Are you looking to turn a niche topic into a blog? If so, the lack of competition may allow you to build a surprisingly large audience. After all, if no one else is doing it, you are the only option available.
Today, I will demonstrate how to create a niche blog using WordPress.
Come Up With A Plan
The biggest mistake you can make when starting a website of any kind is to just jump right into web development without coming up with a plan or rough draft first. In most cases, you probably are not building the first blog of its kind. However, if it is a really focused niche topic, it may feel that way.
Scour the internet to find everything you can on your particular topic and try to understand the audience you are aiming for. Identify reasons why similar blogs either failed or have yet to grow.
Is it because the audience is simply too small? Was their presentation and quality of the content not great? Can you come up with ways to be better?
You should also take the time to come up with a design for your website. What kind of colors will you use? Do you have a particular layout in mind? Are there any key features that are a must for your blogging niche?
Only once you have collected information and spent some time thinking up a stellar design are you ready to build a website.
Pick A Web Host and Domain Name
Whether you are using a popular or niche topic does not matter. The first step of building a website is to always find a reliable web hosting company. A web host rents you a web server, in which you can store your website. Whenever someone accesses your website, they are really connecting to that web server.
Thus, finding a quality web host is important. However, they are not created equal.
Here at GreenGeeeks, we are proud of the customer experience we offer. We provide fast speeds, strong security, a 24/7 support team that is experienced and ready to help along with optimized WordPress webservers to help you get the most out of them.
And it’s all at a great price.
However, we differentiate ourselves with our commitment to the environment. The web hosting industry has an enormous emissions problem that is eclipsing the airline industry. We make sure we do not contribute to this.
We carefully calculate how much energy we use to host every website and purchase 3 times that amount in wind energy. As a result, every website we host is carbon-reducing.
You will also need to select a domain name before continuing. This is the URL of your website and as such, it should follow some guidelines. It should be short, easy to remember and reflect what your website is about.
Why WordPress is Perfect for A Niche Blog
Next is finding a platform to build your website on. These are called Content Management Systems (CMS), and there are a ton to choose from. Each one has a set of features it excels at and others that don’t. This can make it a tough choice.
Luckily, when it comes to blogging of any kind, WordPress is the best choice you can make.
WordPress is by far the easiest CMS you can use to build a website on, and you can build any kind of website to boot. This is accomplished by offering an intuitive design. You won’t be spending time searching for a particular setting or feature because they are where they belong.
You also don’t need to worry about your coding experience or lack of it. Unlike other CMS, WordPress does not require you to write a single line of code. Instead, the vast library of plugins and themes does all the heavy lifting.
But don’t just take my word for it. Over one-third of the internet uses WordPress.
What Are Plugins And Themes?
Since plugins and themes are going to do most of the work, it’s important to understand what they really are.
A plugin is a small piece of software that adds a specific feature to your website. The best way to think of them is like apps for your smartphone.
A theme is a collection of templates that allows you to customize the appearance of your website. However, if you think of themes as purely cosmetic, you are mistaken. They also include features that separate them.
Now you are probably wondering, how much will this cost you?
The good news is that the vast majority of plugins and themes are completely free, but some do offer a premium version with extra features or better performance. When just starting out, free is the way to go. But as your website grows, premium tools are something to consider.
Here are some plugins and themes to help you get started:
Social Share Icons & Social Share Buttons
Social media plays a huge role in promoting your website. One way to make it easier is to add social share buttons to your website. The Social Share Icons & Social Share Buttons plugin is a splendid choice. It offers 16 design options for all the major social media platforms.
Yoast SEO
Writing quality content is no easy feat, and you’re going to want all the help you can get. The Yoast SEO plugin can provide that help and valuable SEO tools to help your website rank better. It helps you identify passive tones, consecutive sentences, overly long sentences, and the overall reading difficulty of your post.
Niche
The Niche theme is perfect for any type of niche topic. It offers a modern design that is responsive (works on mobile devices), loads fast, and is extremely customizable. Its layout was meant for blogging and utilizes a 2-column grid and a slider to get your posts seen by visitors.
Opus Blog
The Opus Blog theme is a great choice if you are looking for an elegant design. It offers a built-in slider, header & footer customization options, color options, and much more. It’s perfect for any type of blog, so it is sure to fit your niche.
Marketing Your Niche Blog
Marketing has come a long way over the years and even provides an opportunity for niche blogging topics. But it is certainly an uphill battle. Unlike other topics that may eventually be searched for once or twice, if your topic is really out there, you can face some trouble.
As such, you need to be really creative.
A good tactic is to try to combine or compare your topic with something else in a marketing campaign. For example, let’s say you run a blog about a really obscure movie franchise. Look for something similar to it that is popular and mention them together.
It might not bring in the audience you are intending, but if you do it right, you might convince the visitor to look into the really obscure topic. And you can do this on a variety of platforms like:
- YouTube
And many more. If the interest isn’t there for your topic, you need to help create it.
Make Quality Content
Even if you build an awesome website and market correctly, your success if still dictated by the quality of your content. If you want to help make a particular topic more popular, then you need to have quality content that visitors will share themselves. So get writing!