your blog stand out. Even if you know your interests and passions, how do you know which topics will be successful?

How do I find my niche?

These are all valid concerns. Fortunately, we are here to help you. By the end of our five-step process, you will be well on your way to writing a successful blog!

How to Find Your Niche in 5 Easy Steps

Step 1: Discovering Your Passions and Skills

The first step to starting a successful blog is to make a list of your passions and skills. 

It’s important to pick something that you’re passionate about. If passion isn’t the driving force of your work, then you’re sure to quit. In fact, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered that having a positive attitude towards your work can increase your workflow and productivity.

Your blog is bound to go through some slumps, whether it be a lack of traffic or a bout of writer’s block. Writing about something you care for or are interested in will help you get through these challenging times.

So how are you going to make this list? Here are some questions to get you started:

After answering these questions, you should have an idea of what interests you. However, it’s not a bright idea to just write about whatever you like. You need to research if people want to read about what you love.

Step 2: Finding a Market for Your Niche

In order to get traffic to your blog, you’re going to need to study the market for your niche. Then, you need to attract and appeal to that market’s demographic. There will be a market for your place if there is a need for it.

What problems exist that are related to your niche? Like you wrote down the list of your interests and passions, you can write down the issues people are trying to solve in your space.

An example might be writing about supply shortages for a blog about running your own franchise.

Then, identify how you can address these issues in your blog. Do you just need to acknowledge them, or can you provide a solution? How can you present these solutions in your blog?

Visiting forum sites, such as Quora or Reddit, may give you ideas on the problems that exist in your niche and what solutions you can propose.

Using Effective Keywords

To attract people to your blog, you need to effectively use Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There are a few ways that you can do this.

Identify some keywords related to your niche that people are searching for. For example, if you have identified that your niche is the surfing community in Southern California, figure out what words people search for when they want to learn more about this topic.

For this niche, some keywords might be: surfboard, fin, surf report, California coastline, California surf beaches.

There are also online tools that can help you identify keywords. 

WordStream is a free service that provides a simple list of potentially related keywords. It can also provide some basic information related to your niche. 

Like WordStream, KWFinder is a more in-depth research engine that can provide further details about your niche. KWFinder is an investment, but it can be a valuable tool if you’re serious about growing your blog.

Identifying Your Market Through Keywords

You can determine if there is a market for your niche through the search volume of related keywords.

When searching for keywords related to your proposed niche, keep your keywords’ goal and intent in mind.

For example, let’s say your niche is writing about a specific line of blenders. Searching “How to use a blender” may turn up thousands of search requests. However, the majority of these requests may not be related to your particular model at all.

In this case, you should narrow down your keywords so that searches are producing results that actually correlate to your niche.

Once you settle on keywords that are related to your niche, make a note of their search volume requests. To ensure that there is a market for your place, you want to see at least 1,000 requests for the keyword related to your niche.

Don’t forget to research long-tail keywords related to your niche. Long-tail keywords are longer, more complex keywords and can even include phrases. For instance, instead of searching “blog niche,” a potential reader might search, “How to find a niche for my blog?” The first phrase is a demonstration of a long-tail keyword.

For long-tail keywords, requests of 300-1,000 are acceptable for demonstrating a market. Long-tail keywords are essential to consider because they are less competitive and easier to rank for.

Keyword Competition/Difficulty

Keyword difficulty depends on how much competition is trying to rank for that word. Keywords that are easier to rank for can be considered low-difficulty. If most of your keywords are difficult to rank, then this means that there’s a lot of competition in your niche.

Another indication of market competition is the cost per click related to that keyword. Cost per click is the price that a business typically pays per click on an ad from this keyword. The higher the cost per click, the greater competition there is for the associated keyword.

Additionally, when you research your desired keywords, be sure to take an in-depth look at the top results returned. You want to look at the top two to three effects.

These results indicate what topics Google determines are related to your keywords. You want to be sure that Google relates the same issues to your keywords that you do.

Step 3: Narrowing It Down

By now, you might have a few ideas for your blog niche. It’s time to narrow down your list.

First, remove the most competitive niches that you are not overly passionate or excited about. These niches can be a lot of time-consuming work with not much return on investment. Most likely, you will get frustrated and want to quit!

Suppose you still find yourself very passionate about a saturated niche. In that case, you may consider diving into a more specific topic related to that niche. This practice referred to as niching down, will eliminate some competition.

At this point, you should definitely drop any niches in which you have minimal to no interest.

What you want to find is a niche sweet spot. How will you know if you’ve found a niche sweet spot, you may ask?

You’ll have found the sweet spot once you have settled on a niche that has high search requests, low competition, and is easy to rank. Keywords with lower competition are more accessible to rank. At the same time, high search requests indicate that many people need information about this topic.

Again, double-check the top results. Google can interpret a keyword topic differently than how you would solve it. Make sure the results match what you expect for your keyword. This is very important.

Step 4: Check Out the Competition

Suppose there are a lot of popular sites ranking in your searches for your prospective niche. In that case, it might have an oversaturated market. This could indicate that you should explore a different topic for your blog.

Here is another helpful tip to make sure ranking will be easy for your niche. Make sure there are no popular media sites such as BuzzFeed or Vice in the top search results. You will have a challenging time ranking above these popular sites.

If there are no popular media sites in the top search results, this could mean one of two things. There’s either a blogging need for this niche or none, and your blog won’t get much traffic. More research will be needed to discern between the two.

Another sweet spot you want to search for is that there are, in fact, a few popular sites showing up in the top search results, but that these sites are low quality and small. This is the ideal range, as this indicates that there is a potential market without heavy competition. Score!

Speaking of top results, they can be helpful in an additional way. Study the top two to three results returned for their structure and content. This can clue you into what Google is looking for to rank.

Step 5: Testing Out Your Niche

See if your niche is what you expect. Gather research materials on your topic before dedicating a blog to it. You don’t want to be knee-deep in a matter before realizing that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Your readers will be able to see through the illusion and call you on your bluff!

Test the market before you dive in and invest time and money. The first step in this is conducting a traffic test. Here’s how you’re going to do that:

Steps to Test My Niche

1. Create a landing page.
2. Try promoting a free info product that’s related to your niche. Or, try creating a free Google site.
3. Next, use Google AdWords to try and drive traffic to your landing page. 

Lots of traffic can be a good indicator of interest. Conversions definitely indicate that you have a tremendous potential niche on your hands. 

However, if you find yourself with a lack of conversions, don’t panic! This could indicate an issue with the landing page and not necessarily the niche itself.

You can also test the market by creating a Google survey. Once it’s set up, promote your study on blogs and forums to find your test audience. Once again, sites like Quora and Reddit may come in handy for this step. You can also pay Google to promote your survey.

After conducting this research, you should feel a level of confidence in your various niche ideas. In fact, you might have found yourself a winning niche!

If you compare the various results from the research we have discussed, you should make an educated decision on which niche is right for you. Remember the key steps:

How To Find My Niche 

1. Discover your passions and skills
2. Find a market for your niche
3. Narrow it down
4. Check out the competition
5. Test out your niche

In Conclusion

Now that you’ve selected a successful niche, you are ready to start your new website! Congratulations.