7 BLOG NICHES THAT GET GOOD TRAFFIC AND MAKE GOOD MONEY
STOP WAISTING TIME GUESSING WHAT NICHE YOU SHOULD JOIN
Here is the general advice you usually get with blog niches:
Follow your passion.
Or…
Find a niche that you truly love and you’ll find yourself in a great position.Funny how all of us how to make money bloggers always advise you to go find a niche you are passionate about instead of just saying these are the only niches you should consider if you really want to make a living with your blog.Before I begin this wonderful journey of blowing the how to make money blog world up let me say that I do think you can make money in almost any niche that you decide to enter.People seem to miss this point so I’m going to say it again but I’m going to make sure you don’t miss it.I do think you can make money in almost any niche that you decide to enter.
However, some niches are a LOT easier to build an audience and make money with than others. Your goal probably isn’t to start a nice hobby that you work over 1,000 hours a year on.
Here is a new quote for you:
Profit isn’t in passion, it’s in popularity.
You want to start a business. Instead of making others money you want to make money for yourself.
As you should.
Before we dive into the specific niches I want to hit a couple of myths and knock them out of the way.Myths About Finding a Niche
I never believed in finding a niche. It’s the wrong mindset to have.
Instead, I believe you should find a problem and address that problem. Sure, when you take a step back that puts you into a niche but finding niches is one of the things that continues to hold bloggers back.
Most bloggers are better off just writing things they like until they hit upon a problem that resonates with people.
You Need to Find a Niche and then Niche Down Some More
Meh.
You don’t.
It’s good advice because the more you niche down the more you find a very specific audience that relates to what you are writing about but is it necessary?
Nope.
Take a look at The Spruce. Sure it’s a blog that is run by a big company but it’s still a blog nonetheless.
What is their niche?
I have no idea because they literally write about everything. I guess you could consider it a lifestyle blog but it seems way more broad than that.
Instead, every time they write something they make sure the post revolves around solving a problem. Each category on their site in turn becomes its own little niche.
There is a caveat to this approach, though. They will probably find it harder to make money from creating products because their audience is so spread out. However, when you are getting over a million page views a month then creating a product might be at the bottom of your priority list.
You Need to Pick a Niche You’re Passionate About
Meh.
You don’t.
When you ask yourself why you are starting a blog there are always two reasons:
- You want to help people do something. This is the feel good Why. This is the Why you get to tell yourself and others to keep your conscience clear.
- You want to make money and not just a little bit of money. You want to make the type of money that the Income Reports people make.
Many people have a hard time making 1 and 2 work together, but let me tell you a little secret:
Once you start making money with something, you can learn to become passionate about it real quick.
Not a single how to make money blogger has started off by saying that they are passionate about teaching others how to make money. However, it becomes really easy to be passionate about the topic when you are making 5-6 figures from it every single month.
Sometimes following your passion is exactly what is holding you back from making money. Besides, isn’t it easier to help others when you have money in the bank than when you don’t?
I now am running/building up over 15 different blogs. That’s a stupid number of blogs but I do it because I need to continue to test out different niches.
Do you think I have a passion for all of these different niches? Hell no!
However, I do have a passion for what these mini-businesses allow me to do and that is enjoy the life that I do.
You can start a blog behind your passion and make money with it but I found it easier to make money in niches that others are passionate about and just become passionate about the lifestyle that blogging allows me to live.
What Do People Want?
When it comes to choosing a niche it really comes down to understanding what people want. To put it simply, people want to be better versions of themselves. Nobody doesn’t want this.
If you can promise to show them how to be a better parent they will listen.
If you can promise to show them how to be better with money they will listen.
If you can promise to show them how to get the body they want they will listen.
Niches that show people how to be better versions of themselves are the niches that you are looking to enter.
The Best Blog Niches to Start a Blog In
I understand that you can show me smaller bloggers that do well in random niches. The question is are they the exception or the norm? How long did it take for them to get to that point?
Now, this list isn’t going to make a lot of how to make money bloggers happy because they want to teach you how to take any blog to the moon. If they really wanted you to achieve their success then they would tell you to start a how to make money blog just like them.
But that probably wouldn’t sell as well.
As a blogger, you have to be careful of being too idealistic. You see all of these how to make money blogs and so you want to completely resist because you know your blog on National Park tours in Alaska is something the world needs.
Go for it. Someone else just like you is going to do something more obvious and make the money they want.
So, here we go. These are in no particular order except for the first one. Also, keep in mind these are the broad niches. There are tons of sub-niches within each one but they all fall under the bigger niche.
1. How to Make Money
This is the obvious one. The real elephant in the room.
Many beginning bloggers often find themselves asking if they need to start a blog on making money to make any money.
It’s a great question because all of the blogs that teach you how to make money seem to be run by people that only make money through those types of blogs.
Luckily, this isn’t the only niche that can do well with making money but it’s one of the easiest…
…if you can show that you are making money yourself already.
Too many bloggers jump into this niche and take the wrong approach. They pretend that they have the knowledge to share with others about making money online but this audience isn’t stupid.
They know they have other options so if you can’t show them in some way that you know what you are talking about then you won’t be making the type of money you thought.
So does this mean that beginning bloggers can’t enter this niche? Of course not.
The way I would approach it as a beginning blogger would be to treat it more like a blog journey. Chronicle all of the things that are working for you and not working for you. Let people follow you along from day 1.
The catch is, is it better to do this with the how to make money blog or a secondary blog? My gut tells me you should do it with a secondary blog but that means a bit more time. However, it gives you a bit more authority for when you are ready to launch your book or course.
. Personal Finance
This one can easily fall under how to make money depending on the approach a blog takes. Some personal finance sites teach you how to save money through frugal living while others show you how to make money with investing and side jobs.
One of the larger bloggers in this space is Michelle Gardner. The majority of her income comes from her affiliate link with Bluehost (how to start a blog and make money) along with her affiliate marketing course.
So both of those would fall under the first niche.
The strategy here though is to cast a wide net around frugal living and then you show people that you can live frugally and make a ton of money at the same time.
3. Health and Fitness
Health and fitness is one of those tricky niches because you can get a ton of traffic from it, but it can be difficult to monetize if you don’t know what you are doing.
Starting off the best approach to go is with affiliate marketing. This works well because your audience is actively searching for solutions to a problem and a nice Amazon (or wherever) link to a product that helped you can do wonders.
A lot of blogs in this niche are usually run by teams of people or fitness trainers.
4. Food
This one is notoriously difficult to make money in because the audience isn’t really looking to buy things, they just want recipes.
The best approach is to build up a large audience and use ads to supplement the business. Probably the most well-known blog that does this is Food Blogger Pro, that teaches bloggers how to start a food blog. This goes back to niche #1 and the strategy that I talked about before of starting a blog in a different niche and then teaching people how to duplicate that success on your how to make money blog.
5. Beauty and Fashion
This one for me is the holy grail of successful blogs because not only can you make money but you also gain access to cool events.
The problem though is that it is HARD. While the other niches rely on great written content, beauty and fashion are more reliant on your personality and your ability to continuously get yourself out there.
Most of the big beauty and fashion bloggers focus on YouTube and Instagram because they are visual platforms. Once they build a following there they slowly build out their blogs.
Unsurprisingly, their blogs become more lifestyle blogs that cover a number of different categories beyond fashion and beauty. Why? Because the beauty and fashion niche is all about an overall lifestyle that you live.
6. Lifestyle
This one is the hardest to describe because it is so broad. Some bloggers take this niche to the extreme and think they can write about anything that involves their life but that isn’t the case.
For example, here are some of the sub-niches I see for this niche:
- Gardening
- Homesteading (huge)
- Survival (huge)
- Home/Outdoor Decor
- Organization
- Travel
These are not all of them but these are definitely ones that I would consider creating a blog in.
Monetization methods for this niche are usually ads or printable. With the first 3 sub-niches books can work really well.
How to Succeed in the Lifestyle Niche
Okay, so here’s the thing about the lifestyle niche. Most people screw up big time in it because they really believe they can just write about anything.
That’s isn’t true.
To succeed in the lifestyle niche you have to either be solving a problem that a lot of people have (how to organize your home) or you need to write about a topic that people are irrationally passionate about (bullet journals).
There is no in-between if you want to see success early on.
You can point me to examples of bloggers that succeed in this niche that seem to talk about their lives but usually, those bloggers have been around for a while.
To gain traction you either need to solve problems or write about irrationally passionate topics.
7. Personal Development
Just like a lifestyle blog a personal development blog can be tough because many people don’t target a specific problem. They create a blog that is vague on its purpose beyond living a better life.
With personal development, you need to be very specific about what you are helping someone with. For example, you might say:
I promise to help you kick your procrastination habit.
Or…
I will help you overcome your depression.
Simply offering a better life doesn’t help out anyone unless you are specific about how you are going to help.