Niche Blogging: How to start a successful niche blog?

Niche Blog is actually a blog where you just write about some specific topic. For example a niche blog can be about Andriod apps, Smart Phones or you can start a blog about gaming. But to make it successful, you need to work on several things in order create a successful niche blog which I will tell you in the this tutorial.

So let’s start, Before starting a niche blog you need to first consider your topic. And it can be anything in which you have your expertise.

Consider yourself an Andriod developer who wants to start a blog about Andriod Apps where he can publish latest news about Andriod and can promote his own created Apps.

So let’s start,

Buying a Domain

The first thing you need to do is to buy a domain for your new niche blog. But be very smart when you are selecting a domain for your blog. Make sure that the name of your keyword is appearing in your domain name and your domain name should be very self explainable which can tell both Google and audience that what it is about. In our case our domain should tell that it is about Andriod apps.

For instance, Andrioddaily .com is more understandable than ChipApp .com. Even if a new internet surfer will just read the first domain then he can understand that about what topic this website “AndriodDaily” will be about.

So try to be more authentic and use your keyword in your domain. But make sure that you do not buy an EMD(Exact match domain) because Google has decided to penalize such domains.

Choosing the right platform

Now it’s time to select a hosting plan for your blog. There are numerous platforms on internet where you can host your blog including Tumblr, Blogger, Joomla and Wordpress.

Every single platform has different features. However, my favorite is WordPress. WordPress is the largest ever blogging platform for bloggers. According to a research 32% of the internet is filled with WordPress blogs.

But despite the fact that WordPress is so popular, it also provides some tremendous features which can be very useful to start a niche blog.

Let’s assume that you want to start a blog about WordPress itself, where you can publish articles about WordPress plugins, WordPress news and a blog where you can share some other resources about blogging too.

Now if your blog gets popular(and I wish it will), you will be able to promote some Premium WordPress plugins to earn some affiliate commission. Just join an affiliate program, get the affiliate link and share it on your blog. Or write about the plugin you are promoting, another good way to convince your readers to buy the plugin will be to show them a live demo on your blog.

But make sure that you have a good hosting plan with good bandwidth speed or it will crash when the amount of visitors will increase. My recommendations are Hostgator and BlueHost(you will get a free domain with Blue).

Read more about BlueHost

Let’s say you are promoting an Opt-in Form plugin, so it will be a great idea if you will use that Opt-In plugin on your blog. If your readers will like it, they will buy it too from your affiliate link.

But in some cases when you don’t have finance to buy a hosting plan for WordPress, then using a free platform will be a better choice for you. And my recommendation is Blogger amongst all other free platforms to start a blog.

Publish quality resources

Now when your blog is set, and you are ready to publish articles on it. You need to make sure that your articles are unique and are helpful for the audience. For this you can hire a writer from Elance or Odesk or if you feel that you can do it for yourself then make sure that you are writing quality stuff.

And don’t forget to do On Page SEO on your blog. Make sure that you link to relatively quality content. You will read more about On page SEO in the link given above.

Promote Your Blog

Now when you have a good domain, a good hosting plan and good content, it’s time to promote your blog. Join these platforms to promote your blog. Promoting your blog can also help you to earn quality backlinks to your blog.

Make sure that you have subscribe us form placed on your blog to convert your readers into Subscribers.

Link Building

Now comes the most important part “Link Building”. Link building is being quite a tough task to do, especially now when there are lots of gossips and rumors around the internet about it.

Many people will tell you that don’t do that or you will get a Google penalty and the other guy will tell you to do the same to get better ranking in SERPs. So it is quite confusing but let me tell you, link building is still not that difficult as it is assumed by the webmasters nowadays. But Yeah, that is true that Search Enigne ranking has now many aspects despite of link building.

Now you need more Social signals to get better ranking in SERPs, especially Google+ signals. According to Matt Cutts, these +1’s from Google+ help you to earn do follow backlinks. Yeah!, do follow backlinks. Actually, Matt Cutts revealed that trick unwillingly when there was a debate going on about Google +1 signals.

Here’s what Matt Cutts said;

It is not the +1’s themselves that are causing the high rankings of posts but the fact that most +1’s on a site result in a shared post on Google+, which creates a followed link back to the post. It’s instant organic link building.

Here’s the source which forced Matt Cutts to give such an statement.

Wrapping it up

So just consider all these things before starting a niche blog. Make sure you have your keyword in the domain but also make sure that your domain is not an EMD or Google will reduce your search engine ranking. Get quality backlinks and try to be more authentic.

Do proper On Page SEO and last but not the least, choose less competitive niches.