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The SITS Girls

The Secret to Success is Support

Niche Blogging: Understanding and Finding Your Niche

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Do you know what your niche is? Finding a niche you can love and serve is essentially figuring out what you have to say that is unique.

As a blogger, you are answering a very important question for your readers: Who are you and why should I listen?

There are over four million mom bloggers out there, which means you need to find a way to stand out.

does your blog stand out?

If you’re not sure what makes your blog interesting or unique, then you have some work to do. As part of our blogging tips and tutorials series, here are a few questions and to do’s that will get you on the path to niche blogging success!

What do you know really well that you want to share with others?

If you are like most bloggers, you don’t immediately know the answer to this question. It requires some soul searching. I blogged for years before I was able to answer it.

To Do:
Create a list of your passions. Add anything and everything. For example, running, cooking, technology, kids, allergies, adult toys, organic gardening, etc. Look at the list often. Study it. Maybe it’s a combination of two or more of your passions that create your niche. For example, you love to cook and workout and your passion is kids, so you create a blog that offers easy daily activities for young children along with recipes and advice to help parents create a healthy lifestyle for their children.

The key is to keep studying yourself and your list. At some point you will have, as Oprah calls it, an “aha” moment and your niche will be born.

Vetting your Niche

Before you hire a web designer for your newfound niche, you need to vet it first.

Are there enough people interested in your blog topic?

My first blog was called TheSportGirl.com. I was convinced that woman the world over were in love with football and we just needed a place to convene. I blogged daily with the excitement of a a quarterback in his first Super Bowl about stats, football teams, divisions, game wrap ups and my general love of the sport. Then I watched for months as my numbers stayed at steady six readers. And? Five of those were family members. Male ones. All males.

To Do:
Use Twitter and Facebook to do informal polls. Ask questions surrounding your potential niche and see what kind of feedback you get. My blog is a site devoted to parenting tweens or teens so I might tweet, “Do you take your teenager’s cell phone away from them at night?” Notice what kind of feedback you get? Is there a need for what you are creating?

Guest post on other blogs with a topic within your niche.

Vetting your idea will give you a good understanding of demand.

Researching Your Niche

The final step in defining a good niche is making sure it is unique.

Are there two million other blogs with my niche?

Now that you know there is a need, do some market research and find out if the need has already been filled. Hopefully, the market space is wide open. If you find it’s already being done, you have two options. Find a new niche or find a niche within the niche.

For example, instead of a generic cooking blog, find a niche within the industry. You could do recipes that are specific to marathoners and triathletes and call it RunningToTheFridge.com. You could have a site that is devoted to hosting non-allergy threatening parties and call it NoERvisits.com. You get the idea.

The key to creating a solid niche is passion, creativity and some good solid business research.

So now that you have your niche people will start showing up en masse to read your blog. Right? Not so much. It takes daily, constant work to build a community of followers. Look for my next post titled, A guide to building your community, on The SITS Girls this week.

More Posts on Niche Blogging:

About the Author:
oophStefanie Mullen is the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Girlfriend’s Soul and owner and founder of Ooph.com, a site devoted to the parenting of tweens and teens. She is the co-host of Your Family Matters on WSRadio.com. Stefanie has been featured in the New York Times and has appeared on NBC, Fox, KUSI and NPR. Connect with Stefanie on Twitter @Ooph.

About Francesca

Francesca has an extensive background in content marketing, public relations, and social outreach. She oversees all Operations at Sway Group, including our robust metrics capabilities. Prior to joining the online world, Francesca oversaw viticulture and oenology at various wineries in both California and Italy, and managed regulatory affairs and facility approvals at the biotech company, Genentech. Francesca has been featured on CBS Sacramento and Food Blogger Pro’s podcast. She has also hosted an AMA webinar and spoken at Social Media World.

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