What Is Niche Blogging?

Individual publications, blogs and for that matter, all forms of media, are usually regarded as being in a "niche" and as you sally forth into the blogging business you hear the expression "niche blogging" frequently.

So what exactly is niche blogging? It's really quite simple, it is really the main theme behind your blog, what your blog is about. For example, if you have a blog about careers that would be your niche, careers and things career related. Your niche can be anything, fishing, sewing, plumbing, accounting, small engine repair, kite flying, celebrities, making money, like this blog, or even sex, and within the sex niche, are all kinds of sub-niches, which some might call 'kinks' but that is another story...

I don't consider the "My Life" blogs to be niche blogging, although technically, personal blogs are a niche unto themselves. The trouble with personal blogs as an income earner, is that they are often too general to rank well in searches, and the contextual ad servers often have trouble coming up with ads that relate to the topic, although, some bloggers do very well with personal blogs, making sure they use the right keywords etc.

Niche blogging is one of the better ways to go if you are trying to make money from blogging. The secret is to finding the right niche, one with enought content, and something you know enough about to write hundreds of articles about it.

There are lots of ways to find a niche, one of them is to use tools like Google's Keyword tool and others like it, to find what advertisers are bidding on, and what topics pay well. The trouble with this method is that it is often difficult to find something you know enough about to write about it with any frequency.

The premise behind many of the companies that promote and sell the 150, 200, even 300blogs idea is niche blogging. They bundle up a large number of blogs on various niche topics and sell them to you to rebrand and put your advertisements on. Of course, the problem with these gizmos is that they are duplicate content, and the search engines don't view them favorably. Secondly, even if you do go this route, how are you going to be able to update several hundred blogs regularly enough to keep them fresh and get traffic....? Yes, you can obtain content from companies like
this one, but again, you will probably have to manipulate the content a fair bit to keep it fresh and original.

However, there is something to be said for developing your own niche blogs, one at a time, about things that you know something about, or know where to find enough information that you can use to keep them fresh and original and get them up there in the search engine rankings to bring you traffic because as we all know....traffic brings money...wow...that was a long sentence....

I am not suggesting that buying 300 sites is not a way to go, in fact, it might just work if you apply yourself to it, and if you have the time and energy to devote to it. Plus, you need to pay for hosting of 300 sites somewhere, remember that, it can get pricy. However, it is a way to get into the niche blogging biz.

The other way is to pick something you like, and devote a blog to it, not just a post, an entire blog about your hobby or interest, and as long as that blog is going, always post about the same theme, not the same topic, the same theme. For example, Jack Parker's Make Money Blogging is about just that, making money blogging. That is the theme, but my posts vary from day to day, around different topics, but all on the same theme. That's what makes this a "niche blog" Imagine how confused you and the advertising company would be if I suddenly wrote a post about horse training or truck driving in this blog.

The reader should know as soon as possible what a niche blog is about. The title should give it away, and following that, the titles of the individual posts should all relate to the niche in some way. The same could be said for the friends and links that you show in your sidebar, and the items you offer for sale through your affiliate stores. I cannot imagine I would sell many fishing reels on a blog about making money from blogging. On the other hand, I might sell some books about blogging or a digital camera or specific e-books about making money blogging. Those are all saleable items related to the niche of blogging for money. That is another advantage of niche blogging, it allows you to find products to sell that are related to your blog topic and by default of interst to your readers. Why do you think general interest magazines struggle to survive, and many don't, while niche magazines, related to specific interests like fashion, sailing or whatever flourish? It's because of a targeted audience, an audience interested in a particular theme, and therefore an audience that advertisers in the same business want to reach.

Niche blogging is not a mystery, nor should it be difficult. Nor should it take a lot of common sense to figure out why it works. But...it is a talent of sorts to be able to find the right niches, and to be able to turn out informative posts on the same theme day after day, depending on your posting schedule....you do have a posting schedule don't you??

So, there you go, my two cents worth on the topic of niche blogging.....

Jack