Passionate Power, Selecting Your Blog Niche

Ready to start a new blog or reinvigorate your current blog? What you choose for the topic of your blog will make the difference between a successful blog and just another blog caught in the world wide web.

Choosing a great blog topic is very important, however it does not have to be a difficult task. If you harness the power of your passion you can create your own niche and give your blog a clear direction to the top of your topic. Let’s get started…

What Is Your Blog About?

One of my closest friends decided to start blogging after watching the success I was having with one of my blogs. I helped him pick out a name and got him started with a free account on Blogger.com. After a couple of weeks he asked me why his blog was getting almost no visitors. There were several beginning blogger mistakes that he was making, but the major thing that was wrong was that I had no idea what his blog was about and I was sure that the few visitors that he had also had no idea what the topic of his blog was.

I asked him what his blog was about and he said, “I guess whatever I feel like blogging about.” Many bloggers make this same mistake. If you only want your friends and your mother to read your blog then by all means blog about what you did today, what your cat did today, and about what you had for lunch. However if you want your blog to attract a large audience that returns time and time again, then it is time my friend to discover your niche blog topic.

What Are You Passionate About?

You can blog about anything, but if you really want to be successful you need to unlock the passion that really gets you fired up.

Here is an easy exercise to get you started. List your hobbies, interests, experiences, skills, dreams, and topics that you are passionate about.

Here is my list:

• cooking
• personal development
• politics
• car audio and video
• home audio and video
• spreading passion and happiness
• financial freedom
• becoming a nationally syndicated talk radio show host
• running my own business
• comedy
• blogging
• helping other achieve their goals

Of course your list will look different than mine, but once you have your list it will be easy to narrow it down and focus on finding your niche.

At my other blog Passionate America I cover almost everything on my list. I do not suggest trying to cover so many topics on your blog. Here at Passionate Blogger I decided to focus on a targeted area of my list, namely Helping Passionate Bloggers Make A Living Online. By laser focusing my topic I hope to develop a niche inside an already crowded blog category. There are many blogs that focus on trying to help bloggers make money online and build better blogs, however the area where I hope to stand apart from the crowd is to help bloggers harness the power of their passions, energize their blogs, and inspire readers to use blogging as a path toward financial freedom.

Somewhere on your list you will find an area were you shine. To succeed you simply have to outshine the other blogs in your selected niche.

How Do I Outshine An A-list Blogger?

Chances are you won’t. You can try to unseat an a-list blogger and claim their throne, but you’ll have to do what they do better. Your best bet is to discover an under served market in your niche and then establish yourself as an expert in that market.

Here are some examples of blogs that discovered an under served niche and became leaders in that niche:

FreelanceSwitch.com, in just under 4 months they have 10,000+ feed subscribers and have established themselves as the top blog for freelancers.

Casey Serin is a 24 yr old “Would-be Real Estate Mogul” from Sacramento, California. Casey failed miserably at building his Real Estate Empire, finding himself in debt to the tune of 2.2 million dollars. Did Casey decide to give up? No, he started blogging about his situation and in less than a year he has used his stories (on what not to do in the real estate market) to become a profitable blogger. Find out more about Casey at his blog I am Facing Foreclosure .com.

Success doesn’t always come overnight and for Frank J at IMAO.us it’s taken 5 long years. IMAO is a leader in conservative political humor. With 7.4 million visitors and an average of 6,000 plus visitors a day Frank J. is a niche blogger success story. Frank J realized that there were many conservative slanted political blogs on the internet, however humor related conservative sites were few and far between. With his quick wit and bitting sarcasm Frank J serves up a daily dose of Teh funny that has earned him a top spot in his category.

Do you have what it takes to become a successful blogger?

Ready, Set, Blog!

The best way to find out if you have a winning niche idea is to roll up your sleeves and start blogging. I mean really blog with all your heart and all your passion. Spend at least 3 months pouring your heart and soul into blogging about your topic. At the end of that 3 months take a serious look at how your blog is doing and whether the niche you have selected is attracting an audience. If you are not seeing the success you would like slowly change your focus and explore another niche and see if you have more success.

Blogging is a learning experience, with a little trial and error you should be able to find the niche that is right for you.

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