The following is a guest post by Bill Davis
I admit, I don’t know how to say niche. Some say “neesh” and some say “nitch.”
Does it really matter? No.
What does matter is that a) you pick a niche that has the potential to earn revenue and b) you research it really well.
Today, I want to talk about niches, or more specifically, choosing a niche.
This is very important: The niche, or topic, you choose to blog about will determine success or failure, as measured by earnings, traffic, engagement, and satisfaction (yours).
The most important aspect above is your satisfaction, in my humble opinion. You will not be able to continually write about and update your site if you hate it.
But that’s a given, right?
Many expert bloggers will tell you to choose a niche you’re passionate about. Others will tell you to pick a niche that has earning potential above all else.
I will tell you this: You need BOTH.
Let’s say you choose a topic that has high earning potential (think health, wealth, relationships, and hobbies). You begin blogging about it, making affiliate sales, earning advertising revenue, and maybe you even make your own product to sale.
Things are going well. You’re satisfied with your results. But you don’t really like the topic. Maybe you don’t even know the niche well.
You can sustain for a while. But eventually, you’ll grow tired of writing about something you don’t really like. You’ll stop writing, traffic will dry up, and you’ll abandon the project.
All earnings will eventually subside and vanish.
But hey, it was a good run.
Alternatively, let’s say you chose a niche that you’re passionate about. You’re an expert and you love talking about it at cocktail parties. Your niche friends love it, too.
You begin the project gung-ho. You write and write and write. You guest blog and you get your stories featured in industry blogs and newsletters.
Maybe you even get speaking gigs!
But you chose a niche that had little earning power (say, teen dental hygiene–I made that up).
Eventually, your passion for the project (the blog) will subside. Your passion for the topic may never die. But you will stop blogging.
It’s best, in fact, if you find this out sooner rather than later.
Let’s face it: You’re here because you want to earn money blogging and “internet marketing.”
You’re not here because you want to write blog posts that nobody reads.
You want the moolah!
So, I say to you, you need to pick a niche that you’re passionate about and that has earning potential.
As I alluded to before, focus on niches in the health, wealth, relationships, and hobbies areas.
But dive deeper than that. You need to find out where people are actively spending money in those niches.
How do you do that? You research!
Here’s a great primer on niche research. Read that whole series. It will give you great insight on how to choose a niche that will satisfy you and your readers (and hopefully, your BUYERS).