How to choose a blog niche? Sometimes a good content is not enough

Some experts say “content is king” or “Create good content! money and traffic will follow,” say others.

Not really true - at least not in all cases.

Content is only 50% of the game, if not less.

Yes, as a blogger, it is our job to create engaging content to keep our readers entertained.

But to make money in the long run, you need to have two other key elements - a profitable niche and an attraction in this area.

It is very important to find a niche that is profitable, but it must also be an area that you have a good grasp of in order to be able to compete.

If you have a hobby or a particular subject and you can talk about it all the time, consider how to turn your passion into something profitable.

Not all hobbies can sell, so don't panic if you can't find something good. Investigate your acquaintances and find out how others spend their free time, what activities interest them and what investments they devote to it.

But please don’t start promoting, for example, inflatable boats. Can you imagine how many people would buy an inflatable boat online?

Not too many, I guarantee.

Worse yet, this product is a seasonal product and is only sold during the summer, so you will be limited in sales.

No matter how you write your content or how beautiful your blog design is - if you don't choose a profitable niche, you're not going to convert the effort into money.

How do you find a profitable niche?

There are countless ways to find a profitable niche on the Internet. I'm going to cover a few methods that work.

The general rule: follow the money.

Why do most bank robberies happen? Because that's where the money is.

The same is finding a profitable niche. We're just looking for areas where advertisers are spending a lot of money. This is the basic business sense. Advertisers would not invest as much money unless the ads report return on investment (ROI).

Here are some tools you can use to find out if advertisers are spending money (and, more importantly, how much they are spending).

Search engine

Do relevant research on Google or Bing. Are there advertisers on your search results pages?

In general, if there are more than three advertisers competing for a key phrase, there is money in that area.

You can then use Google Keyword Planner to guess the average price of a click for that search term and predict how much you can earn on Google Adsense by clicking and therefore how much you can earn by selling advertising space.

Note that there are no clear written rules, but rough estimates, Google pays 30 to 50% of the cost per click for Adsense publishers.

Spyfu

SpyFu is another way to determine how much (and, more importantly, where) advertisers are spending Pay Per Click (PPC) ads.

Spyfu, originally GoogSpy, is a search analysis tool that displays the keywords advertisers buy on Google Adwords. I use it whenever I need to research a niche in depth.

To do your own research, simply enter your competitors (or certain large niche players) in the search bar.

Real example: - $ 739,000 / month

Like I said, follow the money!

Affiliate Platforms

Junction commission or any other large affiliated site is also a good method to verify your niche potential.

Log on to CJ.com and find the niche merchants you are studying.

• Is there a relevant merchant?
• Do these traders offer good orders?
• Do these merchants pay their affiliates?
• You can use network gains (green bar) as a potential gain indicator.

See the image below to understand how I interpret the numbers at CJ.

Network revenue = how much advertisers payout of the total. Higher network revenues = more affiliates in the program; 3 months EPC = Average click gain 100 = How profitable is this long term affiliate program; EPC 7 days = Average click gains 100 = Is it a seasonal product?

Trends

Is there an interest in the niche you want to monetize? Has it increased in the last period, has it decreased? Google Trends is a very good tool that will answer these questions. If you are not familiar with this tool, you can find some tips here.

For example, I searched for the term "backlinks". You can see how the interest in this product has increased in recent years. The number of people interested in backlinks has been increasing.

Why check these statistics? Because it is better to enter a niche that has an ascending trajectory, or in a stable period, and to avoid niches in which consumers lose their interest.

Watch out for niches that show spectacular growth, but don't have the potential to stay in the top for very long. Acai fruit experienced an impressive breakthrough in the past, but consumers have not kept their interest because new products and alternatives constantly promise the same results.