How to Find Your Blogging Niche

One of the most polarizing decisions before officially starting a blog is trying to determine how to find your blogging niche. There are so many possibilities that it can be hard to decide! But being too broad is the worst thing you can do.

In an effort to help you think through the options, we’ve created a list of questions to answer for yourself when trying to figure out how to find your blogging niche:

What are you passionate about?

At the end of the day, you’re never going to put effort into something you can’t get excited about. And for many people, a blog is a creative release. It may not be your job, but it should provide some sort of positive benefit.

The easiest way to figure out your niche is to take a critical look at the things you’re passionate about. Is there something you’re excited enough about that you could write about it day-in, day-out? Would you consider yourself an expert on the topic? You may just have figured out your niche!

But there’s a few more questions you have to answer before you can determine if you’ll be successful with it.

Do you understand your audience?

This question has just as much to do with understanding your niche as it has to do with relating to people.

It’s one thing to have a passion and be able to write about it. It’s another thing to be able to connect with your audience and get them to share in your excitement.

Do you understand what makes them tick and what they want to read?

Can you come up with 50 post ideas?

50 might seem like a big number, but you have to realize that once you start a blog, you’ll need to be constantly coming up with new content ideas.

So before you make any big commitments, buy that domain name, the whole thing – you need to sit down and spend some time brainstorming post ideas.

If you’re having trouble thinking of specific topics people would want to read about after 10 or so bullet points, you’re in trouble. But this is a great exercise to weed out a good idea.

Problogger is constantly sharing content to help brainstorm post ideas once you’ve established your niche. Sign up for their emails for inbox inspiration!

Who can you partner up with?

Do you already have some connections that may come in handy? Great. If not, don’t sweat it.

Start doing some research on other bloggers in your niche or complementary niches. Take note of how they’re creating content and see if there are opportunities to partner up.

It’s also a good time to see what brands their working with. They may be brands you want to work with in the future!

This step isn’t critical to answering the question of how to find your blogging niche, but it is something good to know when thinking about the future of your blog!

Will it limit you in the future?

I’m going to tell you something that’s going to sound really counter-intuitive, but usually ends up being true.

Just as in art, sometimes restrictions can create the best work. Picking a specific niche may seem like you’re limiting yourself for future opportunities, but oftentimes the opposite is true. By creating a resource that draws in a very specific community, you can create hyper-relevant content and attract sponsors looking to take advantage of that.

Remember that once you get sponsors involved, you have to be careful of what you promote and make sure that it fits into your niche. Your readers will not take well to content that’s 100% sponsored, 100% of the time – especially if it seems unrelated.

Now that you have the tools you need to determine how to find your blogging niche, we’d love to hear what you decided on. Tell us about your blogging niche in the comments below!