How to Pick a Blog Niche

When I started blogging way back 2009, I don't have any idea about the importance of picking a blog niche. The term "niche" basically means focusing your blog on a specific target market or group. I just blog all the things that fancies me. All the stuff under the sun. Later on after months of blogging and bloghopping, I realized how important it is to pick a blog niche if you have a service or product for sale. 

When you decide to focus on the whole world, you might not get anyone at all. This is because the ‘whole world’ has a thousand and one other blogs they are already reading, why should they decide to read yours?

The answer to this problem is to pick a specific target group and focus on them so that you provide unique solutions to their problems and they can find a place where others like them hang out. This is what is referred to as finding a niche.

To find a niche, several factors need to be considered. The first and most important is that it has to be something you are really passionate about. How are you going to be blogging about the same stuff every day for years unless you are passionate about it? Thus, after this blog which house my everything under the sun, I pick a kid and family blog- Adventures with Hyzyd and Beyond. I wouldn't run out of topics in this niche because my son is continuously growing and it's a joy to journal his milestones and our thoughts as parents.

The second factor is to make sure that your target is not too general. For instance if you are blogging about moms, you might decide to focus on moms of autistic kids especially if you already have one. You know where they are at and understand what they are going through. For me, I focus on how a working mom cope with juggling career , motherhood and as a wife.

Thirdly, you need to be sure that the topic you are focusing on is one that people are interested in. This can be discovered by checking Google Keywords tool. Just put in the keyword and find out how many people are searching for that keyword. That should give you some idea about whether your blog would be relevant to more than a handful of readers.

A practical example of this is if you have decided to run a Family blog. Family is a niche by itself. But it is too broad a niche. Just use the Google Keyword tool and find out how many ways family is being searched for. Pick a specific sub-niche and focus your energies on that niche. That way, you get visitors who are specifically searching for what you have to offer( let's say tips on surviving parenting with the house intact , some sanity and a sense of humor!) and if you have a service or product, guess who your customers will be?

It is important to pick a niche for your blog even before you begin blogging...that's what I learned after over 2 years of blogging.  But if you have already started your blog, do not despair. You probably have a niche, or several niches and just need to narrow down the subject of your blog. Like me, after years of blogging, I discover that I have 7 more blogs living right inside me (aside from this mixed bag blog) - Family, Fashion, Travel, Food, Education, Home and Health & Fitness!

Finding your way in the blogosphere as a niche blog takes some patience and some good old-fashioned detective work to find your spot within it.

As a final note, I’d like to point out that my hubby is unbelievably patient and tolerant of my dedication to my blogs. He realizes that I really love doing it, and allow me to stay up half the night, or sit infront the computer for hours on end especially when I have lots of online tasks while he babysits our baby. So, if you’re like me I hope you remember to let your loved ones know how much you appreciate their tolerance and support on your blogging career. 

Next post will be about How to get Paid for Blogging . I especially made it for my friends who just started blogging in order to encourage them that they could EARN while LEARNING the way of BLOGGING!