Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
Blogging has the potential to be a lucrative and rewarding career. And many people are looking for a niche that is popular to maximize the potential of the blog. But does popularity really matter when trying to make money?
Yes and no.
The success of a blog really centers around your personal goals, motivation, and interests. Creating a website simply because some “expert” says it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful.
You could build a website around the most popular topic and still fail. Especially if that topic isn’t something you really care about.
7 Things to Think About When Looking at a Popular Blog Niche
Before you start building a website because some expert told you about popular niches, there are a few things you might want to consider.
Now, these are simply questions you should probably ask yourself that will directly affect your success. There’s more to blogging than just slapping up words on a post.
1. What Are Your Overall Goals?
Are you planning on building a popular blog to draw a sizable amount of cash? Or, do you just want a blog to share your daily experiences?
Your goals for the blog are going to dictate a lot of how you build it and the type of content you publish.
For example, a site geared towards making money is more likely to focus on SEO and search intent to drive traffic. Someone who just wants to share experiences will spend less time researching the articles.
2. Does the Niche Interest You?
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of finding a niche for your blog is whether the content is going to keep your interest. Because if you find the topics boring, you’re less likely to put in the effort to write something of high caliber.
As a blogger, the last thing you want to associate with your site is mundane content.
Sure, you could pay other writers to create the content for you. But topics that don’t interest you are going to make the experience a bit bland.
3. How Motivated Are You to Write a Lot of Content?
To build a popular blog for your specific niche, you’re going to need a lot of content. This is especially true if you’re jumping into something that has a lot of competition.
And it’s not just sheer volume you’ll have to worry about. You’ll need to create content focusing on specific topics and then outperform articles from other websites.
Just because you’re covering the same keyword doesn’t mean you’ll instantly get on the first page of a Google search result.
4. Do You Plan on Hiring Writers?
As I’ve mentioned before, there’s nothing inherently wrong with hiring writers for your niche. However, you’ll need to still put in the effort to make sure the blog continues to grow in order to afford those writers.
In the beginning, it’ll take quite a bit of content, which means you’ll have to fork over some cash without much coming back in return.
Personally, I’ll wait until a blog can bring in enough money to pay a writer before I hire someone. That also means that I need to squirrel away enough time to write the content the website needs in order to grow in the meantime.
5. Are You Ready to Spy on the Competition?
Part of building a blog centering around a popular niche involves recon work. What kind of content are your competitors publishing, and how do they engage the audience?
You don’t want to outright copy the competition. However, keeping an eye on how they operate their websites can help you come up with your own strategies.
Find a few competitors that often rank high for search results. Then, analyze the content they’re putting out to see if there is a way you can improve upon the method.
6. How Do You Plan on Monetizing the Blog?
How you monetize a blog can influence the type of content you create as well as the site’s layout. Are you including eCommerce? Do you have a plan for affiliate marketing and review posts? Perhaps you have an eBook you wish to sell.
Or, maybe you are simply focusing on using ad revenue from platforms like AdSense. Though, I need to tell you, AdSense doesn’t really pay all that well.
Whatever the case may be, your ideas for monetizing affects your content in one way or another.
7. How Much Time Do You Have to Invest in Your Blog?
Lastly, and perhaps one of the most vital, is the amount of time you have available to build a popular blog. Don’t assume that you can publish one article per week and start seeing the money come flowing in.
And yes, it often takes far more time than just an hour per day.
Now, it does get quite a bit easier over time, especially once you iron out a good content strategy and schedule. But in the beginning, expect to dump a lot of time into content research, maintenance, and streamlining your processes.
Using Google Trends to Determine a Popular Blog Niche
One way to determine the popularity of a niche or industry is by using Google trends. By adding your primary keyword, you can see just how often people are using Google search to find information.
The cool thing about Google Trends is that you’re able to discover popularity through web searches, images, shopping, and YouTube search. So, it’s quite a handy tool regardless of what you’re trying to build.
You can also expand or narrow the timeframe anywhere from 2004 to the past hour. Though, something that is nearly 20 years old probably isn’t exactly trending.
Anyway, take your interests and use the compare function in Google to see which is the most popular.
Let’s say you’re interested in writing. Do you plan on keeping the blog generalized, or are you planning on covering specific niches?
For example, let’s say you have an interest in freelance writing, blogging, and self-publishing. Which one of these niches is the most popular?
In this example, blogging is definitely more popular than the other three. But, do you stop there or drill down into that niche to focus on specifics?
Just remember the more narrow the niche, the lower the traffic numbers. However, it also means less competition and a higher quality of visitor.
An Example of My Blogs
So, let’s take my blogs as an example. Each one has a specific niche and industry but is not narrowed down too far. For instance, WriterSanctuary.com is more focused on writing in general, which means I published content for freelance writing, blogging, and self-publishing.
In this example, I have three primary blogs. They are related to writing, fitness, and gaming.
According to Google Trends, the Fitness blog is the more popular niche by nearly twice. So, does that mean the fitness site makes the most money?
Absolutely not.
In fact, the gaming site made 18% more income in just AdSense alone. And the fitness blog made just a bit more than the writing site overall, but not by much.
Why is that? It’s a more popular niche with a wider audience.
Well, there are a lot of factors that play into the success of a blog. In this case:
- There’s not as much content on the fitness blog compared to the others
- I was able to secure quite a few top 10 positions with the less-popular sites
- More popular niches also mean more competition
Not to mention the fact that the gaming site gets far more visitors. I can only suspect it doesn’t make as much money from ads as a lot of people might be using ad blockers.
My point is just because your blog belongs to a popular niche, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be the best performing site for you. It all comes down to the type of content you publish and whether it’s better than the competition.
You Can Make a Blog Work from a Popular Niche
Now, this isn’t to say that jumping on a popular niche is a bad idea. In reality, you can make just about any niche work when it comes to making money.
The trick is to find something that you can sustain over the long term. This means either writing the content yourself or being able to pay others to do it for you.
The more interested you are in a topic, the more likely you’ll keep writing content for more than a month. Sure, the financial niche is super-popular, but I would find it incredibly boring to write about.
Also, keep in mind that it’ll take between six and eight months on average for blog posts you write to cycle through Google search. Once you get that ball rolling, it’ll become much easier to attract an audience.
But that’s the rub; being able to attract that audience.
Building a blog focusing on a popular niche is going to require a lot of high-quality content that goes beyond the competition. This means it’s going to take a lot of dedication on your part to make it successful.
The trade-off, though, is the potential to build a powerhouse that can generate enough income to replace a couple of full-time salaries. It’s just going to take a bit of time.
What Kind of Niche Does Your Blog Center Around?
A popular niche for a blog doesn’t guarantee success. There are simply too many cogs turning that you’ll have to constantly adjust to build an amazing website.
In truth, any niche can have a degree of success as long as you’re able to engage an audience.
It all starts with consistently writing some amazing content people want to read. Remember, making money blogging is reliant on attracting an audience.
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