Refining my niche. . .

SPMurphy · Jul 18, 2023

Hi everyone,

First: Please don't shoot me down in flames for asking about finding a niche

I am already 90% of the way there but am stumbling at the final hurdle.

Basically, I want to start a blog that helps parents boost their child's wellbeing and supercharge their learning -- and take care of their OWN mental health too.

Now, the issue I have is that I have a wide range of experience and am not sure which 'sub-niche to choose.

In terms of background: I have a plenty of degrees in education, a huge amount of experience across Primary and Secondary schools, across pastoral and academic, across teaching, middle management and senior leadership and in 20 years' experience in the UK and overseas. So, I am ale to talk about quite a few different angles -- and that's the issue.

So, my question is this: which is the best sub-niche in this genre? How will I know?

My heart lies in the idea of focussing on middle-school (e.g. 9 - 13-year olds), as my experience positions me well for that. But is it popular enough? Is it easy to monetise? etc. etc. I have not got access to anu pro level keyword research tools so cannot really check sreach volume and competition. I did ask someone on a freelancing platform to find me some low comp high volume keywords in this general niche.

I know that the "high school exam prep" type blogs are popular but REALLY saturated. I would prefer to focus on the more pastoral side of things, so it would be a kind of 'eduparenting' blog; e.g. a blog for parents who take a special interest in the education and educational wellbeing of their children (esp. in the age range mentioned, which can be a very tricky age given the transition between two vastly different phases of the school experience, plus puberty etc.).

I'll stop there and wait for some help (!!!), as I have been going round and round on this decision for WEEKS (I jest ye not).

Thanks so much in advance!

Black Belt Spodermen · Jul 18, 2023

Explore these topics manually on Google Trends and see which has the potential for making more money. This will take you some time but don't start immediately unless you find that the topic you are choosing has some affiliate programs to earn from or has potential customers that would buy your services.

SirLouen · Jul 18, 2023

From my experience, what you write is great and bad at the same time. The problem with SEO and niches is that your mastery sometimes is your biggest hinder.

For example, maybe currently, with all this hype with this new Threads social network, a "Threads account hacking" niche, could be extremely powerful but think yourself: "who in the world could really be a 20yr master in Threads Social Network topic?"

Noone.

Most of the time this content is 99% pure bullshit and 1% something useful that has been read here and there.

The exact same happens with thousands of potential niches. A complete noob in your area, could completely outrank you, if he happens to know the SEO strategies or is simply more charismatic writing about the topic, with a ton of copywriting skills despite talking 90% bullshit and 10% something that might have copied from your site and it's actually useful, while your super-useful-filled-with-pure-mastery-words could be ranking in 4th page without a great reason.

SEO it's more about skills in keyword research, on-page SEO strategies and reputation+authority building than being the master pro on something

Surely, I've heard in plenty of courses that "fill your passion to achieve results" and many people board on this adventure with this wrong misconception (yes, 1 out of 100 succeed with his passion in mind and no in-depth knowledge of SEO topics).

In the SEO world, this happens to be false. I would rather recommend you, to go the Multimedia path: YouTube, Podcast, TikToks/Shorts/Reels, etc... If you happen to be interesting on what you talk, and you are consistent enough to leave 3 videos per week (and a couple of microvideos in the middle), then you could be using some extra keyword research tools (as simple as keywordtool.io for example), to expand your set of keywords and ideas to make more and more videos (and see which work better and which doesn't).

But in text-land, webpage land, mastery is not that useful, unless you go into the SEO career to find out that you could have written about marsupials and be equally successful.

SPMurphy · Jul 18, 2023

SirLouen said:
From my experience, what you write is great and bad at the same time. The problem with SEO and niches is that your mastery sometimes is your biggest hinder.

For example, maybe currently, with all this hype with this new Threads social network, a "Threads account hacking" niche, could be extremely powerful but think yourself: "who in the world could really be a 20yr master in Threads Social Network topic?"

Noone.

Most of the time this content is 99% pure bullshit and 1% something useful that has been read here and there.

The exact same happens with thousands of potential niches. A complete noob in your area, could completely outrank you, if he happens to know the SEO strategies or is simply more charismatic writing about the topic, with a ton of copywriting skills despite talking 90% bullshit and 10% something that might have copied from your site and it's actually useful, while your super-useful-filled-with-pure-mastery-words could be ranking in 4th page without a great reason.

SEO it's more about skills in keyword research, on-page SEO strategies and reputation+authority building than being the master pro on something

Surely, I've heard in plenty of courses that "fill your passion to achieve results" and many people board on this adventure with this wrong misconception (yes, 1 out of 100 succeed with his passion in mind and no in-depth knowledge of SEO topics).

In the SEO world, this happens to be false. I would rather recommend you, to go the Multimedia path: YouTube, Podcast, TikToks/Shorts/Reels, etc... If you happen to be interesting on what you talk, and you are consistent enough to leave 3 videos per week (and a couple of microvideos in the middle), then you could be using some extra keyword research tools (as simple as keywordtool.io for example), to expand your set of keywords and ideas to make more and more videos (and see which work better and which doesn't).

But in text-land, webpage land, mastery is not that useful, unless you go into the SEO career to find out that you could have written about marsupials and be equally successful.

Thanks so much for the honest and to-the-point/no BS feedback -- I DEFINITELY intend on going multi-platform using YT Podcasts etc. And I am very aware of the importance of SEO, which is why I just bought 'Neuronwriter' which, I have to say, is pretty incredible. Fortunately, I love all the SEO stuff so am aiming to kill it in that area, too. So noobs beware!

In terms of the niche thing, though, would you say I am better targeting a more specific niche (e.g. Middle school/9-13 year olds) or open it up to blog/discuss/offer tips for everything (including all the study tip-type stuff)?

I also have the question of audience: the parents are the ones who are able to help me monetise but I am not sure whether I should eb reaching out to kids, too. I doubt they;d be interested anywhere near as much as the parents. I'm thinking of positioning it as an 'eduparenting' blog, as I mentioned earlier. . .

SPMurphy · Jul 18, 2023

sarfrazk9 said:
Explore these topics manually on Google Trends and see which has the potential for making more money. This will take you some time but don't start immediately unless you find that the topic you are choosing has some affiliate programs to earn from or has potential customers that would buy your services.

Thanks for the reply.

Google Trends was a little confusing in terms of getting specific terms in there. For example, I am interested in writing for parents of middle school kids, but when I entered 'middle school' the search volume was very high; however, when I looked at the results and what was being searched for specifically, it was actual middle schools in certain areas (of the US, for example) that people were looking for, which is not what I am writing about!

As well as writing posts and using other media (e.g. YT; LinkedIn etc.) I'll be creating and selling my own digital products, such as books and e-books as well as online courses. Affiliate products will probably be mainly Amazon at the start (i.e. relevant items for the audience; e.g. books/stationary/timers etc. etc.). Sponsorship should follow (traffic dependent) and AdSense will also feature.

SirLouen · Jul 18, 2023

SPMurphy said:
I also have the question of audience: the parents are the ones who are able to help me monetise but I am not sure whether I should eb reaching out to kids, too. I doubt they;d be interested anywhere near as much as the parents. I'm thinking of positioning it as an 'eduparenting' blog, as I mentioned earlier. . .

The thing here is for each idea you have in mind, you should start by researching your competence. Try as hard as you can to find a couple of competitors.
Then see their SEO power (how many keywords are already ranking and how powerful they are in terms of authority).

Because if you say "there are noone in my niche", then the likelyness you will receive visits is a pure coinflip
But if you say, yes for "whatever word you came up regarding educational topics", there are 200K visits per month, and the top 10 are like .edu sites from well-known universities focusing on that topic, then it will be equally useless.

This is why SEO, has became the art of finding easy niches, rather than an specialization art. And rarely a specialization has a single powerful keyword to take profit from. But who knows? Just start from there, maybe you may find a hidden gem, for example: "teaching IA to kids" (I'm just saying something at random, you should do your own due dilligence, you won't find any specific niche valuable insights in this forum, unless you pay for it in the marketplace)

Black Belt Spodermen · Jul 18, 2023

SPMurphy said:
Thanks for the reply.

Google Trends was a little confusing in terms of getting specific terms in there. For example, I am interested in writing for parents of middle school kids, but when I entered 'middle school' the search volume was very high; however, when I looked at the results and what was being searched for specifically, it was actual middle schools in certain areas (of the US, for example) that people were looking for, which is not what I am writing about!

As well as writing posts and using other media (e.g. YT; LinkedIn etc.) I'll be creating and selling my own digital products, such as books and e-books as well as online courses. Affiliate products will probably be mainly Amazon at the start (i.e. relevant items for the audience; e.g. books/stationary/timers etc. etc.). Sponsorship should follow (traffic dependent) and AdSense will also feature.

Use Trends only for checking what is popular. Otherwise use Keywords Everywhere extension or Answerthepublic to collect keyword ideas.

SPMurphy · Jul 18, 2023

sarfrazk9 said:
Use Trends only for checking what is popular. Otherwise use Keywords Everywhere extension or Answerthepublic to collect keyword ideas.

Thanks again for the replies -- that all makes sense.

I really appreciate the help.

Quality_content · Jul 19, 2023

1. Check Google Search Volume for your Niche Idea. You can use the free version of the Google keyword planner for that or some other app of your choice.
2. Check Google Trends.
3. Check if there are products on sale. It could be both digital or physical products.
4. Chcek on Amazon about niche and the products related to it. Also check out ClickBank if your niche has more digital products.
5. Check out the affiliate programs of ShareASale and Commission Junction.
6. Use OfferVault to really validate your niche ideas more.
7. Look for other popular websites or blogs on your particular niche.
8. Do not forget other forums and message boards from where you can actually get a goldmine of information. Of course this includes social media hubs as well.

SPMurphy · Jul 19, 2023

Quality_content said:
1. Check Google Search Volume for your Niche Idea. You can use the free version of the Google keyword planner for that or some other app of your choice.
2. Check Google Trends.
3. Check if there are products on sale. It could be both digital or physical products.
4. Chcek on Amazon about niche and the products related to it. Also check out ClickBank if your niche has more digital products.
5. Check out the affiliate programs of ShareASale and Commission Junction.
6. Use OfferVault to really validate your niche ideas more.
7. Look for other popular websites or blogs on your particular niche.
8. Do not forget other forums and message boards from where you can actually get a goldmine of information. Of course this includes social media hubs as well.

Thank you so much!

Refining my niche. . .

SPMurphy

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Black Belt Spodermen

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SirLouen

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SPMurphy

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SPMurphy

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SirLouen

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Black Belt Spodermen

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SPMurphy

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Quality_content

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SPMurphy

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