How to Pick a Blog Niche in 2020

Whether you’re just starting a blog or have an existing blog already, you need to be thinking about what’s going to be valuable to your audience. We all know that having a niche and focusing is important, but you can’t ignore the impact that something like the coronavirus pandemic has on the economy. It’s more important than ever to think about what’s relevant now and how life will be transformed for millions of people. Here’s how to pick a blog niche in 2020.

This year is unlike any in recent history. It has forced literally the entire world to face a common problem – coronavirus. Millions upon millions of people in a work-from-home situation. It is absolutely the world’s biggest work from home experiment. You are here because starting a blog is something that you have probably been thinking about for a while. 

Related: How to Start a Business Today and Why You Don’t Need That “Great” Idea

While there is plenty to worry about there’s also many ways for us to help each. To be clear, waiting for things to go back to normal is a wait-and-see strategy. For companies and individuals alike, the sooner they can adapt to this new normal the more they can focus on what matters today and what’s going to matter in 6 or 12 months. 

What Makes a Blog Niche Relevant in 2020

There are three factors that make a blog niche relevant today. It really comes down to search habits and understanding what drives those habits. It’s a simple relationship:

Relevant Niche = Topic with high search activity + Unique circumstances + Uncertainty

Today unique circumstances and uncertainty are high, so 2 of 3 factors are basically there for most any topic. The opportunity to address these new issues for your audience is available across a variety of subjects.  

The first factor really relates to the broader theme of a niche topic. If the broader category is just smaller, say fossil excavation, you’ll have a niche but it just won’t be broadly relevant.  

But let’s say you’re considering topics such as on-line marketing or healthcare or even blogging. These topics tend to have high search activity. Combined with unique circumstances and uncertainty these broad topics become relevant niches for 2020. Let’s dive a bit deeper.

Blog Niche Topics in 2020

This list includes topics for 2020 that will be relevant for many readers. One important factor when picking a niche for your blog is understanding your audience’s interest. A shared interest across all these topics is the at-home perspective. If your work, your family, your social circle, your health and your entertainment are all happening at home, how do you make this work? 

That question is the common thread that ties any number of interesting and bloggable niche topics. You have a built-in audience looking for answers, best practices and guidance on these very issues. 

We’ve highlighted topics here that are relevant right now, but will also be relevant in the future. Some of the changes occuring in the economy and society are so fundamental that we’ll all need some help figuring it out. So not only is there relevance to today, but there will be continued relevance around how we’ll all come out the other end of this crisis. What has changed permanently and what has found a new normal? 

It’s this new context that applies to almost any topic you can think of. It’s also the perfect niche to get started with. Here are some of the topics for 2020 that are going to lead the way. This list is based on our own personal experience and analysis since the start of stay-at-home orders in March.

  • Fitness tracking / at-home fitness
  • Mental health tracking
  • Digital health and remote care
  • At home health
  • Crowd-sourced health care
  • Virtual reality
  • Remote shopping experiences
  • In-home entertainment
  • Food delivery
  • Hand crafted personal goods
  • Remote personal and professional coaching
  • Online courses and remote learning
  • Home office optimization
  • Travel incentives

Understanding the Trends

In 2019 How-To articles were the most popular type of post. 77% of bloggers surveyed have published at least one How-To article. News, Trends and Guides were next with some 50% of bloggers posting this type of content. What this means for zeroing in on a niche is that educational content is popular. Whatever niche you pick, you need to be able to share expertise or educate your audience. 

Luckily there should be plenty of opportunity here because we’re all learning about this new normal together. Everyone is hungry for ideas on what works, what’s been tried and how to implement those ideas themselves. 

Your Blog Topic Decision

For those thinking “I just don’t know if my niche area is creative enough”, finding a niche might not require as much creativity as you think. Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you’re interested in blogging about food. Typically this would be a broad topic and maybe not a great choice for a niche. However, now might be a great time to get into food blogging with a focus on how to create fun food experiences at home. Or maybe focus on fun food preparations that are compatible with delivery. How about blogging about your experience with ordering desserts? (much less common than food).

The point here is that you can take a fairly saturated topic and turn it into a niche by understanding the at-home conditions that many people are experiencing right now. Not only have you created a niche for yourself, but you’ll be appealing to millions of people dealing with this exact topic. It’s an entry point for building an audience. You can then see them through the journey to the post-pandemic normal.

The other important point is to inject personal experience. Whatever niche you create, your audience will want to hear about your story. How did you get to this point? What motivates your blogging? These are the personal hooks that will draw people to your blog. What better way to establish that connection than by building from the shared experience everyone can relate to today.

Niche Starting Points

Let’s take a look at some of our top topics for 2020 with a bit more detail. We’ve compiled a list of possible post topics within each niche. These post topics might be great places to get started.

Fitness tracking / at-home fitness

  • Wearable reviews
  • How to stay fit at home
  • At-home fitness challenges
  • How to form a fitness community

Mental health tracking

  • Wearables and apps for mental health for the at-home setting
  • Mental health and at-home care
  • Mental health and fitness communities at-home
  • Remote mental health resources

Digital health and remote Care

  • Digital health in the new normal
  • Remote technologies and best practices
  • Distributed healthcare and remote interfaces
  • Healthcare coverage and digital health integration

At home health

  • Self-care recommendations
  • Family best practices
  • Taking care of elderly
  • How to deal with young ones
  • Strategies for day-care

Crowd-sourced health care

  • Health apps
  • Diagnostic forums and services
  • What can be crow-sourced and what can’t
  • How do doctors adapt?

Virtual reality

  • Virtual Reality vs Video conferencing
  • Virtual reality beyond gaming
  • Devices and technology evolution
  • Forums and communities

Remote shopping experiences

  • Virtual shopping experiences
  • Who’s doing it best
  • Best on-line only stores
  • How brick and mortar stores are adapting
  • Pros and cons of remote shopping 

In-home entertainment

  • Beyond Netflix
  • Social games at home
  • Virtual games
  • We have the home theater – what;s next?

Food delivery

  • Best delivery options
  • The new delivery ecosystem
  • Delivery-first, who’s ready?
  • Reviews of Michel start delivery

Hand crafted personal goods

  • The rise of on-line hand crafts
  • When the big box is just to impersonal
  • Etsy and Pinterest – what’s next?

Remote personal and professional coaching

  • Professional coaching remotely
  • Group coaching
  • Skills and team building in the era of at-home work
  • How professional coaching must adapt for the remote professional

Online courses and remote learning

  • Upskilling – best practices and go-to resources
  • Implementing new skills at-home
  • First-hand journey through the process
  • Best practices for course production
  • Teaching remotely – live and pre-recorded

Home office optimization

  • Journeys through home office renos
  • Home office ergonomics
  • Tips, tools, tech and product reviews
  • Home office by profession

Travel incentives

  • Who’s still travelling and where?
  • Travelling in the post-pandemic era
  • Digital nomads in the new normal
  • Capturing great travel deals – what to know

 

Now that you’re armed with a strategy for picking a blog niche the next step is getting started. Successful blogs focus on getting in front of their audience and offering tangible value. Now that you have a topic you’ll want to understand how your niche fits into the broader community of like-minded bloggers. You’ll also want to brush up a bit on SEO basics and maybe even some content marketing strategies.

Blogging can be a very rewarding endeavor, especially if your niche resonates. But if you’re looking to your blog as a source of revenue you’ll want to think of it as business. Picking a niche is just the first step.  

This is the very journey that this blog has begun. We’re only a few months in at this point and have only just started building our community. We’re focused on delivering value to our readers and sharing our blog building story along the way. Our niche right now is helping young professionals realize their lifestyle goals. Part of those goals might be launching their own business or blog. Either way we’re here to help you get the most out of your journey.   Join us on ours!

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