Introduction
In this article, we’re gonna look at blog ideas that make money in 2022.
When it comes to finding the most profitable niche for your blog. , lots of people tend to get stuck.
Like, there are so many blog ideas to choose from — how do you identify the one that’s right for you?
Do you focus on profitability? Or is it better to focus on a blog idea that you’re comfortable talking about in public?
I mean, the body hair niche is probably really profitable. But it might be a little bit awkward to tell friends and family you’re working on a website on this idea. Plus, you might not really enjoy writing a ton of content based on this topic!
Luckily, there is a middle ground here. And it isn’t that hard to find a focus for your blog that’s going to be both profitable and easy to talk about/work on for a long time.
This article will help you with this, as we’re gonna explore how you can identify the best niches if you wanna make money with SEO.
We’ll cover a number of tried and tested niches. And in section two, we’ll also explore how you can uncover markets that other people aren’t really paying attention to.
By the end of this article, you should know exactly how you can identify the best idea for your blog.
Consider the Big Evergreen Topics
When choosing a focus for a blog, most people tend to focus on the major evergreen topics.
So, that basically includes:
- Health
- Wealth
- Relationships
These topics are called evergreen because people are always gonna be interested in these topics.
I mean, millions upon millions of people are typing in keywords based on these niches, each and every day. So, if you start a blog based on one of these topics, you’re not off to a bad start, as there’s already a ton of demand here.
Of course, these topics are massive. And so if you’re gonna go down this route you basically have two options here.
You can either focus on one of these topics as a whole, or you can narrow things down even further.
If you’re gonna focus on one entire topic, you might just create a blog that covers everything and anything about health.
This means you might end up with a massive website that attracts a ton of visitors.
But, focusing on a massive market is hard. As there are so many different angles to tackle.
You might also struggle to establish yourself as an authority, as you’re not specializing in one specific topic.
This is actually a really important point. Because Google really likes websites that focus on a specific industry and present themselves as an authority/expert on a given topic.
If you’re not able to do that, it can sometimes be a lot harder to get decent rankings on Google.
Plus, you should consider how things look just to a person browsing Google — aka your visitors.
If they come across your site and they realize you’re just talking about everything within a relatively broad topic, it’s not really gonna signal trust.
As a result, they might not want to stick around. And they may not really want to visit your website again or recommend it to other people.
So, there’s a tradeoff here — if you go after an entire big niche, you might get more traffic. But you might also lose out on your ability to build authority and that can have many negative results.
As I said, the other option is to actually just niche things down even further.
So, instead of focusing on the entire topic of health. You might focus on a specific diet, or even just a specific form of exercise such as running.
If you do this, you’re still gonna be dealing with a huge audience. And there’s no doubt that you will still be able to make money.
The only difference now, is that everything is going to be a lot easier to manage.
After all, if you’re focusing on a specific market, it becomes easier to create content. Because your focus is now a lot narrower.
It will also be easier to establish yourself as an expert. And this will make it a lot easier for you to promote your blog and attract links.
For instance, one really good way to build links is by using something known as the HARO method.
This is basically when you reach out to reporters that need a source on a particular topic.
This method works really well, and it can help you secure some really powerful links.
For example, here’s a link we secured on Forbes.com for one of our clients, using this method.
If you have a blog that focuses on a specific topic, it becomes a lot easier for you to get the attention of a reporter and secure these kinds of links.
After all, you’re gonna look like an authority. And reporters are much more likely to engage with you if you can position yourself as an expert.
By the way, if you’d like some advice on how you can use this method on your own site, you can book a free consultation call with us at juliangoldie.com.
Anyway…The approach you take here really depends on what you’re willing to do, and how you want to go about things.
That said, for most people, focusing on a sub-niche. Within one of these major evergreen topics is probably the best approach — especially if you’re new to blogging or SEO.
Can You Focus on General Topics?
If you’re not interested in these big evergreen topics, there’s also the option of focusing on general topics that don’t really fall under the categories mentioned above.
These general topics can often be based on anything. And aside from the two things we’re gonna mention in a second, there aren’t really any major rules here.
For instance, you could pick something like fishing or maybe even something based on a certain pet, like dogs.
Now, as mentioned, if you’re gonna go down this route, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.
Firstly, you want to make sure you’re going after a niche that is “big enough.”
If you focus on a fairly small industry, this could limit your ability to get a lot of traffic and then generate a lot of money.
Luckily, you can figure out how big a market is by doing keyword research. And that’s something we’re gonna look at in a minute.
Secondly, you want to try and focus on a relatively evergreen topic.
Earlier we touched on the three major evergreen topics, but there actually lots of smaller evergreen topics too.
If you pick an evergreen topic, people will be interested in your blog for years to come. And so you don’t have to worry about a sudden drop in visitors, due to changing trends and things like that.
Ok, so with that said, how can you make sure you tick these boxes when picking your niche?
Well, if you want to figure out how “big” a certain market is, you can generally get the job done by doing some keyword research and looking and search volumes.
One way you can do this is by using something like the Google Keyword Tool.
If you just provide this tool with a general keyword related to an industry. It will return a bunch of related keywords, as well as data related to monthly search volume.
For example, let’s suppose we want to focus on the topic of “dogs.”
Here’s what came up when I typed in “dog tips” into the “Google Keyword Planner.”
(By the way, I used the word “tips” here just to pull up some “informational keywords” that will generate blog traffic.
If I just typed in “dogs” here, I might end up with some “buyer keywords” and while these are helpful, they’re more suited to websites that are actually selling dog supplies.)
….Anyway, as you can see, there are a lot of keywords here that are getting at least 1,000 searches per month. This is a good sign, as it shows that there is a lot of demand around this topic.
Of course, the dog niche is massive, so it’s no surprise that these numbers are pretty large. If you’re gonna go after another market, you might not see numbers this big.
For example, you might just see something like 100-1000 searches per month.
This isn’t really a bad thing. But as you might’ve guessed, the lower the number of searches, generally the less money you can make.
By the way, sometimes, you also have the option of focusing on a topic, within a general niche.
So, if we take the dog example we just covered, you could just focus on one specific kind of dog breed.
You could then type that dog breed into Google Keyword Planner. And you’ll get a sense of how much traffic this “niche” generates.
Of course, the more you niche things down, the lower your visitor numbers might be and the less money you might end up making.
But, then again, if you go for this market within a market approach, you might end up uncovering niches that other people have ignored.
You might then end up making a good income, because you’re basically able to dominate an entire mini industry.
Anyhow…Aside from search volume, another thing you wanna keep in mind when picking a “general” niche is how “evergreen” it is.
If you’re not gonna focus on the big three areas we touched upon. You might be interested in focusing on a momentary trend that’s getting a lot of attention.
A good example of this from the past might be something like a blog based on “fidget spinners” or “hoverboards.”
When these things were at their peak, they were definitely generating a ton of traffic. And people definitely made a ton of money from them. But, these trends were momentary, and so these huge returns didn’t last.
When you’re picking a blog idea, you’re definitely free to go after something like this. But if you do this, just know that your time is limited. And you’re not really building something that you can work on for years and years to come.
Because of this, it’s generally better to focus on something that’s gonna have long-lasting appeal.
Which Idea Will Make the Most Money?
Odds are you’re gonna want to monetize your site at some point so that you can make a decent income from your blog.
If that’s the case, something you need to keep in mind here… Is that some markets are typically more profitable than others.
What this means is that different niches will generate different levels of income. Even if the number of visitors remains the same.
For example, a website in the “finance” world might generate more money from 1000 visitors, than a website in the fishing sector.
This is generally because affiliate programs in the finance industry might provide better payouts.
On top of that, if you put banner ads on your site — or if you use Adsense, or Mediavine, or something like that — you’ll generally find finance ads are gonna provide a better return when compared to “fishing” ads.
For example, here’s some data from the fatstacksblog.com, which is owned by Jon Dykstra. He has lots of different blogs in a number of different markets.
As you can see, his RPM (the amount he makes per 1,000 visits) varies by quite a bit between different site topics.
These differences can really add up when your site is generating thousands of visitors. And so this variation in RPMs is definitely something you wanna keep in mind.
After all, you don’t wanna settle on a topic. Just to find out that it’s not gonna produce a great income, even after generating a ton of traffic.
Okay, so now at this point you might be wondering how you can actually predict how much money you will make if you go after a certain idea
…Well…the truthful answer here… Is that you really can’t predict exactly how much a website in a certain market is gonna make, and there are no solid figures on this.
That said, there are a few things you can do, to figure out how much income a certain sector is capable of making.
For example, if you wanna predict affiliate marketing income, you can just go onto affiliate platforms such as Awin. And look at all the different affiliate programs for all the different categories.
You can then see how much each program pays out. And this can then give you a sense of the sectors that’ll produce the best income in terms of affiliate marketing.
When it comes to revenue from Ad clicks, figuring out profitability is a little trickier. As most ad networks don’t have public data that guarantees how much you will earn per click.
That said, you can often look at case studies of other sites to see what people are earning.
You might also want to see what the CPC figures are for AdWords ads that target the keywords associated with a certain category.
This isn’t super reliable info, but it does give you a sense of how much money advertisers are spending in a certain niche. And this can give you a really rough sense of how “profitable” a particular industry might be.
On top of that, the payout from affiliate marketing programs are often a good measure of how much you can earn from ads within a sector.
Meaning, the more the affiliate programs payout in a given market, the more you’ll likely earn from ads.
This isn’t always the case, but it’s often a good way to estimate things.
Of course, something to keep in mind here is that there are many ways to monetize a site. So, you could always sell an eBook or even a physical product.
If you go down this route, you might end up making more money than if you just focus on Ads or affiliate programs.
This is important, but this could then mean that you don’t have to focus that much on creating a blog that attracts tens of thousands of visitors per month — which can then give you some freedom when it comes to choosing an idea.
Anyway, at the end of the day, if you’re gonna start a blog of your own, you’re gonna need to balance your desire for profitability, against your ability to cover something you’re comfortable with and happy to work on over the long term.
It can be tempting to go after the most profitable route, but if you do that, you might end up burning out, and your site might not really amount to much — which in the end actually means you don’t make that much money at all.
Because of this, it’s a really good idea to find a good middle ground here.
Conclusion
Hopefully, by now, you should have a better sense of how you can pick a profitable blog idea.
A lot of people really end up stressing themselves out over this, and I totally get it.
But, it’s important to remember that you need to pick something, or else time is just gonna go by.
If you’re really worried about picking the wrong idea for your blog, always remember that you can expand on things as time goes on.
For example, if you focus on a specific part of the health market, such as a certain diet, you can always broaden the scope of your site so that you focus on other things later on.
If you keep this in mind, you should be able to ease some of the pressure that comes with choosing a topic.
