The very first step before setting up your blog is to choose your
blog’s topic or ‘niche’.

With blogging you want to go after the MONSTER niches! You want to
get involved in the niches that have massive amounts of traffic
already. If there is already a ton of competition and traffic in the niche
that means that there is money in that niche!

That also means that there are a ton of people who would be more
than willing to write for your blog.

List of the top niches:
• Weight Loss
• Pets
• Entertainment & Celebrity Gossip
• Finance
• Technology
• Business
• Travel
• Food
• Gaming

Try to choose something that is both something you’re passionate
about (or at least have some interest in) and something that’s

Profitable Blogging

profitable (something that other people are passionate about and are
willing to spend money on).

Obviously, it’s really important that you have some knowledge on your
niche so you know what you’re talking about when making blog posts.
If you are knowledgeable on your topic, visitors to your website will
perceive you as an expert and someone they can go to for advice.

The information you will be providing on your blog must be helpful and
informative in order for you to build credibility and make money.
People will only pay for information that is genuinely useful.

However, in saying this, you don’t actually have to be a qualified
expert in your field, just as long as you know just a bit more than the
average Joe. Even if you’re unsure whether you’re someone who can
come across as being knowledgeable and credible in your niche, it’s
nothing a little research won’t fix.

So, the first thing you should do is think about your interests and what
you are passionate about. Something that is a big industry, that has a
lot of money in it e.g. health and fitness

Next, you will need to break this down into a sub-topic. For example,
the health and fitness niche are very profitable, however it is swamped
with competition, so you will want to narrow it down to a smaller subniche such as ‘raw food diets’ or ‘Pilates for rock climbers’ etc.

Doing Keyword Research For Your Blog

Once you’ve found a popular target market that appears profitable and
identified the key concerns and problems of that market, you will need
to do a bit of keyword research.

What we’re looking for is a list of search terms that have high search
volume and low competition. You still do want some amount of healthy
competition because that is a good indicator of the market’s
profitability. It means there are BUYERS in that niche.

Now take your niche idea(s) and think about what kind of keywords
people would be typing in to Google Search. Think about what words
in particular have to do with problems or solutions in that niche.
For example, if I was making a blog on ‘raw food diets’ I would type in
things like:

• Raw Food Weight Loss Diet
• Raw Food Diet Plan
• Lose Weight Raw Food
• Raw Food Cleanse
• Raw Food Diet
• Raw Food Benefits

Next, enter these into Google’s Keyword Tool:

So, as you can see by the search results this is a popular niche!

However, don’t worry too much about competition, because you’ve
now narrowed your main niche (e.g. health and fitness) down to a
sub- niche (e.g. raw food diets).

Now, make a note of the best keywords you can find that have both
high search terms and are highly relevant because later on you’ll need
to try and incorporate them into the titles and content of your blog
posts so you can benefit from SEO.