Learn to start a blog that will enable you meet your income objectives. Avoid costly mistakes that could frustrate you as you blog. This article explains how to start blogs or websites that really make money. At the end of this article we shall know how to identify profitable niches to pursue for a blog or website so you don’t end up spending money unnecessarily.

The difference between the richest bloggers and the average struggling blogger is clearly determined by the niches they corner and how well they do so. Even if you claim making money is not one of your objectives for blogging, the fact remains that targeting the right niche is the first step towards becoming relevant in your blogging career.

In this article I shall be using myself as an example, detailing how my search for a profitable niche has led me to start a blog teaching newbies how to make money from blogging.

What is a profitable niche?

A profitable niche is an identified group of people with a common or shared interest(s) and which is willing and motivated to exchange some or all of its collective resources especially money, time and effort to obtain value and benefits affecting its interests. Basically a profitable niche can be monetized either directly by selling a product or service to the people in it or indirectly through a third party arrangement with advertisers.

A profitable niche will not pay attention to anything that doesn’t affect its interest not to talk of buying such a thing. Therefore it is specific about its needs and interests and will only patronize those who adequately cater to its needs.

For a blog to be a commercial success, it has to be profitable in its reach to its subscribers and its identified niche. A niche in as much as it is made up of a group of people with similar needs may not necessarily be tied to any geographical location, however some denominating factor or factors hold them together. For instance, nursing mothers would want to learn effective child care and hence are a group or niche that can be served products like baby clothes, toys and crèche services.

Here is a list of steps to pursue when searching for a profitable niche

Step 1

Ask yourself: What am I passionate about?

Draw up a list of things you are passionate about. For instance I am passionate about the following things;

• Chess
• Reading
• Writing
• Teaching
• Research
• Business and
• Internet

Step 2

Ask again: What are people around me (they include people in your neighbourhood, the office, church, school even on the internet) passionate about?

Draw up a list of activities that people around you normally engage in either for leisure or for work for instance;

• Reading
• Writing
• Cooking
• Making up
• Shopping
• Travelling
• Speaking
• Interviewing
• Driving
• Puzzles
• Competitions
• Drawing
• Painting
• Dry cleaning and laundry
• Serving or waiting at tables
• Filming
• Singing
• Designing websites
• Blogging
• Boxing

Step 3

From both lists look for similar or related activities with the items from the first list serving as your yardstick

• Chess is related to puzzles
• Reading is related to blogging
• Writing is related to blogging, filming and singing
• Teaching is related to interviewing, speaking and blogging
• Research is related to competition
• Business is not directly related to any of the above
• Internet is related to blogging, designing websites

From step 3 we can see that the term blogging appears more than any other activity, this now becomes my preferred activity. At this stage, I want to pick a niche I am comfortable with and at the same time is a profitable venture to pursue. Before proceeding I will have to strike out the odd interest from the third list which is chess since it is way off from all of my other interests and after a little bit of brainstorming I will have to determine which other activity may or may not become a more profitable venture than blogging. Having carefully brainstormed I realized that blogging was clearly the first among equals and hence my first and only choice.

Since I am passionate about business and my other interests seem to have blogging as a common factor, then I would consider starting a business related to blogging. Since I love to research any way, I now carry out a survey of possible business opportunities related to blogging as an activity. From my survey I have found that the following opportunities to make money from blogging exist;

• Teaching people to acquire valuable skills like cooking, driving and gardening
• Offering a service such as being a travel and tour guide or being an online tutor
• Offering to be a guide or expert working as a consultant
• Carrying out third party marketing services by reviewing and recommending products and services useful to your preferred niche.
• Talking about activities people are passionate about.

Step 4

Ask questions about your preferred activity. At this stage I want to know as much about blogging that could serve a commercial purpose so I ask. Do I make money selling a product or service with my blog or do I help others sell their products and services with my blog? I can only attempt answering these questions after the following questions have been properly answered.

1. Who are the people who blog regularly?

Answer:

• People who want to make money on the internet (commercial bloggers)
• People who love to write
• People who want to express themselves

Since I am interested in starting a blog that will fetch me money I will only focus on commercial bloggers.

2. Why do these people blog regularly?

Answer: Because they want to learn how to make money by drawing large number of visitors to their blogs, and creating opportunities to monetize their blogs’ contents.

3. What do these people want but do not have?

Answer: Sizeable number of visitors or traffic.

4. Can I offer a product or service to them?

Answer: Yes, I could offer to teach them how to build a steady stream of regular and first time visitors to their blogs. Also I could teach them about different ways to monetize their blogs’ contents.

5. If yes how, where and when can I offer them my product?

Answer: By teaching them about ways they can increase and maximize traffic to their blogs using my blog as a guide. I would visit forums frequented by bloggers and make useful comments. I could also engage in Search Engine Optimization Techniques and would pick a time of the day when I am less busy to write insightful articles on relating to building traffic and monetizing blogs.

6. What is the competition like?

There is stiff competition already in this niche as many well established bloggers are already teaching fellow bloggers how to make money. However, since the field is very large and there are still many unsatisfied bloggers especially beginners, I will focus my effort on this sub group of bloggers.

7. How well organized is the competition in meeting the needs of this niche?

Most of the competition is not very organized and the few that are organized do not primarily specialize in teaching inexperienced people how to make money from their blogs. Therefore I would have to concentrate my efforts on this single theme: help novice bloggers make money from their blogs.

8. How do I make money from teaching other bloggers how to make money?

Since I know that most people will not pay to acquire the knowledge I have I can instead choose third party advertisements like pay per click and affiliate marketing to sell products related to my blog’s theme.

If you have clearly answered all these questions then you have found a profitable niche. At this stage you can now start providing valuable services. Please note results take time to achieve so be patient and ensure that you are really passionate about what you are doing. Above all an effective sales plan is a must.

Good luck.