What is a Blog Niche and Do You Actually Need One?

Last updated on 4 June 2026

This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase with one of these links, I recieve a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read the full Affiliate Policy.

If you’ve spent more than five minutes researching how to start a blog, someone has told you to pick a niche.

It’s probably the most repeated piece of blogging advice out there, and look, yes, I’ve probably given it multiple times over the many years that I’ve been blogging. And I think I’ve really ebbed and flowed and changed my mind a bunch of times on it.

If you ask ten different bloggers, you’ll likely get ten different answers, or at least there will be little consensus on the subject.

But if you’re new to blogging or you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, you need to at least have the niche question top of mind before you really dive in.

So let’s actually talk about it. What a niche is, why it matters, what to do if you want to write about more than one thing, and how to figure yours out without going completely round the bend in the process.

What a blog niche actually is

Merriam-Webster has multiple definitions of the word ‘niche’ (many of which are animal or little nook related) but the one we want to pay attention to is:

“a specialized market” – Merriam-Webster

A specialised market – a space that is narrowed down a little. That is specialised.

So how does that differ from just a topic, let’s say?

“Food” is a topic. “Travel” is a topic. “Lifestyle” is a topic. And you could argue they’re also niches, too. You could be specialised in any of those … but when it comes to our blogs, then a niche is going to be a little more … well, niche. 🤣🙈

We might take the idea of a topic and then come at it from an audience perspective. So ‘who is this blog for?’ or ‘what specifically would this blog help people with?’

And that will help us get our blog niche.

Here are a few examples of what I mean.

Topic: Food
- Niche: Easy meals for busy families
Topic: Travel
- Niche: Travels for solo female travellers
Topic: Finance
- Niche: Financial know-how for college students

You can kind of see how we go to where we did, right? We had the main topic – food – and then we asked about the audience. Who is this for? Well, it’s for busy families who want some easy and quick meals to incorporate into their lives. It’s more niche. We’ve narrowed it down.

Which is all very well and good, but what if you want to talk about food AND travel AND finance?

And that’s where we run into a few niggles. But before we address those …

Why having a niche actually helps your blog grow

Whether you’re writing about books or travel or money … narrowing it down to talk more specifically (going back to that ‘specialisation’ wordage) about a topic is going to help you for a number of reasons.

People get to know you for a specific thing. You begin to become front of mind when they need help in the area that you cover.
They also know to stick around and check out the rest of your blog because it’s exactly what they’re looking for. If your last ten posts are about meal prep, Portugal, a book you read, your skincare routine, and your thoughts on remote working, they don’t really know what you’re about. A reader who finds your blog and instantly thinks yes, this is for me is the reader who might take further action like subscribe to your emails, or bookmark your blog, or even buy something.
Search engines know how to point people to you because they know that you cover a certain area. If your content is all over the place, it’s much harder for Google (and other search engines) to really get a grasp on what you’re about.
You get to be seen as an authority in your area once you’ve built up enough blog posts.
It’s also easier to write because you have a bit more focus. It can get a bit chaotic if you’re writing about a lot of things. When you’ve got a clear niche, you’re never starting from scratch trying to figure out your angle. You already know who you’re talking to and what they need. That alone saves you hours of staring at a blank page.
Monetisation gets a lot more straightforward. Whether it’s affiliate links, a course, a membership, or working with brands – having a clear niche makes it obvious what you should be promoting, and makes it a lot easier for brands to say yes to working with you.

But what if you want to write about more than one thing?

“Okay, Anjali, but your blog that I’m literally reading right now is about book, travel, blogging tips and the occasional creative thing. That’s the opposite of what you just said.” – you

And yes, you’d be right. My blog is not a good example of sticking to a niche, or even being broad with one topic like travel.

However! You have to remember two main things:

That I started my blog back in 2009. Things were a lot different back then, and the ‘competition’ was a lot less. You could write about whatever you wanted and people found you. We had communities of bloggers who would all know each, all read every single post, and while that was incredible … things just aren’t like that any more. Which is a real shame, yes, but it is what it is.
Lifestyle blogs exist. And no, my blog isn’t really a lifestyle blog (though it’s the closest to it, I’d say). A lifestyle blog would be more about living life, right? It would be about sharing the things you’re doing, creating, discovering, buying in your life. Which means it really would be things like food you’re making, what colour swatches you decided for your dining room renovation, the beautiful find you discovered at the thrift store.

A lot of bloggers – especially at the beginning – genuinely want to write about multiple things. And the advice to “pick a niche” feels like you’re being boxed in, and it doesn’t give you opportunities to share all your passions (coz we’re probably all pretty multipassionate right?).

And I geeeeet it.

And that’s probably why I have multiple topics still on my blog. Every so often I think I should start a more niche blog – take something that I write about here and reaaaaaally bulk it out in a new blog. And I still might. One day.

So what do you do if you want to talk about multiple things? Here are some things to think about:

Lifestyle blogs can work. They do exist, they do grow, and some of them are brilliant. But they’re harder to grow and they take longer. That’s not a reason not to do it – it’s just useful information to have.
The umbrella niche is your friend. If you want to write about multiple things, the question to ask is: what’s the thread connecting them? Often there’s an identity or a reader type underneath the topics, or you’re able to pick something that you love, where you could also connect other things.
- eg If you were in travel for solo women, you might be able to cover more than just that. You could do a blog post about books you’ve found really helpful as a solo traveller. Or the best meals you create for your solo adventures.
- eg If you were in finance, you could also talk about conferences or events that you attended and not just your budgeting tips or what have you.
Try flipping the question. Instead of asking “what do I want to write about?”, ask “who am I writing for, and what does that person need?” This can really help because it takes you out of your own head a little bit and makes you focus on the things that your audience might need.

What if your topics genuinely don’t connect?

Sometimes the umbrella niche trick doesn’t work. Sometimes you want to write about personal finance AND sourdough bread AND solo travel, and no amount of squinting at it is going to find a common thread.

For my own blog, is there really a connection between books and blogging tips and travel? Not really. Perhaps you’ve just landed here because of the blogging tips. It’s probably unlikely that you landed here because you found a book review and then somehow found this blogging tips post.

You might be a book blogger who needs help growing their book blog, but chances are, my bookish readers and my blogging tips peeps are going to be different people.

So if the umbrella trick doesn’t work for you, my advice is this: pick one, and start there.

Spend the first three to six months writing about just that one topic. Build up a solid bank of posts – say, fifteen to twenty – so that when someone lands on your blog, there’s actually something to explore. You want enough content that Google can start to figure out what you’re about, and enough posts that a new reader can fall down a bit of a rabbit hole.

Once you’ve got that foundation, then start thinking about adding in the other topics. By that point, you’ll have a real sense of which posts are resonating, who your readers actually are, and whether the other things you want to write about will fit alongside what you’ve built.

You might find the second topic slots in naturally. You might find you don’t actually want to write about it any more. Either way, you’ll be making a much more informed decision.

Starting with everything at once feels freeing, but it usually just makes growth slower and the blog harder to define.

And yes, this does mean sitting on some ideas for a few months. But those ideas will still be there.

How to figure out your niche

So with all that in mind, how do you actually figure out your blogging niche?

There are a few ways you could go about it, and remember, even though I’m suggesting these, you might come up with other ways that work a) just as well or b) better for you.

Grab a piece of paper or open up a doc or something – however you work best. And then answer these questions.

What are you passionate about?
What could you talk/write about for hours and not get sick of it?
Similarly, what could you write about without running out of ideas?
Who would actually benefit from reading it? Who might your audience be?
- This might change once you get into it, but having even a general idea when you start out is going to help.
Is there an audience actively looking for this already?
- This might matter a little bit more if you want to monetise your blog and so you need a ton of traffic to do so, but a good thing to ask yourself either way.

You don’t need to nail this perfectly before you start. A “working niche” that you refine as you go is infinitely better than just doing whatever you want. Start somewhere. You’ll figure out the rest as you go.

💡 Check out How to use the Japanese Concept of Ikigai to Find Your Blog Niche

What if you’ve already started your blog and you’re not sure your niche is right?

This one’s for the bloggers who are already up and running but have that nagging feeling that something’s a bit off. A few signs your niche might need some attention:

You dread writing posts because you’re not sure what fits on your blog any more
Your content feels scattered, even to you
Your most engaged readers seem to be showing up for one specific type of post, not everything
You’re attracting an audience that doesn’t quite match who you actually want to help

And that be really disheartening. The good news is this is almost always an adjustment, not a full restart. You don’t need to burn it down and start again. 🤣 You might just need to get more specific about what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for.

Look at your last ten posts. Is there something common going on there, a common thread? What posts do you LOVE writing? If you dig a little deeper into your content, you might be able to figure out where to make some adjustments.

🤷🏻‍♀️ Need help defining your niche a bit more? Jump on a call with me! I’d love to help.

Your two things to do right now

If this post has left you with questions rather than answers, sorry. But also that might be a good thing! That means you’re actually thinking about it. Here’s what to do with that:

Work through the questions I posed earlier. Write them down, answer them honestly, and don’t overthink it.
If you’re already blogging, look at your last five to ten posts and find the common thread. What keeps coming up? Who is the reader that connects all of it? Write that down too.

And when in doubt, just start writing and see what sticks. And if you need a hand at all, you know where to find me.