I’m Lori, a SAHM, who loves to share blog tips and tutorials in hopes of helping others. If you enjoyed this post, please visit my blog and consider subscribing to my feed.

In general, all niches will generate income but some will do better than others. It’s worth your time researching possible niches. A good niche will bring in a steady income and brand you in the blogosphere.

How do I find my niche?

Creating a list of topics that you are knowledgeable in will make for a good start. When considering possible niches, think about things you like to read, your hobbies, and things you can articulate daily. Jot down some ideas that you find interesting and remember, any topic can be a niche.

2 examples of a good paying niche are:

• Dogs. They are a very popular niche and can be tied in with celebrities, veterinarians, pet clothing, dog hotels, and even pet insurance.
• Photography can be a very lucrative niche. If you’re a versatile photographer (meaning you “specialize” in more than one area), your targeted audience just became wider.

Example of a not so good niche is:

• “How to Make Money Online” This is an overly saturated subject and I suggest you RUN from it. Try choosing a sub-category like “How to Make Money Online through Niche Marketing” or whatever you specialize in.

Once you have a decent list going, scan through them and highlight the ones that you like the most.

Researching Your Niche

Ask yourself, “Can I market my blog offline?” If you can, great! Again, this allows you to reach out to a wider audience. Say you setup a blog that revolves around credit. You’ll more than likely have a target audience of people trying to repair their credit or people searching for a credit card. You can market your blog by putting up flyers at the local grocery stores with the URL to your site on “Finding the perfect credit card”.

It’s important to know how popular your niche is online. By doing a keyword search, you will narrow down the keywords that are more popular and searched for more often. Wordtracker.com is a good place to go if you are seeking more professional SEO services. Other ways consist of doing a search at Technorati using tags or just simply doing a Google blog search. I always check out Google Trends to see what people are talking about and what keywords were used.

Competition

I read somewhere that it’s important to know who your competitors are; however, I don’t feel that it’s that important. I think you should focus on you, your content, and your voice. In other words, you are your biggest competitor. While trying to keep up with the Jones’s may get you motivated at first, you will quickly get discouraged if you fail to reach their success level. That’s why it’s important to use your competitors as inspiration and not for envious reasons.

Your Own Voice

Being unique from everyone else can be difficult. I cannot stress it enough on how important it is to have your own voice. Don’t fall into the scammer category and gain a reputation as an unethical blogger. By being truthful and opinionated, you’ll gain a readership that respects you for who you are.

Bringing in the Money

You’ve found your niche, set your blog up, and have begun writing content but what comes next? It’s time to monetize your blog with adsense and/or affiliate links. While there are other monetization options, these two should get you started. There are affiliates everywhere for every niche so once you are ready to monetize, you need to join relevant affiliate programs, as well as, find a CPC network that suits you. Please don’t get carried away and make your blog look spammy. You only need a two or three affiliate links in a post and one or two adsense blocks displaying. I

Some affiliates networks to consider include:

• Commission Junction
• Clickbank
• Azoogle Ads
• Linkshare
• Amazon

CPC networks:

• Google Adsense
• Yahoo Publisher
• Bidvertiser
• Chitika
• Clicksor

Final Thoughts

Regardless of what you choose as your niche, you won’t be successful without quality content, a unique voice, and integrity. Carefully choose your niche and make it something you love. You’ll be blogging about it all the time and for, hopefully, years to come!

Do you already have a niche in mind? If so, what is it and why did you choose it?