A lot of new bloggers get the impression that blogging is a giant pyramid scheme. One where bloggers recruit new bloggers to blog about blogging.
And while I understand how they’re getting that impression, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, blogging is one of the WORST things to blog about due to how competitive the niche is.
In this post, I’m going to go over why blogs in every niche make money. Then I’m going to give examples of several blogs that make bank despite not blogging about blogging.
Bloggers In All Niches Make Money The Same Way
For bloggers, there are 3 primary ways to make money regardless of niche. You can sell ads, do affiliate marketing, or sell your own product.
Regardless of niche, these three monetization methods will produce income for your blog. And in all niches creating your own product is the way to make the most money. Something you can easily do regardless of niche.
Then why is the blogging space so crowded? There are three primary reasons the blogging niche is so saturated.
- Slightly higher ad rates as companies desperately want to sell to business-minded people.
- Affiliate commissions for software (e.g., Bluehost, ConvertKit, or keyword research tools) are very high.
- Most people only want to blog and are too lazy to create their own products.
Lazy bloggers think blogging traffic is more valuable traffic. Plus, they blog a lot so it’s a subject they enjoy. But, as long as you can get a large amount of traffic, you can easily monetize regardless of niche.
It’s Easier To Get Traffic In Obscure Niches
The benefit of choosing an obscure niche is that the competition is going to drop significantly.
For example, if I Google “How To Start a Blog,” I can get all the way to page 24 of the SERP before the results stop being fantastic. Page 2+ of Google only gets 4% of the total traffic combined. Meaning you’ve got to beat out 230 of those great articles to get meaningful traffic.
| Rank | Click-Through-Rate | Extra Traffic vs. Previous Rank | Clicks From 10k Keyword Searches |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 31.24% | 123% | 3,124 clicks |
| #2 | 14.04% | 43% | 1,404 clicks |
| #3 | 9.85% | 41% | 985 clicks |
| #4 | 6.97% | 27% | 697 clicks |
| #5 | 5.50% | 47% | 550 clicks |
| #6-#10 | 3.73% | 1,765% | 373 clicks |
| Page 2 (combined) | 3.99% | 149% | 399 clicks |
| Page 3+ (combined) | 1.60% | NA | 160 clicks |
Meanwhile, if you Google “How to Learn Constitutional Law” or some other obscure topic, page 1 will look like this.
You could easily rank #1 for this term by writing an excellent blog post. And you may be saying, “But Shaun, how many people really search for that?”
The answer is that it doesn’t matter that much. You’ll get more clicks by ranking number 1 for a low volume query vs. 42nd for a high-volume one. Pretend the low-volume query got 300 monthly searches, and the high volume query gets 30,000 searches. Ranking number 1 still gets you 3x as many clicks.
How To Find Successful Bloggers In Any Niche
To find a successful blog, all you have to do is start Googling and check out the top 10 results. This is because the #1 result gets a lot of traffic, and blogs that get traffic make money.
For instance, if I Google “How To Grow Succulents,” I’ll find the blog Succulents and Sunshine. On that blog, you can see they’re selling products, books, and ad space. I can tell these guys are making money. They did an an interview with Income School in which they confirm exactly how much money.
Using this technique, I can find a ton of other blogs that are making good money.
| Google Query | Blog Name | How I can Tell They’re Making Money |
|---|---|---|
| Bass Fishing | Shop Karls | Ranked #1 for bass fishing and has a store on site. |
| How To Win at Chess | The Chess World | Ranks #3 for this term and sells a $49 course |
| How To Build a PC in 2020 | New Computer Build | Ranked in Snippet. The site has hundreds of articles with Amazon Affiliate links to costly computer parts. |
| How To Deep Clean a Grill | Plays Well With Butter | Less confident this site makes bank. They rank high for a query that gets a lot of traffic. And their website is littered with ads, so they’ve monetized. |
| How To Train My Labrador | Labrador Training HQ | Ranked 3rd for how to train my labrador and sell products. They make money. |
| How To Play The Drums | Drumeo | Ranked #1 and sells a $1200 e-course. This guy is a millionaire guaranteed. |
| How To knit a scarf | Sheep and Stitch | Rank #2 for this term, the site is filled with ads, and they sell products. Guaranteed they’re making money. |
Conclusion
It’s straightforward to find well-monetized blogs on any topic. Simply Google the most obvious term in the industry. The websites sitting at the top of the rankings are making bank.
And if there are no blogs ranking for that term? That’s a great sign that this person should be you.