Choosing Niche and Name

The first thing to consider when starting your blog is what you are going to write about. The niche you choose could be the difference between success and failure. A niche is a specific topic which you will write about. For example my niche on this website is Making Money Online Using Blogger with Adsense.

Things To Consider When Choosing a Niche

• Make sure your niche will bring in traffic. The term traffic means the people viewing your site. If your niche is about teacups, you will have a grand total of 100 people interested worldwide. Try to think of something that will interest people, my first website was about new technologies, which brought quite a lot of traffic.
• Make sure the niche is not over-saturated. By over-saturated I mean lots of competition. If you decide to make a site about Personal Finance and/or Saving Money, you will be competing with the likes of moneysavingexpert, who have been around for millenia and will crush you like an ant. If your heart is set on personal finance, then try to find something more specific to write about such as comparing supermarkets for prices, then expand as your fan base grows.
• Make sure you know a lot about your niche. This is probably the most important point when choosing your niche. If you are a 62 year old grandmother of 16, then you may want to consider entering the childcare niche. If you are a 20 year old virgin, I wouldn't recommend childcare as a niche to enter. This may seem obvious, but it's surprising how many people do not realise how much you need to know about your niche to be successful. 

So when you have thought carefully about where your natural talents lie, and have chose your niche, you will now need to think of a name for your site. Naming your site can be a difficult process, so I advise you to take your time.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Name

• The most important factor when choosing a name is for it to be original. Never use a name that somebody else has already coined. You may get penalised by Google for doing so. If you have an idea in your head I advise you to run a quick Google search to check if your name is original.
• Try to make your name abstract and catchy, yet let it say something about your niche. If you can hit both these points, then I take my hat off to you and you are on your way to success. For example the name moonpig, is very catchy and abstract, yet the name says nothing about their niche. Their niche is creating custom greetings cards. So if someone ran a Google search for 'online card maker', moonpig may not be at the top of the results. The site 'my card maker' however, is top of the results for this search term. This is because part of what was searched, was in the name and domain name of the website. This is an example of clever SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) which we will learn about later. However moonpig wins on the front of being memorable and catchy. As I said if you can hit both these points then well done! 

Once you've finally reached your choice, and you are ready for the next step head on over to:
Getting Started