Hello bloggers,
It’s time to reflect on how we will create our blog and what it will be about. It’s important for you to understand how to think about a blog before diving into the work. At the end of this article, you will know how to select the perfect niche.
Let me share a story
Let me share a story about how I started writing my first blog. I was casually browsing the internet and, as usual, visited flippa.com (a website where you can buy and sell websites) to see what people were selling. I came across the sale of a psychology blog called “https://thenarcissisticlife.com/,” where Mr. Burgemeester, a psychologist, advertised that he was selling his 10-year-old blog for $750,000 and earning a luxurious $16,000 per month from the website. I checked out the blog and saw that he wrote about dealing with toxic people, tips for enchanting one’s girlfriend, and how to handle a narcissist. I thought to myself, “Well, that doesn’t seem too difficult.” I bought a few books, read some articles, and started my own blog. However, I encountered some difficulties along the way. I was doing it solely for the money, which had fascinated me in his advertisement, and I tried to copy his idea. But psychology was never a topic that interested me much, so writing those articles became boring for me. Furthermore, I’m not a psychologist, so how could I have thought that I could help people this way?
How did it turn out? Well, since I wasn’t enjoying it much, I naturally gave it up after three months. I wasted some money and a lot of time writing about 30 articles.
Where was the mistake? I didn’t plan things through very well. I wanted to give advice in a field I knew nothing about, where I had no experience, and I didn’t even enjoy writing those articles. I didn’t know how to build an audience, how to engage with them, or how to eventually monetize the blog. It ended up as it was destined to be—a complete failure.
And suddenly it dawned on me. I’m a programmer, and I’ve been involved in web development for years. I’m well acquainted with WordPress (a blogging platform), familiar with SEO, link building, and so on. That’s why I started writing this blog, to help people with their blogging. I bought a few books, and all of a sudden, I began to have a better understanding of what blogging is all about in today’s world.
Your blog must help people..
If you’re starting to think about a blog, realize that first and foremost, your blog must help people – solve a problem or fulfill a desire – it must provide added value. Your readers are smart; they can tell whether reading your blog is useful or entertaining to them, and if not, they won’t return.
Write a travel blog?
Let’s take an example. You want to write a travel blog.
At first, you might say, “I’ve been to Hawaii once, and I’ve been to France twice. I love traveling, so I’ll write about beautiful countries.” But what experiences do you have with these countries? That will be enough for maybe three articles, and then you’ll run out of material. Moreover, every travel agency will have a better blog about those destinations, making it tough competition for you. Let’s try a different approach…
For instance, let’s say you live in a beautiful country that you know much more about. Perhaps you reside in a gorgeous city or near one. So why not make your travel blog all about your country/city? Everyone knows that traveling can be expensive, and wherever you go, you encounter “tourist prices.” That’s why more and more people are seeking a style of travel where they can enjoy prices like the locals do – dine at affordable restaurants with delicious local food and find reasonably priced accommodations. But where can they find such information? Well, probably only from local people. Therefore, we have just identified a problem that your blog could address.
On your blog, you can write reviews of good restaurants that you personally visit. Additionally, you can explore other places that have fewer tourists. Articles about the local culture and entertainment will also be useful to tourists. So, we have some good topics for your blog. Finding and investigating businesses and services as a local resident will likely be much easier than for a tourist from a foreign country. That’s where your added value lies – conducting research for your readers. You can inform your readers, the tourists, about interesting services in your area. I have had a few experiences where I stayed in an Airbnb and felt hungry but couldn’t find information about food delivery services in that particular city.
Who will be your audience? Your readers?
Now, where can you find your readers? One place, for example, is the vast global community of Couchsurfing.com. There, you’ll find travelers who seek out locals to travel affordably and experience places through the eyes of the locals themselves. Your blog would be perfect for them. In the Couchsurfing app, I see online tourists every day who are in a city on their own and looking for someone to join them at an interesting restaurant. Your blog can connect these people. Other sources of your audience could be discussion forums, Facebook travel groups, and more.
And what about money?
And once people start flocking to your blog, you can approach restaurants, hotels, or local entertainment venues and offer them a “sponsored post” on your blog in exchange for some money. In such an article, you would write about how they cook there, their location, and what interesting things they offer, essentially sending them customers. With plenty of restaurants and similar establishments in your vicinity, it won’t be just one article on your blog. This was just one way to monetize your blog. We’ll discuss more methods later; I plan to write more “case study” articles for you.
I’m sure you already have your blog idea, but try to think about it in more detail.
Select the Perfect Niche
Try to answer these questions to:
- What will I write about? – isn’t it too broad of a topic? How can I narrow it down? I want to write about cooking? It’s too broad, maybe I can focus only on Italian cuisine – better…
- Who are my readers? Amateur cooks? Yes, where can I find them, what questions and problems do they have? I can read some Facebook groups and see what they struggle with, what they need? Can I write a few articles about it? Yes – great… we have readers.
- How will I monetize the website? Well, if I cook, I use interesting tools that I can recommend to my readers, right? Amazon is full of them, and Amazon has an affiliate program (they provide commissions for purchases)… almost every major online store offers commissions for sales nowadays… and if not, you can reach out to them.
- Next level – create your own product that you can offer to your readers – like a cookbook with recipes? Or homemade cooking utensils? I don’t know, you’re a chef, you’ll surely come up with something.
Writing about this topic could go on for a while. Come on and leave a comment telling me what you want to write about, so I know what kind of future bloggers we have here, or maybe you’re already writing, so feel free to share as well.
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Next chapter: 3. Learn to Engage and Understand Your Audience
Previous chapter: 1. Starting a blog in 2023