Hello and welcome to ‘Money on the Grow.’ My name is Deja’ and I’m the host of this podcast.
Today we’re going to talk about niching down. When it comes to having a blog (or a platform), you want to talk about more than one thing but you need to have a central focus.
But, you want to be careful about what you choose to talk about because you’re going to be talking about it a lot.
I know this from experience because I deleted my first blog after only 10 months. And it’s not because it wasn’t doing well. It was actually doing pretty good for how long I had had it.
When I first started blogging, I went into the natural living niche. I had an organic blog called Deja Vu Organics. At first, I would research my content, my articles.
I was excited to post them, to look up pictures, and put them together. But it didn’t take long for me to get burnt out on it.
I remember one day my husband came into the living room and I’m sitting there on our little comfy couch. And he said, I looked frustrated and he asked “What’s going on?”
And I just remember feeling a little bit trapped and frustrated because here I was with this blog that was doing pretty well but if I was really honest with myself… I hated it. I felt like I was backed into a corner because I had spent some money, tons of time, we’re talking, you know, eight or 10 months or whatever. And I didn’t want to do it anymore.
I felt stuck which is a feeling I hated. And my husband said “Well, you know what… do something else.” But it didn’t seem that simple because at that time I was putting everything I had into blogging. So I said I’d stick with it. But, the longer I stuck with it the more frustrated I became and I ended up deleting it.
Choosing a Niche
So the topic you choose to blog about (or have a podcast or youtube channel… whatever it is) it needs to be something you can talk a lot about and you’re not going to get burnt out on.
Now I know some of you don’t want to choose a niche. You can have a lifestyle blog. You can go into the lifestyle arena and you can talk about everything. You can talk about fashion, recipes, food, exercise, etc.
But, it’s a lot harder to do that nowadays because there’s so much “noise” out there. There’s so many blogs and podcasts and youtube channels that if you’re known for everything, you’re kind of known for nothing.
You want to be able to choose one thing to talk about so that eventually is the one thing become known for.
For example- when I think of copywriting, I think of Ray Edwards. If I think about healthy living, I think of the Wellness Mama. When I think of natural pregnancy, I think of Healthy Mama Baby Life.
You want to be known for “your thing.”
That’s why you want to niche down because you want to be the place people go to get the information they need.
So when it comes to choosing a niche, you do want it to be something that you can talk a lot about. But you also want it to be something that you can easily monetize.
The 3 Major Categories
There’s three major categories that most things fit under- health, wealth and relationships.
If you can spin your chosen niche under one of those, you are more likely to succeed when it comes to promoting and building a following. Then under each of those categories are subcategories of niches and there are seven that are the easiest to monetize. They are:
- Beauty and Fashion
- Food Recipes
- Health and Fitness
- Making Money
- Personal Finance
- Personal Development
All those niches are pretty easy to monetize. Now, if you can go into one of those, great. If you can’t, again, try and fit whatever category you choose into one of the major ones.
Let’s say that you want to go into the golf niche. Well that’s easy to fit under health because people need to stay active to stay healthy.
Let’s see… I’m trying to think of off the wall ones. Beekeeping again, you can kind of spin that for health. Getting outside means you’re in nature, honey has multiple health benefits- it’s antibacterial and a natural sweetener. Just keep in mind that whatever niche you choose, you want it to be easy monetize.
Tips for Choosing a Domain Name
Once you’ve chosen a niche then you want to think about a domain name. When it comes to choosing a domain name I have a few tips for you.
Rule of thumb you want to try and follow these but I have seen all kinds of blogs succeed and they haven’t followed any of these rules. However, it’s easier to succeed if you try to follow a few of them. When choosing a name for your platform:
Keep it short and sweet
Use the correct spelling of the words (i.e. when it comes to something like rock, paper, scissors, nobody is going to look for ‘ROK, PAPR, SCIZZORS’)
Trying to get a.com(you can succeed if you have a.io or.net but people look for ‘.com’ by default)
Never use hyphens. If there was a money-on-the-grow.com because I would get all the traffic.
Put your main topic first in your domain name. When it comes to SEO dogwalker.com will outrank walkingdogs.com because subject is dogs not walking,
You can use your name but if it’s a very common name, you might have to use a nickname, a middle name, or a middle initial.
Also, if it’s hard to spell, people might have a hard time remembering it. For example, I have DejaCronley.com but I only use it to send people from Money on the Grow or Blogging Enthusiast. I would not advertise DejaCronley.com because there’s a million ways to spell Deja.
Avoid niche specific terms that only those already within the niche would know about. For example- Crossfit. If someone wants to get into Crossfitting, they’re not going to go to WODdaily.com. People outside of the Crossfit niche are not going to know what WOD stands for (‘workout of the day’ by the way). Go with something everybody’s going to be familiar with
Today’s episode is going to be kind of be short, sweet, and to the point, but I wanted to get this out there. As always, if you have any questions, you can contact me at MoneyontheGrow.com or reply to any of my emails if you’re on my email list.
Next time we are going to talk about, ummm… let’s see. Sorry. I’m looking at my notes here and I have lost it, but it’s going to be the next step in growing your blog or your platform. Okay. So I will chat with you soon until then. Take care!