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Why choose a niche for your blog

A computer displaying a niche blogIf you're starting a blog and you intend to make money from it, you should choose a niche topic rather than a general one. Instead of starting a travel blog - a very saturated space -start a blog about travel in Indonesia, traveling to do a particular sport, or the local cuisine in different places. If you're even considering starting a multi-topic or generalist blog, stop! Read these arguments for niche blogs first.

Saturation
Back in 2003 the blogging world was pretty much wide open, and you could start a blog on broader topics. But now these topics are already covered by respected people and brands. Why would someone go to your technology blog, started this year with two posts to its name, when they could go to TechCrunch? They wouldn't. You're too late to the party. Niche areas, however, have less competition, perhaps even none, depending on how niche you go.

Monetization
General topics are harder to monetize because your audience has a wider range of needs, wants and interests. Niche topics are better suited to monetization because it's easier to predict what your audience will buy. For example, say you want to run a seminar on overcoming procrastination. Would you get more sales if you had a personal development blog with 1,000 readers, or if you had a procrastination blog with 1,000 readers?

Identity
It should be very clear what your blog is about from every page. If you're covering gardening, dog grooming, and pottery, people will have to figure out what you're all about and why. They don't like that. A niche topic provides clarity and makes your site easier to brand. If you only cover dog grooming, people will think "Ah! I'm a dog person too! Subscribe!" In a way, this comes down to tribalism: we're drawn to people similar to ourselves. It should be easy for your reader to think "I'm like you."

Stickiness
Say you write an amazing viral post about French grammar, and you get a boatload of new subscribers. Then the next day you write one about Arabic conjugations because you're actually writing a general language learning blog. You might lose people because they already subscribe to six of those, they just needed extra French tips. A niche topic makes it easier to retain readers because you're less likely to post something that's irrelevant to them.

Convinced?
Hopefully, this has convinced you. But if not, and you still really, really want to write a blog about 17 different topics, at least try this experiment. Pick one of those topics, or a sub-topic of your main field, that's best suited for a monetized, niche blog and cover that topic on a separate site. Invest the same amount of time and money into both, and see for yourself which one does best.

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Related Links: Find below further links on topics related to blogging;
How to choose your blogging niche
Tips on how to monetize your blog
How to choose a blog topic
Websites that help you start up a blog

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