Have you ever heard someone say, “She’s really found her niche in life?” This refers to someone discovering a career, job or pastime that perfectly suits that person’s values, goals and abilities. The same is true for a niche in blogging. A blogging niche is nothing more than a very focused interest or market.

A niche blog may be relevant to a specific industry or age group. It could focus on the needs of a particular ethnic group, geographic area or future goals. If you are someone who relates to hard definitions, and you want to develop a blog that makes a difference and is truly helpful, here’s what you need to remember:

“A niche market is a subset of a larger market on which a specific product or service is focused.”

So a blogging niche might be scrapbooking for beginners with a passion for scuba diving. Scrapbooking is the large market. Scrapbooking for beginners narrows the focus, and by further narrowing your marketplace to scuba diving enthusiasts who want to take up scrapbooking for the first time, you have an excellent niche marketing opportunity for an authoritative blog.

Niche marketing is far from a 21st century concept, it has been around forever. Blogs are certainly not new, though they are relevantly new in comparison to niche marketing. When you put the 2 together, you can create an authoritative web presence which can help people answer big problems in their lives.

Authoritative niche blogging is different from running a website where your goal is to simply get people to click on ads that earn you money. Yes, you may have some type of monetization on your niche blog, but that is not the main intent. Successful niche blogs inform, answer questions, provide solutions and work to develop relationships with their readers and followers.

When choosing which niche you want to blog about, think about a specific problem in a tight marketplace. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. When you have a laser targeted approach, you can quickly become an authority figure in your niche.

So think of a marketplace where you want to really make a difference. Then niche down until you have identified a very specific area of focus. Inform, answer questions, help and care about your audience, and your niche blog will never be confused with a spam blog (splog) or autoblog intended solely for revenue generation.