Defining your ‘niche’, what does that even mean? Explained very to the the point, I would say that in the blogging world ‘niche’ refers to the main topic of your blog. Some people say that the more specific your niche the better, but I personally think that doesn’t always have to be true. Today I’m talking about why defining your niche is important and how you can find the niche that suits your passion, personality and skills best.
Contrary to what you might think, defining your blog’s niche isn’t only something you do when you just start out blogging. Throughout the years you’ll be constantly redefining what your blog is about as your interests change. Writing about fashion alone can feel great when you’re 20, but can suddenly feel wrong or unsatisfactory as you get older. Perhaps you see a place for yourself on the internet to share stories and personal experiences that go beyond fashion? Our interests and passion are always subject to change, so evolving your blog’s niche over time is only natural. Now let’s get right into it!
Identity
The first thing we should ask ourselves when it comes to finding your blogging niche is: why is it so important? I’ll answer that question very simple: your blog’s niche is your identity and when you have a strong identity, people tend to remember you and come back. You can compare that to first impressions you make on people in real life. People like to be able to describe someone or something real quick. If someone had to describe me, it would probably be something like “the tall girl with dark cury hair”. When you’re able to describe in a few words or one sentence what your blog is about to friends, you known you’ve defined your niche!
The first thing we should ask ourselves when it comes to finding your blogging niche is: why is it so important? I’ll answer that question very simple: your blog’s niche is your identity and when you have a strong identity, people tend to remember you and come back. You can compare that to first impressions you make on people in real life. People like to be able to describe someone or something real quick. If someone had to describe me, it would probably be something like “the tall girl with dark cury hair”. When you’re able to describe in a few words or one sentence what your blog is about to friends, you known you’ve defined your niche!
So ideally, readers should understand within seconds of entering your blog what it is about. This way they’ll be remembering you easily next time.
Passion
In order to define what niche is the best fit, you have to find out what you’re most passionate about. What topic can you never stop talking about to your friends? What do you like doing in your spare time? If you want to be blogging for the long run, your niche has to perfectly aligned with your passion because if not the case, you’ll never keep up the discipline to keep going. For me personally, FashionContainer started as a fashion only blog but over time I started to feel the importance to share more personal stories, write blog tips posts like this and perhaps my current favourite: anything to do with travel!
In order to define what niche is the best fit, you have to find out what you’re most passionate about. What topic can you never stop talking about to your friends? What do you like doing in your spare time? If you want to be blogging for the long run, your niche has to perfectly aligned with your passion because if not the case, you’ll never keep up the discipline to keep going. For me personally, FashionContainer started as a fashion only blog but over time I started to feel the importance to share more personal stories, write blog tips posts like this and perhaps my current favourite: anything to do with travel!
Skills
This one goes hand in hand with passion, the only difference being that a skill doesn’t necessarily have to be something your passionate about, you just happen to be good at it. This however can be an incredibly important factor in making your blog succeed as with plain passion but no skill, you’re not going to get very far. That’s why identifying your strengths and skills is incredibly important in the process of finding your niche.
If you for example have a marketing degree, you’ll most probably be good at creating killer social media strategies, while having a psychology degree might be a great background to use for a weekly series you host on your blog. When it comes to practical skills, having an understanding of photoshop and other editing softwares is a big plus too. And don’t worry, even if you know nothing about all of this: there’s so many other skills that will be greatly helpful when running a blog. Like networking, having an eye for details, a good sense of writing, being organized.
Explore
Whether you’re thinking to expand your blog niche or you’re still at the stage of starting a blog, platforms like Pinterest can be a great help finding the answers you’re looking for. You can easily tell from the kind of boards you create where your interests lie. Is it home decor, DIY, everything to do with events styling (Pinterest seems THE place for that) or maybe fashion? Analyzing your own pinning behaviour can be a great way to find out what you should be blogging about, but looking at what kind images are getting re-pinned or responded to the most can be of help too.
Whether you’re thinking to expand your blog niche or you’re still at the stage of starting a blog, platforms like Pinterest can be a great help finding the answers you’re looking for. You can easily tell from the kind of boards you create where your interests lie. Is it home decor, DIY, everything to do with events styling (Pinterest seems THE place for that) or maybe fashion? Analyzing your own pinning behaviour can be a great way to find out what you should be blogging about, but looking at what kind images are getting re-pinned or responded to the most can be of help too.
Readers
Imagine who your ideal reader would be. What age is she or he approximately? What are they interested in to read about? What do they find on your blog that will make them stick around? When you have a picture in your mind of that reader, it’s easier to define what you should be writing about and which style of writing and posts will resonate with that type of reader most.
Imagine who your ideal reader would be. What age is she or he approximately? What are they interested in to read about? What do they find on your blog that will make them stick around? When you have a picture in your mind of that reader, it’s easier to define what you should be writing about and which style of writing and posts will resonate with that type of reader most.
Photo via World of Wanderlust
