This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Should you create a niche blog or a broader one? We're gonna help a new blogger decide whether to focus on a specific niche or go broad to grow faster. Niche topic meaning something really specific, a broad topic meaning something, well, broad. Learn why starting small and specific can give you the best chance of success. But of course, there are always pros and cons.
Welcome to Side Hustle School. Today, we're gonna hear from Rebecca. She is starting a blog. And yes, you can do that. In 2025, blogs can still be a viable business model.
We hear from bloggers all the time. Now, of course, some things have changed over the years, but blogs do still work. Or you can think of this in terms of any medium, actually, if you wanna start a podcast, if you wanna start a YouTube channel. Again, do you go deep? Do you go niche or do you go broad?
Let's see if we can help her make the right choice for her goals. And as always, hopefully help some other listeners out there as well. This is an important decision when you're trying to figure out how do I spend all of my focus on content creation? Do I do it this way or that way? Let's break it down.
Detailed question and my answer coming right up. [Music]
Hi, Chris. This is Rebecca Nelson, a longtime listener. I'm thinking about starting a blog and I keep hearing that the more niche your topic, the faster you can grow. But then I see these broader blogs with tons of topics and huge audiences and I wonder if I should aim for that instead.
What's the best way to start if my goal is to grow an audience quickly and eventually monetize? Should I go niche or is there a way to balance that with appealing to a wider audience? [Music]
Okay, as noted, this advice applies to more than just blogs. It could be that YouTube channel or the podcast or anything else these days, TikTok channel, whatever else. Deciding whether to go niche or broad is a big decision.
It's gonna influence how quickly your project gains traction. And just to hit it right from the top, it's gonna be much better to be niche, much better. Unless you have a lot of capital, unless you're like, I've got money to spend on blowing this up because I'm gonna be able to compete with bigger brands or some other resource, some other big advantage. Otherwise, niche blogs always tend to grow faster. It helps you stand out in a crowded space.
It creates sticky content, sticky audience, meaning people that are just excited about your content. They're gonna get notifications when you post new content. It's not just one of a hundred different things that they read or follow or keep up with. You're gonna be the resource that they go to for this topic because you are focused. So attracting the right audience is so important.
People searching for niche content are much more likely to find and engage with your blog because it directly addresses their needs. So you wanna write deeply about one subject. It helps you build credibility faster than covering a broad range of topics. Now that said, broader blogs can work, but they're harder to start. If you're like, I wanna start a new lifestyle or general interest site, technically it appeals to a larger audience, but it's harder to grow initially.
Again, because you don't have money or resources. You're just one person. You don't have a team of 20 writers. So that's what I think. Start specific and expand over time.
Keep it manageable and authentic. And so as for what niche, you can use a tool like Google Trends, which is really great to go and research your niche, like break it down. If you're like interested in cycling, well, we can get much more specific than that. Use Google Trends and you'll see all kinds of more detailed granular searches that people are making. And then that might lead you to the actual niche you're gonna focus on.
The other thing that's good is you can always expand from your first niche, but it's hard if you start with like lifestyle or just business in general, for example, health, wellness. It's really hard to kind of niche down from there. So you wanna start with the niche, then go broad. That is the formula that works for most people. And why not do what is already successful?
That's what I think. Listeners, if you have a question or a comment, sidehustleschool.com, much more is coming up. I'm gonna tell you a cool story tomorrow about a guy who made $300,000 from reselling bouncy castles, like bouncy houses. You might see these for birthday parties and such. This guy did a huge amount of income without having any inventory.
So I'm excited to bring that to you and much more throughout the year, a new episode every day, seven days a week, always free. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
