Finding a good topic to write about is easy but making it profitable? Now that’s another story entirely. But there is good news, you can make almost any topic profitable with a small bit of lateral, creative thinking.
So how do you choose a profitable niche and more importantly avoid a dud? You need to pick a topic you love or at least have an interest in. You need to find a topic that is small enough to have lower competition but big enough to make money from. Picking a topic that is evergreen will help, that is a topic that is popular all year round and not just seasonal (if possible).
So how do you choose which niche to write about? Well, there are some main broad topics that can do better than others, namely:
- Art and Crafts
- Beauty and Fashion
- Food
- Lifestyle
- Personal Development
- Health and Fitness
- Personal Finance
- Making Money
If your blog idea falls outside these broad topics, don’t worry. There are no hard and fast rules to picking a topic that can guarantee you to make money but there are definitely things you can do to help.
Find your passion
The first thing you need to do is to pick a topic that interests you or that you have a passion for. It’s important to pick something that can hold your interest for many months or years.
If you pick something you are not interested in or dislike then it will turn into a drudge very quickly and it will be reflected in your writing.
It doesn’t matter too much if your hobby or topic does not have a large following but it does need to have some interest outside of your own.
If you are going to pick a broad topic that can cover a wide range of subjects then you may find a lot of competition so you need to be careful when picking your blog niche.
A good example of this is trying to write a blog purely about food. You will have way too much competition and you will never be able to make money. So how can you avoid this? By niche-ing down.
Niche down
What does niche down mean? Well in the most simple terms it means to choose a smaller subtopic of a larger topic that would be more competitive to give you a greater chance of success.
For example, We spoke about food, this is very competitive indeed, even if you look at individual countries for food such as Italian food. The topic is still too broad.
You need to choose an even smaller sub-topic and make it your own. Supposing you were vegan and wanted to write about Italian food with a vegan twist. This would be a great idea as there are many vegans out there and as Italian food often contains dairy it would be popular in the vegan community, those who like Italian food anyway.
Avoid niche-ing down too far as you can run the risk of being too specific and not getting a large enough following. For example, if you tried to write a blog about radio communications in the south pacific during world war 2 then you would struggle to monetize that.
Try to think about your target audience. You want to give them something better than other people can provide, to be more specialized but not to the point only 10 people in the world want what you have.
Evergreen topics
Choosing a niche or topic that can be appreciated all year-round can give you a more reliable income stream than something that can only be done during the summer or winter, for example.
Good evergreen topics would be things like fashion where people would be looking for outfits all year round, or health and fitness or even lifestyle where you could promote hobbies you can do all year round.
Try to stick to topics that will not disappear in a few months. Good choices are gardening and lawn maintenance. Bad choices are fidget spinners and Pokemon Go.
Choices to avoid where possible would be topics relying on a particular season such as football or ice skating, where there are on and off-seasons or only certain times of the year when you can do that particular activity.
That said it’s not impossible to make money from a seasonal blog if you are determined to do so. It will just mean the income may not be consistent throughout the year so you will need to plan your earnings and budget accordingly.
Think outside the box
Turning your blog into dollars can be easy if you have found a good topic to write about, luckily with a bit of creative thinking, you can make money from just about any topic.
Imagine you had a site where the topic was geared around jigsaw puzzles. You could work with some manufacturers to make your own custom jigsaws. Get your readers to send in photos for a competition and let them vote for a picture. The one with the most votes gets sent for manufacture and you can then sell them the winning jigsaw, at a profit of course.
What about a blog about your local area? Imagine you have a decent theme park in your area and you work with them promoting them and other businesses in the area. You create a series of downloadable discount coupons for your readers. Every time a reader visits them and uses a coupon they give you a commission.
How about a blog that offers advice about interior design and you offer bespoke floor plans for customers as well as passing them onto interior designers for a commission.
Diversify your income streams
Whatever your ideas it’s important to diversify your income streams. Getting two, three, or even four different ways to make money from your blog is ideal.
If one of those streams underperforms for some reason then your earnings will only drop a little rather than completely tank if you only relied on one way to make money.
Having advertising on your blog is always a good idea. You can get advertising from main ad brokers like Thrive ads or you could even get a local company you are working with to pay you for an ad placement on your site.
This can bring a good source of year-round revenue for you, which can help if you have a seasonal blog.
Another good way to bring in another income stream is with affiliate links. You sign up with a company whose products are aligned with your site and when one of your readers clicks on your affiliate link they will be taken to that companies website. If they then buy a product you will get a commission.
Commissions can range from a few cents to hundreds of dollars, depending on what you are helping to promote.
If you can make and sell your own products on your blog this can be by far the biggest moneymaker but you will need to have a fairly well-established readership before you can begin down this route.
Good products you can make a decent income from are spreadsheets, small ebooks, how-to or buyer guides, video training courses, and or course physical products, although physical products involve a lot of manual labor on your part so only go down that route if you are not selling thousands of items and are only making a dollar or two from each. Consider it if you make $50-$100 per item as it will be worth your time to do so.
In summary
Pick something you like and have a genuine long-term interest in.
Pick something popular but not so popular everyone else is doing it
Niche down into your topic so you can reduce competition and give yourself a fighting chance
Become an expert in your niche so you will be seen as the place to go to.
Choose a topic that will be useful all year round and will not be a fad or flash in the pan.
Think about different ways to make money, think about promoting businesses with bespoke ads, giveaways, and joint promotions
Have multiple ways of making money on your site. A drop in one will not mean you lose everything.
Have fun and enjoy writing and helping people and enjoy the freedom and independence from having your own business.
Looking to make money from crafts?
Click here to learn how with our step-by-step guide showing you everything you need to know.