Choosing The Right Niche For Your Blog
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Today I decided to do something different, one of the most asked questions people ask me, is how do they decide what to blog about? Well today I have got together with fellow 6 figure blogger, David Risley to answer that question.
Among the important issues we address in this podcast are: 1) choosing the right niche for your blog, 2) choosing a stand out / memorable domain name for your blog, and 3) making sure the Niche you have selected has potential to develop further down the line.
To listen to this Podcast, click the play button above the post.
David Risley and Michael Dunlop
Below are just a Few Notes from our Podcast ~ things to remembers when starting your blog:
Choosing the Right Market for Your Blog:
The first thing we suggest you do is create a list of all the things you enjoy and have a passion for. So many people out there just start a website because they see other people make money with it but know nothing about it and really don’t have a passion for the subject. A great example of this is Make Money Online Blogs. Just yesterday I had someone email me about their make money online blog and they asked me for some advise because it was their first blog. This guy will never become a success with that blog because he doesn’t know anything about his niche and his readers will see this. Instead if he enjoyed Cookery and decided to create a cooking blog then he would be able to publish content with out any problem, day after day. Its important to have a passion for the subject and to know you can provide quality content and better then your competition.
Let me repeat that last sentence:
Its important to have a passion for the subject and to know you can provide quality content and better information than your competition.
Does Your Niche Have Scope To Develop Further:
With every website I create, I always want to know I can launch a new website from it. For example, take a look at Retireat21.com which is about making money online young ~ I then was able to easily launch a new website about making money online blogging. My next website I’m launching is about getting away from the 9 – 5 and making a living from the Internet. Doing this allows you to launch websites and they will quickly become a success because you have a proven track record. A great example of this is the Tutsplus network, they started with a freelance website and they realised a lot of people where web designers and photoshop users and wanted to learn more about better design, because of this they launched a design blog called PSDTuts. They then realised people wanted to code their designers and so they launched their next blog, NETTus which teaches people how to code and program websites. They have now launched dozens of related websites in their niche and just their tutsplus blog makes them $58,500 a month!
Using a different Angle to STAND OUT as a Blogger:
So many people want to teach, but to be honest, a lot of people aren’t great teachers. Even if you are a good teacher, the chances are, what you need to say has already been said thousands of times before. So when I decided to launch IncomeDiary I didn’t go and post the same stuff every other make money online blog does, I decided to give bloggers and Internet entrepreneurs inspiration to do more online. Taking this approaching in the same market has seen me very quickly become one of the top names in blogging. This approach can be applied to any niche, for example you could interview top golfers, golf scouts, golf coaches and then do top lists such as the top 30 earning golfers, top 30 golf swing styles.
Choosing The Right Domain For Your Niche:
There are so many things people do wrong with choosing the right domain name. The first thing we want to make clear to you is it has to pass the “Tell a Friend Test”, this test works as followed. You tell a friend your website URL and hours later they must be able to find it first try. Now most people presume a few things straight away, the first being that it is a .Com domain. Make sure when you are looking for a domain that you choose the .Com and don’t settle for second best such as a .info or .net.
The next problem I see a lot, is if your domain is taken you include a dash, for example if you wanted LearnGolf.com you instead buy Learn-Golf.com ~ Most people will remember LearnGolf.com and forget the dash in between. Another common mistake is having a long winded domain, people usually do this because they want to get a keyword in the domain such as CheapDomainNamesandWebHosting.com, yes its very long and not many people have it quite that long but I’m trying to stress the point that long domains aren’t cool. I do believe Google gives some benefits to those with keyword domains but not enough to make it an importance to have a domain with your keyword. Instead try to have something short and memorable. Let me show you two examples of how I have done this:
When creating my young entrepreneur website I straight away noticed YoungEntrepreneur.com was taken so I decided to come up with something very catchy such as Retireat21.com ~ Doing a domain like this has given me a lot more publicity then if I had the domain YoungEntrepreneur.com. Another domain I came up with – this time for a friend was SaveTimeOutsource.com ~ this domain is short, shows the benefits of Outsourcing and is catchy.
For domain names we recommend GoDaddy, they have been kind enough to provide IncomeDiary readers 10% off all their orders, whether it is domains, hosting or designs. To get your 10% off, use the Coupon Code “cjcsave10“
David Risley has a FREE Blueprint to making 6 figures online blogging, I highly recommend you download the eBook and learn from him. He also has a membership program for those who want to make more money blogging, this program is more advansed and hes realy focused on those who want to make bigger bucks, this 14th July Midnight, so check it out quick!
To Our Success in 2009,
Michael Dunlop
PS. Let us know why you decided to use your domain name and looking back, do you think it was the right decision to use it.
About Michael Dunlop
I'm Michael, I created this site back in 2009 and since then it's received over a million visitors from all around the world. We offer tutorials and inspiration for online entrepreneurs wanting to achieve more.
14 comments so far… Leave a reply
sickdesigner
July 14, 2009 10:17 AM
My domain's name, Sickdesigner.com, has been pretty fruitful to me so far, in the few months since I launched. I think sometimes people tend to give too much importance to the name of an enterprise. I'm reminded here by Flickr or Google, which are both huge but if take a moment to depart from what they stand for it's clear to see that these names are very unattractive and almost annoying. I'm with choosing the name that makes the owner feel like that's what represents their endeavour. In that respect I'm very happy with my domain name because it fits my cynical, satyrical, colocvial style of writing, so I know my visitors know what to expect.
Jon
July 14, 2009 5:34 PM
Interesting discussion from two inspiring individuals. I think the general outline of this audio is to find uniqueness in your niche, whether that's simply through being the most knowledgeable or having something more creative than the "other guys" or a mix of both. If you're unique and can create some sort of backstory people can relate to (David having a baby and being inspired to work harder or Michael having that desire to be his own boss/entrepreneur at a young age) then I think you can be on your way to doing something significant.
Matthew
July 15, 2009 6:34 AM
Hi Michael Good article again. As you know I've had a lot of success with my blog http://renegadeconservatoryguy.co.uk/. It has opened up lots of doorways for me in a very 'niche' niche. But do you think my domain is too long? Matthew
suwatpo
July 16, 2009 10:12 PM
Good article. I agree with you that bloggers need to enjoy what they are bloging, not just only money.
Doug Groce
July 19, 2009 2:23 AM
Hey Michael! I'm loving the podcast - I can learn how to get rich online on my Ipod while I work out now. :)
Melvin
July 19, 2009 12:40 PM
To be honest w/you Michael, at first I thought picking a niche in blogging is useless. It didn't take long for me to figure out that really a niche plays a crucial role on whether your blog is going to be profitable or not. Maybe I was just lucky I landed on the right niche.. :)
Sal
July 19, 2009 10:34 PM
Awesome pod my friend. I realize how important it was to have a target niche that is unique and packaged in a specific way that fits your viewers wants and needs. Great post I loved it!
Zigmund
July 27, 2009 2:22 AM
"Make sure when you are looking for a domain that you choose the .Com and don’t settle for second best such as a .info or .net." Hello, What do you think of a domain like unread.me? Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to promote my blog (which is in Hebrew by the way, so I don't aim to get visitors from this comment). I was just wondering about that quote up there, is it bad to choose a name like that, even though it makes sense, "un-read-me?" Thanks, Zigmun
Aman
July 31, 2009 4:20 PM
My blog is still just a website to keep some friends updated about my life. but i chose my name simple because my exchange year in the us was for one year. oneyear.ch I thought would be really easy to remember and the .ch is in switzerland common...so i looked for something that was really easy to remember and most people did or still do
Mish
August 15, 2009 5:58 AM
Great post Michael. Have been a follower of your blogs for quite some time. It's better for a new blogger to just list out the things they'd like or feeling passionate about and not follow the usual hype these days like making money online. I've seen a lot of these blogs and to be honest, I could forget all about them right after closing the tabs. You would always know if someone's making too much effort pretending something he's actually not.
Ms. Freeman
August 28, 2009 7:14 PM
This is a useful article. My domain name was set before I had a niche so I was pretty limited in my decision, but it is something I’m passionate about so I will do well.
ravi
September 23, 2009 9:41 AM
Good article. I agree with you that bloggers need to enjoy what they are bloging, not just only money
Blogging – is it all about the money ? «
October 13, 2009 12:14 PM
[...] So, to make money you need ads and to have ads you need readers to click the ads. How to get readers? The answer is, as in all, content. "It is important to have a passion for the subject and to know you can provide quality content and better information than your competition", writes Dunlop in his article "Choosing The Right Niche For Your Blog". [...]
Andrew Suta
March 17, 2010 4:23 PM
I am committing a sin to my blog because my blog is not a niche. Mine is a general topics blog which is about 4 months old. Your article may open my eyes to create another blog, a niche blog maybe.
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