Before Choosing A Blog Niche And Domain Name For A New Blog

You have heard from 5 top bloggers the silly mistakes you must not also make in blogging, which choosing a wrong niche and operating on multi-topic are inclusive.

This article is not purely meant for only the newbies who don't have much idea about a domain name and a niche, but also for those who don't know how to use Google Keyword Planner to check if a keyword has a low competition and a high search volume. But for the sake of the newbies, I've made this article more informative as much as I could.

Before we go ahead, I would like you to understand the meaning of a blog niche, how I want you to relate it with what is called domain name, and then, know what makes a niche right for you before we move to the main discussion - 2 major things you should do before choosing a niche or a domain name for your new blog.

What is a blog niche?

A blog niche or topic is a specific topic that is being  discussed on a blog, let's say "hairstyle."

A blogger who chooses "hairstyle" as his blog niche would have to talk extensively on the following:

• Different hairstyles in a country, let's say Nigeria;

• Men and women hairstyles in Nigeria;

• How the hairstyles can be done (as in tutorials);

• Where to do the hairstyles;

• The costs of doing each hairstyle in particular places; and the lists go on.

Got that idea? Yeah, let's go.

What is a domain name?

A domain name is an identification link that people type into their address bar that takes then to your website. For example, the domain name for this blog is "easymadeblog.com."

• Read: (Fully Explained) How I Successfully Moved My ".com.ng" domain From Domainking

Let me make something clear to you here, there are two types of domain names:

• Sub-level domain - sub level domains or root domains are domain names that are offered by a blog host. Say you're running your blog on blogger, you can have a subdomain name like "yourblog.blogspot.com." The ".blogspot" attached is the host name. This I consider ugly, compared to a custom domain like "yourblog.com."

• The second type of domain is what I call " custom domain" or " top-level domain." It consists of your desired blog name and a type of extension. In the example I gave above, "easymadeblog" is my blog name while ".com" is my domain extension.

There are many standard domain extensions you can choose from. Examples are ".com", ".ng", ".net" etc - a domain name with these types of extensions is called "a custom domain name".

Then, if your domain name is your blog's identity, what about your niche?

That's why I said I have a way I want you to relate your niche with your domain name. How?

To my own understanding, your niche will do very much well when it contains the same keyword as your domain name. I will be using the example I used above - hairstyle, as a niche - to explain why I said this.

John and Paul run a hairstyle blog each, but with different domain names. John uses "latesthairstlyes.com" or hairstyle.ng," and Paul uses another domain name - think of a name that's not related to a hairstyle - "bodyimage.com."

If the two blogs are on the same SEO level, John's blog is likely to rank higher than Paul's when a user searches for the keyword" hairstyle" on search engines, by taking advantage of having the focused keyword in the domain and the niche inclusive.

• Read also: Tired Of .blogspot? A Full Guide To Set Up A FREE Custom Domain For Your Blog

I'm not making it a must to include your niche in your domain name, but try to find a related word to the niche for use in the domain name. Search engines also understand synonyms and related words, in case you don't know.

I don't wanna stress this too much. But if you ask me, that would be my little advice.

Do you now wonder what a right niche is?

Probably, you have pondered for so long on choosing a right niche for your blog, and you couldn't come up with an idea. You don't want to go into niches that you will need to compete with top bloggers who already know how.

What makes a niche right for you?

A niche is right for you when these 3 things are ensured:

• You have a little knowledge about the niche

It is when you have an idea about something that you would grow the idea. I'm not dictating that you need to pass through any learning process before you know if a niche is right for you. But the little knowledge you already have will give you the idea of "where, how, and what to start with." This will also give you the scope on how you can grow the idea in the later.

In a nutshell, it is far better having a little knowledge about a niche before choosing it, than having no idea about it.

• There is less competition for it

You wouldn't want to sell a single storybook in a market where many other books are sold. Would you? Unless you got the strategies it takes.

If you choose to go into a niche that has much competition, you could find it hard to get readers (and potential buyers for products you promote) because many people who are into that same niche might (and could) be more knowledgeable than you.

So, going for a less competition niche is vital. Not only this, but the niche should also have a high search volume (it is discussed below).

Now, how do you know if a niche has a less completion? Give me a minute, I discussed that below too.

• There is high search volume for the niche

It is risky to go for a niche that has a fewer competition and at the same time, a low search volume. This could still cause you pain in getting maximum traffic.

But when you go for a niche that has a fewer competition, but a high search volume, you are moving closer to making a huge profit out of blogging.

Why did I say this?

Having a high search volume means that many people are searching for a particular niche on the search engines. In other words, many people are seeking for solutions to their problems (related to your niche).

Imagine when a user searches for a solution to his problem and finds your blog as the first result. He could definitely be a constant reader or a potential buyer of products you market if you present yourself well.

• You love something about the niche (or the niche itself).

It is very important that you go for a niche that you love something about it, or ever the niche itself - like your hubby.

The reason being that it makes it easy for you to write with flexibility, and to come up with blog post ideas. And also, you won't always feel bored - since it's what you love doing. It would also make it a bit of fun for you to make money from what you love doing.

Now, we got to move to the real deal -

2 Must-do things before choosing a niche or a domain name for your blog.

• #1. Look at your environment

Promise Excel said in one of his books,

"No matter your blog topic, as long as you have a handful of people who are interested in it, you could become successful. Remember it's about helping people solve their problems. There's no right or wrong topic to blog about as long as you have at least 1,000 people in the whole world that are interested in that topic."

In other words, your environment is those people who are interested in your niche. Look at people you want to market your niche, and find them. Know where they hang out, and what interests them most about your niche.

This will give you many ideas about what types of topics you would be posting, and also the types of products you would market.

Click here to Read my interview with Promise Excel here

• #2. Do a research about your niche for your domain purpose.

Like I advised earlier, let your domain name relate (in terms of keywords) to your niche. We are going to discuss how you can do a quality research about your niche for the purpose of your domain name in a minute.

Remember what I said earlier: go for a niche that has less competition, but a high search volume. Also, remember that I promised to teach you how you can accomplish this.

So, let's check it out here:

• Say our desired niche is tied around "hairstyles," particularly in Nigeria.

There are different tools you can use to find if a niche has less competition and a high search volume, but in this article, we are going to make use of a tool called "Google Keyword Planner" by "Google Adwords."

In general terms, Adwords is a free tool from Google that lets advertisers set budgets for advertising and only pay when their ads are clicked. Adwords is focused on keywords, and this is the interesting part we need to get our stuff done.

==> Firstly, go to adwords.google.com/keywordplanner. Sign in with your Google account, if you're not logged in.

==> Click on "search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category."

==> Enter your desired keyword in the first box. Remember, we're using "hairstyles" as our focused keyword. So, to make it easier, I'm using "hairstyles in Nigeria."

==> Leave all other options untouched, and click on "Get ideas."

==> Here, we can see the average monthly search as 1M -  10M.

This means that in a month, there are nothing less than 1 million searches and up to 10 million searches for this keyword. Very much isn't it?

Now, let me break down the result when you scroll down. I want you to focus on four things here:

• The first column is titled "Keywords (by relevance)": This means that the keywords that are under this column are arranged in relevant to the keyword I used to get these ideas. The first keyword idea "hairstyles in Nigeria" is the same thing as the keywords I used to generate these ideas, while the second keyword idea on the list is "Nigerian hairstyles" which is more relevant than the third keyword idea "Nigeria hairstyle," and so on.

• The second column being the "Avg. mostly searches”: This is the range of the total number of searches that are performed on Google. As you can see the first idea's average monthly searches to be "100 - 1k", it means that minimum of 100 searches and 1000 maximum are performed in a month.

• The competition column: It shows you if the keyword idea has a low, high or is averagely competitive. Fortunately enough on this result, the first 30 keyword ideas have low competition - which is our target.

• The "suggested bid" column is another thing I want you to focus on: It tells you the average cost that advertisers have placed (or are ready to place) on this keyword when a searcher clicks on the ads. That is called cost per click (CPC)

Having this knowledge now lets you know the better keyword that is less competitive, and also has a high search volume. We will not bother about the whole search keyword ideas, let us just focus on the first 8 ideas that this tool generated.

• Point 1 >> The first keyword idea "Nigerian hairstyle" has a very low monthly search compared to the third idea "braid hairstyles." This means that the third idea has a high search volume than the first.

• Point 2 >> Take a look at the 8th idea. It's taking the second position on the list (as per monthly search result). It has 10k - 100k months search, which is still fair.

• Point 3 >> The idea that has the most suggested bids are idea number 3 (braid hairstyle of $1.85) followed by idea number 8 (braid styles of $1.60). With a good observation, the two ideas have a unique keyword which is "braid." It makes the two keyword ideas look familiar.

• Point 4 >> Hope you don't forget what a suggested bid means. This apparently means that people are ready to place higher bids on these two keywords than the other.

In our practical above, we can conclude that the phrase "braid" will be part of our targeted keyword niche and/or domain name.

However, you can still go further to generate keyword ideas for "braid" if you want the best keyword ever for your niche and domain name.

With the result above, I can go ahead to finding domain names like these:

• braidhairstyles.con
• latestbraids.com
• nigerianbraids.com
• womenbraids.com
• braidstyles.com
• womenbraidstyles.com
• perfectbraids.com
• hairstylebraiding.com

Do you want more?

I'm sure you are satisfied.

• Read: 10 Tested Ways To Make Money From Blogging Asides Google Adsense

In conclusion,

When I started my blog, I gave it many different names like this - moreinfoaboutblog.com. Funny enough, wasn't it? I did a trial-and-error trick before I could finally come up with a better idea. Had it been I came across this kind of article that talks extensively, on choosing a niche and domain name for a new blog, I wouldn't have stressed myself that much.

Now, you know why I finally gave it Easymadeblog? It’s just because I'm trying to make it easy for newbie bloggers to blog conveniently. Don't even bother to ask me if I made this kind of research.

By now, you should believe choosing a niche and domain for a new blog is as simple as ABC. Go ahead to choose your niche and domain, then come back here to share your testimonies with me.