Choosing a Blog niche is one of the hardest decisions you’ll ever make, right after “Should we have a baby?” and “Should we get a cat or a dog?”
In all seriousness though, starting a blog is a piece of cake. But choosing the niche to blog in can be a little bit of a head-scratcher.
Am I stuck for ideas or is it just dandruff? You’ll never know…
You probably have a million ideas in your head. You’re super excited and want to start typing away to glory. But you don’t know how to go about it or what blog topic to pursue.
You must be thinking… “Angela, I have so many interests. How can I just blog about 1 topic or 1 niche? That sounds so boring!”
Well, I’m here to tell you otherwise.
Now if you don’t have a blog or are thinking of starting one, I have a step-by-step guide here on starting a money-making blog that will help! Or you can take my free 7 day course on starting a blog that makes money from day 1!
This post includes affiliate links to products I truly (from the bottom of my heart) recommend, meaning at no extra cost to you, I may earn a small percentage which I will use to feed my poor, hungry dogs.
Before I get into the nitty-gritty of blog niches, let’s answer the most basic question.
What exactly is a Blog Niche?
A blog niche basically means that every post you write in your blog will specifically cater to one type of audience or niche. Meaning you will be blogging about 1 specific topic.
But is having a blog niche really necessary?
I’m a die-hard fan of post-it notes.
Why do you need a blog niche?
When I started my first Blog, I thought meh… let me blog about everything.
I blogged about creativity, food, art, adventure… basically anything that sounded interesting.
And this is exactly why I made 0 money.
Zip. Zilch. Nada.
I couldn’t understand why my blog was failing.
My content was really long, extremely educational, and engaging. So what was the damn problem?
Well, I’ll tell you.
People who loved my recipe posts saw that I was blogging about adventure and creativity and didn’t really get much out of it so they left.
Likewise, people who were searching for creative posts didn’t really understand the point of my food posts, and vamoosed.
Instead of focusing on my target audience, I wrote for me. So, no one was interested.
Plain and simple.
So, back to the question… why do bloggers need a blog niche?
1. Having a blog niche helps you grow faster.
I can speak from experience because I have an Instagram Account that specifically caters to people who love hair.
That’s right.
Hair.
I only produce hair comics.
By constantly posting content that’s in one niche, you become an expert. I focused on only hair comics on my Instagram and I was able to cross 180K followers in 6 months!
This means that if anyone is looking for hair related comedy, they will directly hop on over to my Page.
And if they ever see anything related to hair comedy, they will think of me.
Which brings me to my next point…
2. It’s easy to become an expert when you’re blogging about 1 specific niche.
Think of 5 famous people right now.
- Obama – President
- Justin Bieber – Singer
- Jim Carrey – Actor
Now, did you know that Jim Carrey is also a Comedian, Writer and Artist?
Yes, he paints!
This is one of his popular works!
Image Source – Jim Carrey’s Paintings
See?
But people don’t really remember all that. We love associating everything to just 1 thing. It’s easier for the brain to process.
This is why you want to aim to be known for 1 thing.
It’s easy to become known as a Flower Expert (that actually sounds way too cool) when you have 30 posts on flowers, rather than 6 posts on flowers, 15 on food and 12 on cars.
Yes, in real life I have a bad allergy to pollen.
3. It becomes super easy to think of blog post ideas.
When you don’t have a niche, thinking of blog post ideas can become overwhelming.
Contrary to what it sounds like, having a single blog niche helps you come up with more blog post ideas.
Creating a Blog Content Plan becomes extremely doable.
For instance, since I blog about Blogging and Online Business, I focus on one topic for 6 months before moving to the next.
For the first few months, I talked about blog Traffic and SEO. Now, I’m slowly going to move to side hustles and making money.
This is the best part of Blogging!
Your Blog becomes a never-ending book that you can keep adding chapters to.
It’s really fun to go through your blog archive and see how much you’ve grown!
4. It becomes extremely easy to monetize.
This is a no-brainer.
Once you narrow down to blogging in a single niche, monetizing your blog becomes a piece of cake.
Think about it! Consider the following examples:
- It is way easier to sell recipe eBooks when you’re blogging only about food.
- Or monetize your Blog with health related ads when your Blog is only about Health and Personal Growth.
- Likewise, if your blog is about graphic designing and website building, it will become super easy for you to gain clients who want websites and graphic designing.
So, now that we understand why having a blog niche is important, let’s move on learning how we should choose one.
How to choose your Blog Niche?
It’s easy to blog about what you’re passionate about. In fact, a lot of Bloggers suggest that we do this.
But I’m going to stop you right now and say no!
Remember how I went about it with my first blog and failed?
No one really wanted to read about becoming creative, because people who were already creative wanted to learn how to use their creativity to make things.
I wasn’t really targeting a problem faced worldwide.
This made monetizing very difficult.
Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t blog about what you’re passionate about. I’m just telling you that it will be really hard to make it work and monetize your Blog.
If you really want to make money blogging, you require to choose a niche that is already proven to be profitable.
Basically, there are only 2 questions you need to ask yourself when choosing a blog niche.
1. Are you solving a problem that is faced worldwide?
Every time you read a blog post, ask yourself why you’re doing it.
Most of the time you’re reading a post in order to become better at something!
Note the last 5 questions you’ve entered in Google Search. If we consider a few questions that people type in Google, they’ll be something like this.
- How do I lose weight?
- How to put a baby to sleep?
- What do I do to become more healthy and fit?
- How can I tell if I’ve burnt my cake?
- Different ways to earn money online?
You’ll notice a general pattern in this list. People look up questions that will help them become better versions of themselves.
Basically, your Blog niche has to solve a major problem being faced worldwide.
Once you are able to narrow down on a niche that does that, you can move on to the next question.
2. Can you monetize this blog niche?
List out all the monetization possibilities of this niche.
For instance, if you decide to blog about beauty… how are you going to monetize it? Brand Collaborations? Reviews? Ads?
Make a list.
If you’re not sure, look at other blogs in the same niche, and see how they’re earning an income.
This will help you understand if the niche you’ve selected is right for you.
And secondly, this is by far the most important metric…
3. Have others successfully monetized this blog niche?
Like I said before, it’s extremely unwise to try and be original or unique when choosing a blog niche. It’s better to test the waters first.
Find out if there are popular blogs in the niche you’ve chosen. And whether they’re making a good income each month.
The easiest way to do that is to hop onto Google and type “best food blogs” if you want to start a blog on food.
Don’t just peek at the lists. Visit the blogs in each list and see how popular they are. Note the methods of monetization they’re using and note their most popular content.
You can do this using Ubersuggest.
See if it’s doable.
Now that you understand what criteria your blog niche has to fulfill, let’s move on to the most successful and popular blog niches that make money.
Which Blog Niches are most profitable?
1. Food Blogs
No questions asked.
Food Blogs do very well.
Because almost everyone has googled a recipe at some point in their lives. These type of Blogs are notorious for gaining traffic.
However, I will have to add that people find it very difficult to monetize by selling eBooks because most people are looking for “free recipes.”
Unless they’re really interested in cooking or replicating complicated dishes, they won’t be too keen on investing in eBooks.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t monetize these blogs. It just means that you have to use monetization techniques like ads and affiliate marketing to make money via Food Blogs.
Consider Bakerellla.
In the following recipe, she casually mentions a cookie cutter. Now if you head over to the link and make a purchase, she’ll get the commission.
Generating traffic is really easy when you have a food blog.
A few posts to help you gain traffic:
If you’re writing a recipe for an Apple Pie, you can link to a recipe on your Blog which has instructions on making the crust from scratch.
Therefore, anyone wanting to make a pie without using store-bought dough will hop onto the link, thus earning you 2 pageviews and more ad revenue.
Likewise, you can also link to recipes of cherry pie, key lime pie, pumpkin pie etc. The more internal links you incorporate, the more easy it will be to gain traffic because no one ever stops at one recipe.
Food Blogs also make great money by teaching online courses. I have a friend who took an online cake decorating course and she started her own Bakery after that!
She’s doing really well right now!
Speaking of online classes, I have a special Coupon from Skillshare itself that you can take to access 2 whole months of premium membership for free!
2. Personal Finance Blogs
Everybody wants to learn how to earn or save money easily.
And this is by far the most successful niche you’ll be getting into.
Because Personal Finance blogs teach you how to earn money by implementing really easy side hustles. They also teach you how to create a budget and live frugally.
One of my favorite Personal Finance blogs belongs to a good friend of mine – Saranya who owns One Fine Wallet.
Personal Finance blogs mostly earn their revenue via affiliate marketing and ads. Similar to how Food Blogs earn their money.
Aside from these monetization techniques, Personal Finance blogs can also make money via online courses that teach people how to create budgets and invest money in different schemes etc.
3. Making Money Online Blogs
Okay so almost everyone hops into this niche. Including Yours Truly.
Let’s face it.
There are 152 Million Blogs. And a new blog post is published every 0.5 seconds.
So, you can rest assured that blogging isn’t going to go out of style any time soon.
The problem is, that this niche is incredibly saturated because everyone wants to start a “How to start a blog” blog.
Because, it makes a lot of money.
But please heed my advice. Unless you’ve already established an Online Business before and have experience making money online, it’s a bad idea to start a Blog on “blogging.”
I’ll tell you why.
People can smell bullshit a mile away.
And if you start pretending to be an expert on Blogging with zero proof and experience, it will show. And once people find out, they’re going to stay the hell away from your Business.
I smell a fraudy fraudster.
You don’t want this.
You need to build credibility if you’re stepping into this niche.
Before starting this Blog, I’ve:
- Sold my services as a Graphic Designer and Web Designer
- Created whole new Brand Identities for Companies
- Owned a Blog on Creativity
- Sold my digital art on Etsy
- Sold Online Courses
- Done Online Consultations
- Created Illustrated Portraits for Clients
- Worked on huge Illustrative Projects for Companies like Dove, Himalaya, etc.
I have built Online Businesses from scratch and and with all this experience under my belt, did I make the decision to start a Blog on Blogging and Online Businesses.
Now, if you’re starting a blog on Blogging and Online Business but don’t have much experience, share your most recent experience. That’s perfectly fine! And
Document your research as a Blogger and share your most recent achievements!
For instance, you can talk about how much you earned the previous month and what techniques you’re currently using.
If you are extremely honest then, this niche will definitely work for you.
Teaching people to build blogs and online businesses is extremely profitable. You can monetize this niche by selling your own digital products like eBooks or eCourses.
If you’re not keen on creating your own products, then you can become an Affiliate for similar products you love and get started on those.
You are more than welcome to become an Affiliate of Stray Curls here.
4. Health Blogs
People really value their health.
And even I hit Google every time I run into a suspicious mole.
Health can be an extremely broad niche. But you can definitely narrow it down further if you’re looking to target a specific audience.
You can target just people with Diabetes or just deal with skincare.
The more specific your Health niche is, the easier it becomes to sell and/or endorse products.
In this niche, the easiest way to monetize is ads and affiliate marketing.
Aside from talking about physical health, there are lots of blogs who choose to focus on mental health and self care and personal growth.
And along with ads and affiliate marketing, these type of Blogs sell eCourses and/or printables to boost a person’s overall well being.
Speaking of which, if you’re interested in boosting your self-care, I have a lovely self-care planner you can get right here!
For instance, Sam Laura Brown started her own self-improvement blog. She also has her own podcast.
Sam earns an income by selling eCourses on self-improvement and personal growth. She even offers 1-1 coaching for women who want to reach their whole potential.
5. Fitness Blogs
This niche is very similar to Health but it’s aimed toward people who want to live a healthy life and become fit.
Fitness Blogs will never go out of fashion because there will always be people who are looking to build strength and become fitter and leaner.
In this niche, you can talk about diets, food, exercises and different habits that will keep you fit. A client that I worked for recently has a blog on fitness.
She provides private coaching for people who want to become fit and healthy.
This is a great way to fuse services with your Blog. And offering online services is one of the best ways to make money online.
Apart from offering services, you can also create a membership platform where you share information to a group of subscribers for a monthly or annual fee.
6. Beauty and Fashion Blogs
Most Beauty and Fashion Influences start Instagram Profiles and YouTube Channels because it gains more traction.
However, please note that these Social Media can change their algorithms any time and/or suspend your accounts for no fault of your own. You can lose all your subscribers in a second and you will have no way to contact them.
I was one of their victims so I highly suggest that you start a blog in order to avoid losing everything.
Besides, once you start an email list, it will be really easy to keep in touch with your subscribers.
Beauty Blogs get a lot of endorsements and products for free. Most of the time, they will give you the product and pay you so that you can review it on your Blog.
Overall, if you’re a beauty or fashion enthusiast, this is definitely the field for you.
Aside from a good camera and a laptop with basic editing software, you don’t really require many tools.
7. Other Lifestyle Blogs
There are loads of other Blog niches that make great money. These include:
- DIY Blogs
- Travel Blogs
- Pet Blogs
- Parenting Blogs
- Decor and Home Making Blogs
However, there are a few blogs that make money by not really having a niche. A good example includes Gathering Dreams.
This website blogs about food, travel and money. And it works!
Lifestyle Blogs mostly make money via ads. Because they blog about a lot of blog topics, they get a lot of traffic pretty quickly.
So, if you can pump out 3-5 high quality articles every single day, you can start a lifestyle Blog. However, I would recommend using this idea as a backup because it’s not easy to grow and requires a lot of time to maintain.
Final Thoughts
If you’re still not sure about what niche you should choose, start broad and slowly narrow it down. You can take my free 7 day email course to start a blog that makes money from day 1!
I started blogging about creativity and blogging before narrowing down to blogging and online businesses because I wasn’t quite sure on which direction I wanted my Blog to go.
Therefore, whatever niche you choose, make sure that there are plenty of monetization opportunities. Also, do lots of research to find out if it’s a profitable niche.
Once you’re done with both, come up with at least 5-10 Blog Categories that your reader must become an expert in, to master the blog topic.
For instance, mine are:
Taking these 2 steps will make earning money via your blog really easy!
Now that you have a good idea on choosing blog niches that make money, let me know what niche you’re going to choose or have already chosen! I’d love to know.
Another awesome post, thank you Angela. I became a fan of your articles, they are very helpful, easy to read and of course great illustrations.
Keep posting
Hey Brenda,
Thank you so much! Hope this post helped you discover your own niche. 😀
Love,
Angela
Hey Angela,
Thank you so much for sharing such helpful guide.
You’re awesome!
Keep spreading the knowledge!
Hey!
So nice to hear from you! Thank you so much. You’re too kind.
How’s your Business doing? I’m really digging your pins!
Warm regards,
Angela
It’s growing slowly, but I’m hustling hard!
Thanks for asking!
Thank you so much!
Ahh, that is the world of a Blogger, my friend!
Do keep in touch!