How To Start A Niche Blog: A Beginner's Guide & Basics

You’re ready to start blogging, but not sure where to start?

In this free mini-guide, I will provide you with a step-by-step guide (ELI5) covering the basics when starting a niche blog.

It’s not complicated, but it does require some planning. If you’re a fast learner, you can start blogging within a few hours or days.

To dispel any doubts about the viability of blogging: It’s far from dead, and I don’t see that changing soon.

Some stats to back up that claim:

70% of internet users confirm they read blog posts and regularly visit the same sources
There are over 600 million active blogs
More than 40% of those blogs are built in WordPress

Those are big numbers, but you also need to be aware that:

80% of new blogs fail within the first 18 months or are abandoned
Most bloggers do not see enough revenue unless they’re consistent in their efforts

It shouldn’t discourage you. It should only motivate you.

If you’re able to put in the work for more than 18 months, you’re already beating the majority of new bloggers.

In this guide, I want to go over a few points based on my experience and perspective.

The points I will cover are:

Why Do Many Bloggers Fail?
Why WordPress Is My Preferred Choice
How To Pick Your Niche For Your Blog?
How To Pick A Name And Domain Name For Your Blog?
Which Domain Extension Is Right For My Blog?
How To Pick The Right WordPress Hosting? + Recommendations
How Much Budget Do I Need To Start A Blog?
Should I Use AI For Blogging?
How To Plan, Research, And Write Your First Blog Post?
How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be?
How Important Is SEO For Blogging?
SEO Basics & Introduction
Common Mistakes New Bloggers Make
Final Word

Affiliate Disclosure: Some links might be affiliate links. I might earn a small commission when you buy through my links. If you do, please know I only support brands or companies that I either use myself or fully believe are beneficial for my readers. Thank you!

Why Many Bloggers Fail, According To Me

The majority of niche bloggers are in it to make money eventually. And there’s nothing wrong with it.

But what bothers me is that they’re aiming for monetization on day one.

Starting a niche blog should be treated like any other business or startup.

When you simply change your view from blogging to make money to treating it as a business, you will have the right mindset to succeed.

Blogging requires:

Research
Planning
Execution (writing, editing, and publishing)
Consistency
Establishing authority in your niche
Adjustments & pivots
Routine
Marketing (e.g., SEO or Social Media)
Conversion (subscribers, sales, followers)

It’s not that different from any other business in an early stage, and it’s no surprise that most blogs fail within 18 months of inception because they underestimated the impact or workload.

Read also: Why Do Bloggers Fail

The secondary reason, in my observation, is that they started off strong.

A hundred miles per hour at lightning speed, just to vanish the next day.

Blogging is not a sprint. It’s a true marathon, and it will often feel like an uphill battle, but it’s worth it.

Why WordPress Is My Preferred Choice

To avoid confusion, there are two versions of WordPress.

The .COM website is a commercial version and hosts your website for you, and “manages” anything around it.

The features and options are far more limited than with ORG. On top of that, the lower plans display ads you don’t even want to and you’re not the one raking in the earnings.

The .ORG is the free and open-source version. You can download it and host it anywhere you want.

You can change anything, replace anything with virtually no limits. All you have to do is find a WordPress host and self-manage it.

I use the .ORG version, and is hosted with Stablepoint hosting.

The difference lies in the freedom and flexibility.

The .com puts you in a vendor lock, the .org one gives you unlimited freedom.

Picking the right CMS (content management system) from the start is a critical decision.

Assuming you pick the open-source version of WordPress, the keyword freedom plays a huge role.

I am not stopping you from starting a blog with Wix, Squarespace, or other platforms, but they are closed-source, and you’re at the mercy of their conditions.

And to be honest, it’s not as cheap for beginners when you’re just starting a simple blog.

If they decide to raise their subscription price by 10x tomorrow, you’re either forced to pay or move your content to a more affordable platform.

I prefer WordPress because it can be hosted virtually anywhere. If you’re not happy with your current hosting provider, or they decide to hike their prices, you have unlimited options.

But the main reason why WordPress is my go-to blogging platform is that the internet is flooded with information about this CMS.

99% of the cases have been solved by communities
You’ll be able to find a WP developer on every corner to assist you
Reddit is a treasure when you’re dealing with a minor WP issue

I love WordPress because the platform has been documented by expert bloggers, industry experts, and communities, and millions of blog posts cover every subject imaginable.

It’s no surprise that the majority of niche bloggers will pick WordPress as their favorite CMS.

Now, it’s time to dig into the real stuff!

How To Pick Your Niche For Your Blog?

My favorite subject. I am almost sure you searched for:

Best niche ideas for blogging
Most profitable niches for blogging

But most search results will end up with general lists like travel, finance, food, and you’re none the wiser.

There’s a distinct difference between a niche and an industry.

Travel / Finance / Food are industries, NOT NICHES.

Niche examples would be:

Single Female Travelers With Disabilities
Female Managers In Tech Interested In Mindfulness
Vegan Leather Fashion For Middle-Aged People
Gluten-Free Food For Teenagers With ADHD
Crypto Investing For College Students In Finance

Do you see the difference?

The more niche you go, the easier it will be to rank on specific keywords and you’ll have the least of friction with your SEO efforts.

What matters most is the alignment and co-existence between the niche and the target audience you want to target.

A simple example would be:

If you’re passionate about vegan leather, your target group would be middle-aged people.

Your tone of voice, perspective can be more complex than if you were to target teenagers.

Middle-aged people already have a career and possibly disposable income, which can also determine how you want to write, recommend, or promote certain products in a price range.

Once you understand that, we start to define your niche, and here’s how we do that:

Note down your personal interests
Note down your professional interests or studies (if you are still a student)
Write down a short bio about your current life

Then try to find that overlap between your professional and personal interests.

By mapping out all your interests, passions, and drafting your bio on paper that almost sounds like a sales pitch, you might discover what you prefer to blog about.

Being interested in something doesn’t mean you’re passionate about it.

So what you should do now is do a similar exercise and see what you come up with.

Emphasize the things you prefer doing and are most passionate about.

Assuming you found your industry and niche, it’s time to pick a name.

How To Pick a Name And Domain Name For Your Blog?

An important element before you start blogging.

The wrong name can have consequences, and I urge you to put much effort and thought into that decision.

If you’re building a niche blog, you want a name that helps you reflect or position your brand for content marketing.

For example, let’s say you’re into vegan food.

You can go for:

iloveveganfoodsomuch
vivalasvegan
livingvegan

Which one do you think:

Reads better?
Is easier to pronounce
Is more brandable or marketable?
Reduces the risk of spelling mistakes?

The first one is too complicated.

The other two are more catchy and easy to remember.

In my opinion, you have two choices:

Pick a name that relates to your niche
Use your name if you want to build a personal brand

The reason why I chose Nicheblog.co for this website is obvious. But it does come with some restrictions.

I can’t just suddenly start talking about tech products or lifestyle-related subjects. But that’s also done on purpose.

The good news about the type of content I can provide is that it can be balanced between evergreen articles and the latest trends in search, niche blogging, or content marketing.

Be sure of your decision.

Imagine you’re passionate about vegan cooking, but you wake up and decide to pivot to pets. You can’t use that specific domain name anymore.

If you plan to go micro-niche, go for a particular name
If you plan to possibly pivot or add different subjects, use your name or a more generic name that lifts those limitations.

Which Domain Extension Is Right For My Blog?

If possible, always pick the .COM if available.

.COM is the most trusted extension
It’s the most credible and has a better reputation
It’s recognized worldwide

When people hear or read about your brand, the most common reaction will be adding .com at the end.

You can’t underestimate the type-in traffic. Nobody is going to add .xyz, .mom, or some weird extension like .fyi at the end.

Besides, would YOU trust a website with a weird domain extension?

I know, it’s ironic since I am using a .co on this particular website, but it’s the best alternative, and the owner of the .com is currently selling it for a price that’s a bit outrageous.

Associations

New domain extensions are often cheaper than .com domains.

When .XYZ launched, they offered domains for 1 cent.

People were buying thousands of domains with the hopes of reselling them for a greater value.

But what happened was that they were used and abused for:

email spam
scams
hidden links
anything that has malicious intent

.XYZ was already doomed from day 1, and they never recovered from that. They go over the counter for $2-$3 nowadays and are still considered a magnet for scams and abuse.

Don’t pick a domain name with a strange TLD (extension) because it’s cheaper. It’s possibly going to cost you a lot more(reputation, harder time converting, signups, etc.)

If you’re serious about niche blogging, remember to treat it as a business, and that’s why .COM is preferred.

Exceptions

There are a few exceptions to the rule. I could give a free pass to:

.CO, but you might lose a lot of type-in traffic
.AI, when you’re building a business around artificial intelligence or ML
Local extensions, if your target audience is GEO-specific or language-specific

Note that the domain extension has no influence on your organic rankings in search engines.

A .COM domain is not going to score better than a .CO.

How To Pick The Right WordPress Hosting? + Recommendations

On average, 7 million blog posts are published daily.

40% of the blogs are created in WordPress, and 2.8 million blogs are hosted with a hosting company that provides WordPress Hosting.

There are over 330,000 web hosting companies, with AWS, Google Cloud, and GoDaddy owning the largest share.

The supply is there, and you’re the demand. But how are you going to pick what’s right for you and within your budget?

But more importantly, how much do you know about WordPress and self-hosted solutions?

Read My Full Guide: Best Cheap WordPress Hosting For Niche Blogs

Budget

If your budget allows you to, think in years and not months.

Yearly hosting plans often offer discounts, and you commit yourself to your niche blog more than just paying per month and canceling it 2 months later.

The psychology is that you are more invested and want to extract the maximum value of your spending.

Setting a budget will eliminate a lot of companies that you can’t host your website with.

And it’s okay if you start on the cheaper end. Since you can move and host your website anywhere.

Technical Support

Budget is often not the problem; it’s the technical know-how and support.

People anchor prices more than anything else.

If you’re new to blogging and have never touched WordPress before, you don’t want to end up with a hosting company that lacks support, live chat, or is not specialized in basic WordPress knowledge.

Find a hosting company that has a great reputation and well well-received
Browse the Reddit forum for official recommendations
Ensure that the hosting company highlights its focus on WordPress

Why?

Generic hosting companies serve too broad of an audience, and customer support often lacks the expertise for problem-solving standard issues in WordPress

An example would be KINSTA.

I used to be a client when I was helping my wife with her e-commerce.

It’s not cheap, but what makes them justify the price is:

Infrastructure
The fact that there are WordPress experts in live chat
They solve problems faster than no other in my personal experience
Their entire blog is all about WordPress & WordPress issues

They managed to build such a credible reputation that price comes second or third.

When you’re new to niche blogging, you want to host your blog with a company that not only provides great hosting but also gives you peace of mind.

If live chat or fast support with technical know-how is critical, then go for it.

You might favor cheap hosting over a total package, but if you start to mess up your backend, you end up hiring a freelancer who will cost you more than just paying a little extra every month.

Cheap Hosting Can Be Very Expensive

Price can influence stability & performance.

Cheap hosting is often shared hosting, and shared hosting means sharing resources with other hosting clients.

If one client gets a malware attack, you can be affected
If one website gets a surge in traffic, it can slow down your website
You are operating on limited resources, including CPU power

Imagine you start blogging. And you’re slowly seeing some organic traffic coming your way.

If your hosting is underperforming, you end up losing 90% of your traffic because of slow pages or loading times.

You can’t have cheap & fast in one sentence (usually). There are insane trade-offs you make.

That cheap hosting package can cost you your target audience, organic traffic, and the chances are they never even saw the page and clicked away before that happened.

That would imply that your cheap hosting turns out to be an expensive endeavor.

You don’t want to put your sweat and tears into your niche blog, just to see your traffic vanish.

Disk Space & Server Location

WordPress itself is lightweight, but if you decide on using a premade WordPress theme or website builder on top, the size will increase.

A simple blog with some images will require 2-4GB of disk space, but that’s pretty bare. You probably want around 10-20GB of disk space for your niche blog.

Most providers have different upgrade/downgrade options.

But disk space isn’t going to be a problem. It’s the server location that’s more important.

My target audience is worldwide and not country-specific. So I picked the option to host my website on a more central location, like the West Coast US.

If your audience is Germans only or the EU as a continent, then it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to host it in South Korea or Japan.

It would increase the loading time and latency and therefore degrade the user experience.

Which can yet again lead to a loss of traffic.

Many hosting providers offer different server locations, so pick wisely.

You always want to host your website in a location as close as possible to your audience.

Make a consensus when it’s an international audience you’re after.

WordPress Hosting Recommendations

If you want an in-depth guide about more hosting recommendations (including those below), I suggest you read my full guide.

Read The Full Guide: Best Cheap WordPress Hosting For Niche Blogs

StablePoint (from $2/month)

Great reputation
24-7 Live chat
99% of the issues were solved within 2 hours or less

I do recommend the Medium plan, because you want to have more virtual memory for a better experience

Visit Stablepoint Hosting

Kinsta (from $30/month)

One of the fastest
Excellent tech support 24/7
True WP experts behind the keyboard
Ideal when you scale or run a large e-commerce

Visit Kinsta Hosting

WPX ( from $20/ month)

By far the fastest hosting I encountered
Specializes in WP only
Ideal for blogs that scale
Strong reputation

Visit WPX Hosting

Krystal (from $19/month)

One of the top recommendations on Reddit
Reliable & great reputation
Expanded documentation

Visit Krystal Hosting

How Much Budget Do I Need To Start A Blog?

You can start a blog with no money if you’re keen on using free platforms like Substack, Medium, or Blogger.

But no serious niche blogger will go for that option:

Limitations
Subdomains on a free platform
Not marketable or brandable enough

If I have to give you an estimate, you should have $40-$300 as a starting budget.

Domain name ($10/year)
WordPress Hosting ($30-$200/year)
Theme & layout ($40-$100 per theme or a yearly license)

The latter is optional, and if I were you, I would pick a free starter theme from WordPress.org.

The new block editor function opened up a lot of functionality, where external site builders like Elementor or WPBakery Builder became less important to build your niche blog.

For those who aren’t tech-savvy with WordPress yet, you might opt for an out-of-the-box solution from marketplaces like Themeforest.

However, keep in mind that it carries some risk:

Authors might abandon themes and provide no future updates
Coding and theme might be bloated, which can cause security leaks
A lot of themes are built for aesthetics, rarely built for speed
90% of the paid themes from Themeforest will cause performance issues

If you do decide to go for a premade theme, always do your diligence about the creator.

Are they a power seller?
Do they update their older themes regularly?
How fast are they answering buyers in the comment and feedback section?

But when you’re just starting your first niche blog, you should worry less about aesthetics and focus on readability, speed, and performance.

WordPress is highly customizable, and nothing will prevent you from creating or improving your blog with a better layout in the future.

I suggest:

Start with a free block-based theme from WordPress.org
Learn the basics and alter the layout during your blogging journey
If you’re keen on using a theme, I would recommend Generatepress

Remember that 55% of website traffic comes from mobile devices.

Mobile versions of a blog are usually stripped-down versions of a full website, so focus should always be on writing, publishing and editing.

Should I Use AI For Blogging?

I wrote about this in a different blog post, but I want to mention it briefly in this guide for beginners.

AI writing has been around longer than ChatGPT. Except it wasn’t as integrated as much as we know it today.

AI writing tools like Koala Writer or AI agents like Perplexity or Claude are there to assist you in the writing, NOT to do the writing for you.

I write every blog post or guide I’ve ever published.

Do I sometimes use AI?

Yes. But it’s how you use it.

Finding inspiration
Find related topics
Research
Helps you to remove writer’s block

Or in my case, I use Apple Intelligence to rewrite some of my sentences because my English vocabulary is limited.

The most successful bloggers I have ever met do not use AI to write the content for them.

AI-written blog posts lack emotional depth and personal views. Something that ChatGPT with the “correct” prompt can’t even solve today.

When ChatGPT broke the internet, new bloggers tried to game the system by spitting out hundreds of low-quality posts.

They ranked fast, but their sun run only lasted once Google caught up and punished them.

Your goal as a niche blogger is to build an audience that trusts you. An audience that might follow your recommendations or strongly support your opinions.

You can’t do this without emotional input or personal perspective.

Use AI wisely and use it as a vehicle to accelerate your writing and research. Not to do the writing for you.

How To Plan, Research, And Write Your First Blog Post?

Your first blog post will be terrible. And it’s often the hardest piece of content, because your blog is empty and there’s nothing else to refer to.

But it doesn’t have to be perfect, nor does it have to be complicated.

The good news is that you don’t need anything fancy, and no complicated “productivity stack” to launch your blog.

The tools you can use are:

Google Docs (free)
Google Sheets (free)
Notion (free plan will do)
Pen & paper
Note-taking app, like Apple Notes

I did not add an SEO tool, because I strongly believe they are irrelevant when you’re writing those first blog posts.

I also witnessed people over-engineering their planning and research, and never got to start writing.

How Do You Start Planning?

Let’s go with a popular topic, and you’re trying to create a blog about Marketing.

But that’s an industry and not a niche, so you could first narrow down your potential target audience.

Your reasoning should be:

I want to start a blog about marketing
My interests are primarily Fintech & SaaS companies

You then map out 1-3 categories within the industry, such as:

Social Media
Email Marketing
Content Marketing

You could let ChatGPT or Claude assist you, or simply note down the topics you can think of.

An example would be:

Social Media
- Is social media popular with FinTech SaaS companies?
- Most popular social media channels for FinTech SaaS companies
Email marketing
- Most used email strategies for FinTech startups
- How do neo banks use outbound emails for client acquisition?
Content Marketing
- What is FinTech content marketing?
- Why is content marketing important for Fintech SaaS businesses?

By noting them down, your subconscious has already given you a direction of what you like to write about, and that will make it easier for you to find additional blog topics.

You have to accept that your first written blog posts might be terrible, but nothing will prevent you from rewriting or updating them in the future.

Limit Yourself With Categories

One of the rookie mistakes I’ve seen is that many new niche bloggers start with a complicated structure and too many blog post categories.

I suggest you limit yourself to 1-3 categories before expanding. By imposing a limit, you force yourself to focus on particular topics first, so there’s enough content added.

Just like I do with this website.

If I were to start from zero, I would advise writing 5-30 blog drafts before launching your niche blog.

Based on those drafts, I could note down some specific topics, which can rank overnight using the Keyword Golden Ratio method.

Using the KGR method is a more advanced method, but still beginner-friendly. (more on that later)

How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be?

Some say a minimum of 1500 words, others say 500 words is sufficient. Some claim that readers prefer content under 1000 words because of their attention span.

My opinion: As long as it takes. Some topics require more in-depth explanations, while others are answered in a simple sentence with additional context.

Here’s what I consider when writing a blog post:

I write for people looking for answers
I prefer to put the answer in the first paragraph, if I can
Does it make sense to expand a certain sub-topic?
If I were to read an article, how would I read it?

Imagine you ask in search engines: Can I replace the battery of my MacBook myself?

You end up reading a 2000-word article about the history of Apple and the evolution of a MacBook, including what you should buy.

Just to discover that the blogger stuffed the answer in the last paragraph.

That’s bad practice and diminishes the user experience.

That’s NOT what blogging is about.

Blogging is about offering genuine and useful information to readers who are seeking immediate answers to their questions.

Most people skim text first before reading the actual content. They won’t be amused to dig through a wall of text to find a simple yes or no answer.

My experience is that a percentage of your visitors are passionate about the subject and like to read the relevant details. It’s just not for everyone.

General Consensus For Blog Posts

Keep the following in mind:

What’s the purpose of your post? Is it a trending subject with regular updates or can you classify it as evergreen content that stays relevant for a long time?

Balance with long-form and short-form: Not every article needs to end up like a trilogy. A shorter form is often preferred for quick updates or announcements. It’s easier to read and can improve the user experience.

Long-form content should be written if the topic requires more detailed explanation or is a topic you want to cover in one go.

If you were to read an article, what would you be looking for? Put yourself in the shoes of your audience.

Your goal is to keep readers informed and provide solutions or answers.

If your content is valuable, it will be bookmarked, saved for later, or shared across other platforms.

I had content ranked on the first page with barely 300 words and 4000-word blog posts that had never seen the top 50.

I realized that I needed to redo the post with less fluff and more valuable information.

The length of a blog post is less of a metric than the quality.

How Important Is SEO For Blogging?

I want to explain SEO in its easiest form possible.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is simply the process or technique where website owners can increase their visibility and traffic on the web through search engines like Google and Bing.

The purpose of SEO is to drive ORGANIC traffic through search engines.

Even though generative AI and Google are making it harder for bloggers to rank, you should never ignore SEO.

I find SEO an utterly tedious chore. But SEO is still one of the greatest ways to achieve the desired result, and once results are showing, you go from hating it to somewhat loving it.

Why Is SEO Needed?

To find organic traffic of the best quality
Become visible in search engines
Convert potential visitors into buyers, fans, or followers

It’s like you’re playing a find Waldo game, but then with an UNO reverse card. Instead of them searching for you, you need to let them know where they can find you.

Common Scenario

Let’s assume you started a niche blog in the travel industry, but 5 months later, not a single soul has read your articles.

The problem is that millions of other active travel blogs are out there, or the first page results are overshadowed by YouTube content or major travel platforms like TripAdvisor.

That’s where keywords, search intent, and finding those undervalued spots in content or SEO will make the difference.

Did you ever notice that you see the same websites (excluding paid ads) over and over again on the first pages in search engine results?

That’s not a coincidence.

They worked hard on their overall SEO
They proved to be an authority in their niche or field

SEO Basics & Introduction

SEO is a complex subject. It changed over time, and now with AI, the game has changed again.

But the basics will never really change so far. At least in my knowledge of navigating this dumpster fire for almost 20 years.

Here’s a list of basics that you should understand, which I will explain a bit more:

Impulse search & keywords
Longtail keyword
On-page SEO
Page titles
Internal links
Keyword placement
Clean URL structure

Impulse Search & Keywords

A keyword is simply a term embedded in your content, title, or web page that’s relevant to your brand, business, or blog post.

When people conduct a search via search engines, they often search with impulse behaviour.

Let’s pretend you’re looking to buy a sofa, you’re never going to type in just “sofa”.

Instead, users will:

Combine multiple terms or keywords
Ask a question
Add a specific element or attribute to their search

Most people have a broad idea of what they’re looking for, but they need additional info to back that idea.

They would probably search for something like:

Black 3 seater faux leather sofa for the living room
Red sofa for a single bedroom apartment
Black vegan leather sofa with hidden storage space

Those specific keywords are the ones you want to rank and are called longtail keywords, and it’s exactly those keywords that will bring you organic, quality traffic.

Longtail Keywords

Longtail keywords usually consist of 3-5 words and are likely to be less competitive than singular keywords.

End-users don’t type in singular keywords. Instead, they prefer to use specific terms. If your content matches the exact term they’re searching for, there’s a good chance you’ll attract some of those end-users.

That’s why niche bloggers rank so well. They balance their SEO efforts with highly competitive keywords and longtail keywords to obtain authority.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO involves optimizing your existing content, pages, and structure to enhance your visibility to search engines.

The most common elements you should focus on as a beginner are:

Page titles
Internal links
Keyword placement
Clean URL structure

Page Titles

If your keyword is “Red Sofa For A Single Bedroom Apartment”, then this should be your page and SEO title that’s visible for search engines.

Consider the page title the starting point of their journey.

They search for a specific term
Read the page title that shows up in search engine results
Click on the URL
Keyword and subject are reflected in the content, and the first paragraph of your article

Let’s assume your title is “Red Sofa For A Single Bedroom Apartment”

I would start with an intro like this:

“Red is the new black, and if you’re ready to throw in some vibrant colors in your single-bedroom apartment, then keep reading. I found a few great red sofas that fit in smaller living spaces without breaking the bank.”

Starting your first paragraph strong sets the user’s expectations and can be a compelling reason for them to bookmark or read your content. Avoid using clickbait or irrelevant terms in your SEO or page title.

Internal Links

Imagine you walk into a hospital and you are trying to find your way to a specialist.

Without directions, you are walking around in a maze and end up getting lost, discouraged, and just want to go home, or in this case, click away from the website.

Your goal is to keep visitors ON your website and discourage them from leaving your blog.

This is why you see so many links embedded in blog posts or pages that lead to other relevant posts, pages, or topics related to the linked term.

Internal links help:

Search engines discover your content
Visitors discover your content
Improve the user experience
Build a better site structure

Without those, search engines can not understand your site’s structure.

Keyword Placement

Keywords are double-edged; they can either make or break your content.

Overusing the same term in an article can make it unreadable, while underusing it might be confusing for a reader.

Imagine you’re having a conversation with your best friend and think about how you would explain a problem, or inform her/him about a particular subject.

Each piece of content on this blog is written by me from my perspective.

I try to translate my thoughts into the form of a blog post that is accessible to an audience interested in niche blogging or seeking a straightforward way to process content. (ELI5 principle)

Clean URL Structure

A clean and proper URL structure helps users recognize the content and helps search engines structure the website.

Although there are no penalties or severe consequences associated with using long URLs, it is still advisable to clean them up a bit if possible. (I also don’t always do it, though)

If your keyword was ‘black 3 seater faux leather sofa for living room’, you want to shorten the URL a bit and turn it into something like:

website.com/black-3seater-faux-leather-sofa

I kept the most relevant info and keyword in the URL
In case my link gets shared on Reddit or other places, the URL structure provides an immediate expectation of what it’s about.
Users tend to trust readable URLS more than some random gibberish, when the brand is unknown

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be overwhelming. It’s a process that can take years to master, but it’s worth the time and effort to understand how you can boost your visibility in search engines.

That’s why I am also a fan of the two methods I mentioned before:

I strongly suggest you give them a read before diving into more complex SEO material.

Common Mistakes New Bloggers Make

If I had to list the number of mistakes I made, you would be reading a novel longer than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.

But if I had to narrow down some of the most common mistakes:

Outsourcing SEO too early
Buying links on platforms like Fiverr
No effort in imagery and featured images
Push to sell, instead of educating an audience

Outsourcing SEO Too Early

When there’s often no traffic or improvement, new bloggers start panicking.

And it’s a feeling they can’t shake off. Thinking they deserve the traffic, clicks, and conversions in affiliate sales.

It’s then that beginners make the mistake of hunting for “an SEO specialist”.

But I think that’s the wrong approach. Not that SEO specialists are bad, but you’re trying to hire someone where:

It’s clear you do not have enough understanding about SEO (yet)
You don’t even know what you want (except traffic)

The issue with that is that you’ll start spending money on a service when you’re in the early stages of learning.

If you start outsourcing SEO and hiring others to “just increase traffic”, they will milk you for every dollar you have.

For all you know, they might end up messing up your website. If they start using unethical tactics to increase traffic, you’ll eventually be the one punished for it.

If you do plan to hire an SEO specialist:

Educate yourself more on SEO first
Ask free advice on Reddit (a lot of people will provide great tips)
Take notes where you struggle
Before hiring, ask the SEO specialist those exact questions you noted
Determine the exact scope he/she need to do for you, and ask them to document the efforts

Buying Links From Fiverr

Ranking without backlinks is possible, but backlinks remain a strong ranking factor in a long-term strategy.

Those backlinks should come organically, and that’s dependent on the quality of your content.

Many new bloggers fall into the trap of buying hundreds of backlinks at a low cost, only to regret their decision later when they discover that these links are spam, of low quality, or irrelevant to their content.

This will be punished by Google or other search engines, and your backlink profile will look highly unnatural.

No Effort In Images

It’s one of the reasons I don’t have a blog about travel, food, or other industries that require lots of images and patience.

I am a terrible photographer with my iPhone.

You could use free stock photos or poorly generated AI images, but it will devalue your blog and efforts.

You can’t discount the idea that people search more and more in Google Images, for example, and that traffic is undervalued by bloggers.

Imagine you’re going to use the same free photo that everyone else uses. You’ll never be noticed in organic search.

Being original in niche blogging can boost your visibility, rankings, and will be wildly appreciated by visitors.

Push To Sell, Not To Educate

A lot of beginners go with the immediate idea to make money blogging as fast as possible. But that’s not going to work long-term.

Your major concern should be educating a potential audience first before pushing sales or promotions.

When I started Niche Blog, I decided to focus on enough valuable content and free guides that can attract an audience who wants to learn something.

Of course, there are affiliate links in my blog posts, but I don’t make any unnatural attempts to encourage people to purchase a service or product.

Niche bloggers in their first 12-18 months should put education first and sales last.

Build a quality audience first
A quality audience will trust your judgment and rely on your expertise
A quality audience will follow your affiliated recommendations

That’s one of the reasons why bloggers fail. They are so focused on trying to sell or push the affiliate link towards a new audience.

You’ll be rewarded once you establish that credibility and trust.

Final Word

I hope you enjoyed reading this beginner’s guide for new bloggers. It’s not as scary as it looks, but I wanted to clarify a few basic elements that helped me progress faster.

Following simple basics without rushing into it is a recipe for success.

Blogging is always a marathon, and it’s them who are able to persevere for 18-24 months are the ones who will yield the best results.

Some of the links are affiliate links, but every recommendation derives from experience, personal use, or testing.

If you have more questions, feel free to reach out!

Thanks for reading!

How To Start A Niche Blog: A Beginner’s Guide & Basics