Having a blog without a niche means getting results will take longer and you need to be patient. This post offers tips to help you stay on track and reach your goals if you’re blogging without a niche.
This post includes affiliate links. If you make a purchase using an affiliate link I may get a few bucks, at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. To learn more, read the Affiliate Disclosure.
To be a successful blogger and make money, it’s important to choose a niche market. Narrowing down your niche market and knowing who your ideal reader is informs your content creation and marketing strategy.
A profitable blog is designed with the reader in mind. Every post, offer and affiliate recommendation has the reader’s needs in mind. A money-making blog offers solutions to the reader’s problem and fulfills their need.
When you focus on who your reader is and how your blog serves them, your blog will make money for you.
Choosing a niche for your blog makes it easier to:
- make money more quickly
- build your list with freebie offers that convert
- create content your readers will engage with
- market your blog and products
- connect with readers and create raving fans
- grow your social media following
If you’re ready to work on choosing a profitable niche for your blog, read Easy Guide to Choose a Blogging Niche now, and be sure to grab my free Niche Smarts for Bloggers Workbook too.
Niche Smarts for Bloggers Workbook
How to Blog Without a Niche
If you’re like some bloggers, there’s no amount of books, courses or workbooks that will help you niche down. It might be because you don’t believe it’s important and profitable to choose a blogging niche.
Or you do want a profitable blogging niche, but are still struggling to find the right fit for you. In that case, one-on-one private coaching might be what you need. Working together, we can dig deeper into the specifics of your passions and expertise, your inspiration to start blogging and what would work best for you.
For some bloggers like you, it’s just going to take more time and patience. Possibly a combination of books, courses, coaching, time and patience!
Start a Blog Without a Niche
Some bloggers only figure out their niche by starting their blog writing about whatever they want. The key to this method of niching down is to keep creating. Always be creating.
Write blog posts, share on social media, create products or videos, freebies and printables. Whatever your heart desires. Keep going, and pay attention.
Read Start a Blog the Right Way: Easy 7 Step Guide
As long as you’re patient, and don’t give up when you’re not getting the same results on the same timeline as your peers, you will get to that niche clarity too.
The concern here though is the incredible number of bloggers who give up. I’ve explained how choosing a profitable blogging niche makes it quicker and easier to market your content, build a list, grow your following and make money. Without a clear niche, you may feel lost and invisible.
A Blog Without a Niche Requires More Patience
If you have blogger friends talking about their growing traffic numbers and affiliate sales, you may start doubting yourself and give up. Don’t do that.
Remember that the huge difference between the bloggers seeing success before you is that they have a niche and you don’t (yet). It doesn’t mean you’re no good at blogging, it doesn’t mean you can’t be successful. It only means you’re taking a different path, and that’s OK. As long as you make it a conscious choice.
Knowing who your ideal reader is, and what problems your blog solves for them, makes success come easier and faster. Set your intention to move in that direction over time.
Avoid Comparing Yourself to Niche Bloggers
Don’t compare yourself to super niched bloggers. It’s apples and oranges. Ideally, don’t compare yourself to anyone, but we all know that’s easier said than done.
Find bloggers like you, who started around the same time and chose to have a broad or multi-niched blog. Create relationships with them and support each other to stay focused and be patient.
If you remain positive and keep creating, you will likely begin to narrow down to your very favorite topics. You may start to attract a particular subset of people with the same challenges again and again, and a niche will simply choose you.
If you’re super charismatic and not at all afraid of risk and putting yourself out there, you may just go right ahead and build a million dollar blog with no niche in sight. It can happen. But that’s the unicorn… the rare and beautiful being.
I’m a little more practical than that, and my niche, or purpose, is helping moms like you make money with your blog. So I do recommend choosing a niche early on, or being committed to working hard to stay focused while you wait until your niche becomes clear.
Read How to Stop Comparing Yourself (the Secret to Success as a Mom Blogger)
What if I Have Too Many Ideas for My Blog?
For some bloggers, you may want to choose a niche but just have too many great ideas. If you’re already blogging without a niche, or you’re just getting started, try this content brainstorming exercise.
Content brainstorming can also help you niche down if you already have a multi-niched blog. Make a sheet of columns with each of the topics and categories you blog about now at the top.
Count how many posts you’ve already published for each topic or category on your blog. Be sure to include list freebies, videos and products you’ve created. Mark the totals under each heading on your sheet.
Then start brainstorming new content ideas you’d love to write about, and add that together with the numbers under each topic on your sheet. If you don’t have a blog yet, start right here with brainstorming.
Have fun with this exercise. And see if there are a few topics that really stand out. Do your ideas flow more easily for one topic than the others? Do some topics feel more fun to you than the others?
Make note of which topics have the most content ideas. If you’re using the Niche Smarts Workbook, this is Step 4.
Niche Smarts for Bloggers Workbook
If a few topics really stand out as being the easiest for you to generate content for, that’s your niche. Ideally, those few remaining topics will relate to one another. Even if they don’t, start narrowing down your content to those top categories that stood out for you in the content brainstorming exercise.
Discontinue creating content for the other topics you currently have on your blog. You might remove those categories from your main navigation. You might combine those posts together under a generic category such as “Lifestyle” until one day you may even delete them. Don’t delete any posts right now that are getting traffic or that you’ve shared heavily on social media though.
Read Quickly Find Blog Post Ideas for Beginners
How to Narrow Down Your Reader
Sometimes you’ll find you have 3-4 favorite topics that don’t clearly relate to one another. In that case, consider if you can narrow down which kind of reader you are writing to about those topics.
For example, if personal finance is one of 4 topics you want to continue writing about on your blog, can you narrow that down to a subset of readers? Instead of writing about personal finance in general, maybe your content is geared towards personal finance for newlyweds, or divorcees, or new college grads. Then all of your content, in different categories, can be written for that group.
In this way, you have chosen a niche for your blog based on a subset of readers, rather than by choosing a singular topic. This is another effective way of niching down and having a profitable blog.
When You Need More than One Blog
It may also be very possible that you are going to need to separate your great ideas into more than one blog. If your top categories that you want to continue writing about are unrelated and can’t be narrowed down to an ideal reader type, you may want to separate them into more than one blog.
For example, you want to write about travel for all types of people – men, women and children. You also love sharing your favorite fashion tips for new moms heading back to work. In such a case, it would make sense to have a travel blog and a separate fashion for new moms blog.
It will be far easier to market these different topics to different readers and make more money when they’re separated. Some bloggers will build up two blogs at the same time, while others will get one up and running before starting on the second.
When You Still Have No Idea How to Choose a Niche
If nothing in this post has helped you narrow down, and you still want to work on it, read Easy Guide to Choose a Blogging Niche and grab the free workbook.
There are some bloggers who start out with a clear niche and others figure it out with the right book, course or post. Have a look at Suzi Whitford’s Niche by Number eCourse.
Others need to work it through with the help of a coach, and I can help with that.
Some bloggers simply need more time. If you are unable to niche down now, get as clear as you can, then just start blogging without a niche. Start your blog now and choose a domain name broad enough to allow you to experiment with different topics for a while.
When you’re unsure of your blogging niche, narrow it down as best you can and start writing. In most cases, clarity will arise as you continue writing. You’ll discover which topics you most enjoy writing about, what comes more easily and what blogging niche inspires the best ideas in you.
Write as much and as often as you can, and pay attention. In all likelihood, you will find yourself leaning towards some topics more than the others, or towards one type of reader you prefer to write for.
Pay attention to your traffic data, using Google Analytics, and to your email marketing subscribers.
You may notice that you attract one type of reader more than others. You may have one category of posts that gets more traffic and engagement than the rest. There may be one freebie that gets more subscribers, or only one product getting sales. That will define your niche.
Blogging without a niche takes longer, and you’ll make less money, but you’ll likely find your blogging niche eventually. You must be very patient and not give up though.
Read Why Email Marketing for Bloggers Matters (and How to Start for Free)
Don’t Give Up
I do believe in the power of niching down, and I also believe in the power of being true to yourself. Don’t force the niche if it’s not coming to you by doing the work in Easy Guide to Choose a Blogging Niche.
But promise me you will remember that blogging without a niche is setting you on a different path. Staying broad is harder and takes more work. Gaining traction with the search engines and finding loyal followers will take more time.
If you’re blogging without a niche, be patient and don’t give up. Revisit this work after some time and you may find clarity then. If you’d like one-on-one support, start here.
What’s Your Experience Blogging Without a Niche?
Did you start out without a niche and stick with it? Did your niche become clear after some time? I’d love to know what your experience has been. Share in a comment below!
More Posts You’ll Love
- Easy Guide to Choose a Blogging Niche + Free Workbook
- Start a Blog the Right Way: Easy 7 Step Guide
- Best Resources for Bloggers (Including the FREE ones!)
- Affiliate Marketing Basics for Bloggers Who Want to Make Money
- 15 Elements of a Great Blog Post + Free Blog Post Template
Heather Cottrell is a single mom blogger, business coach and marketing professional. She started her first business and blog in 2005 as a health coach, and years later evolved into a WordPress web designer and business coach for women wellness coaches. In 2020 Heather launched Single Mom Bloggers to help stressed moms create freedom with a blog or business to make money working from home. Learn more about Heather Cottrell here and at HeatherCottrell.com.
Felt like this article is written just for me. I don’t have a niche because I get bored very easily and isn’t interested in anything for a long time. But yes, I do know that I will see success, maybe not as fast as niche bloggers but I will. Thank you for sharing.
I’m so glad you could relate! So many bloggers go without a niche, though too many give up because it’s a harder road. But if you know how to stay positive and focused, you can find success too!
I’m looking forward to reading your workbook. I have essentially styled by blog as a commentary on seniors and how our lives and experiences impact our place in the world today. Sometimes, I do get a bit afield with things like recipes I’ve enjoyed in my travels. But I have also had some success with posts about things such as movies or music that I enjoyed in my younger days. Perhaps those bring back good memories for others as well. I never really got into blogging to make money, although I won’t turn it down. But I do want to produce something meaningful to older people, and that also might help younger generations understand us a bit better.
I’m not sure if I have one niche or two. I write to moms, but I am also a pastor’s wife and share my experiences and failures. I’m not sure if I should separate them or not. Thank you for this article. It’s given me a lot to consider.
There can definitely be some overlap there. Try the exercises in this post and you may find yourself growing clearer on what you most enjoy writing about and who your ideal reader is.