Finding Your Niche in Christian Blogging: Passionately Addressing Audience Needs

Struggling to pinpoint that sweet spot for your Christian blog ministry where passion meets the pulse of your audience's needs? You're in for a revelation as I, LeeAnn Fox, unveil the secrets to selecting the ideal niche that aligns with both your fervor for faith and the genuine inquiries of your readers. In our spirited discussion, I tackle the commonly faced dilemma of niche scale – too broad or too narrow? I'll guide you through the maze with practical advice on crafting content that not only reflects your heart but also responds to the real questions out there. 

This episode is a treasure trove for those yearning to turn their digital ministry into a vibrant community destination. I highlight the art of hyper-focusing your blog content – think of it as crafting the perfect lure to reel in those seeking spiritual nourishment on the web. By delving into tools like Keywords Everywhere and Rank IQ, I share how to validate your content strategy to keep your blog brimming with engaging topics. You'll learn the importance of writing on subjects that not only attract visitors but also cultivate deeper connections through social networks and subscriber lists. It's not just about the message; it's about delivering it in a way that touches hearts and nourishes souls, all the while staying true to the divine calling to minister through your words.

If you are interested in taking your digital discipleship to the next level through blogging, YouTube, social media, and/or online Bible study groups, be sure to join my private FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/kingdombloggers
You can also follow me on YouTube where you will find a variety of helpful tutorials for navigating each of these important platforms: https://www.youtube.com/@KingdomBloggers

Transcript

LeeAnn Fox: 0:02

Welcome to the Kingdom Influencers podcast, where our mission is to get more Jesus online. This podcast will equip and empower ministry leaders as well as regular everyday Christians to take the message of Jesus Christ throughout the digital realm. I'm your host, LeeAnn Fox, digital Ministry Coach and the creator of the Kingdom Bloggers Ministry, and I am so excited and honored to be a part of this journey with you. Let's get started. Hey everyone, LeeAnn here from Kingdom Bloggers. So today I want to talk to you about focusing down your niche. I often get asked the question is my niche too broad, is my niche too narrow, or is my niche even worth it? And so I'm going to kind of give you a couple of tips for trying to figure out exactly what your focus should be, so that you can ensure that you are focusing on the right things in building your blog ministry as a Christian blogger. Now, of course, there's like probably millions and millions of niches that you could choose out there. We're going to focus specifically on ones that kind of have a faith foundation. So the first thing to understand is that it is important that you have a niche. You cannot just have a lifestyle blog where you kind of write about anything and everything under the sun. You know, millions, if not more, pieces of content are being added to Google daily, and so, as more content is being added, this is where those updates that we hate so much. This is kind of where they're stemming from a partial reason, for that is so that Google can better sift through all the content that's out there to ensure that, when someone goes to that Google box and types in a search query, that those top 10 results truly answer that question. For those of you who maybe had held on to top page rankings, like page one rankings, and you know, over time you start losing it, part of it could simply be that there's just so much more content being added, and some of that is better than yours. So today we're going to really focus on how to know if I am picking the right niche, then within that niche, having you know the blog structure or categories.

LeeAnn Fox: 2:00

So I'm going to read a question that was posted in my Facebook group recently, and I will start with that one. She says my writings are focused on love and acceptance from God through faith, not through work. For Christians who believe in Christ, is this too narrowly focused for keeping a blog? This is a great question. That kind of helps you understand, kind of the foundation of how you pick a niche. So if you've watched any of my videos, you know that when writing a blog for the purposes of growing an audience not a, not a hobby blog where you're just journaling your thoughts and feelings but if you're truly trying to grow a ministry, a following, and pour into people because they're, they're coming to you right, you have to write about things they're searching for online. And what happens often is when we start our blogs new bloggers they just feel called to this blogging stuff and they just kind of begin writing like what's on your heart, like I think people need to hear about this. And the most important thing when focusing your blog is to understand it's not about you, it's about your person, your target audience.

LeeAnn Fox: 3:04

Coming back to this particular question focus on love and acceptance through faith. What exactly does that look like and what I mean by that? You may have an idea of what I want to focus on, but what does that look like in the way of blog posts? And then you have to go step further, to do the research, to find out if people are even Googling that stuff, and so there's a lot of great tools out there. Keywords everywhere is the one that I use, but there's plenty others. There's, uber suggest there's. There's a lot of them. I just like keywords everywhere because it's super easy. There's also rank IQ, which, if you have not checked that one out, that is actually a really great way to do some of your blog post research. It is a paid tool, so I wouldn't go right into it until you've kind of narrowed it down a little more.

LeeAnn Fox: 3:49

At the end of the day, what you write about needs to satisfy a search query that someone else is looking for. So, when it comes to focused on love and acceptance, what blog post do you have in mind for that? And so if love and acceptance were your categories because you need at least two categories, you don't have to have that. You could just have one category, but everything needs to be hyper focused that one category Under love. What do those blog posts look like, like? What is the title or topic of each of those blog posts? And you should easily be able to come up with at least 20. That's just kind of my my litmus test. If I can easily think of 10 to 20, well, really 20 blog posts ideas, then that's a good start.

LeeAnn Fox: 4:32

But once I map out or lay out all those ideas or those topics, I then need to go into Google using tools like keywords everywhere and see is there search volume for this topic? Because if there's no search volume for it, then there's no point in writing it. If there's no search volume, that means nobody's looking for it, and you could write the most beautiful piece of content, but if no one's looking for it, no one's going to come, and so that's what it comes down to figuring out what your person is seeking online. What things are they going to Google for the little fingers there that's the keyboard and then kind of establishing it from there. So, under love and acceptance, just off the top of my head, it would be hard for me to categorize those as the foundations for an entire blog, because eventually you may run out of topics and a blog is long going, and so you should have sort of an unending possibility of blog post ideas within each category. Now, you can always add categories later, but it still comes back to being able to control and continually fill stuff in that category.

LeeAnn Fox: 5:35

If that makes sense, I'm going to kind of move over to a different thought process for figuring out your niche. And I do want to mention again, as Christians, when we feel called to this blogging, it is because we want to pour spiritually into people, and so, in reference to this one, focusing on love and acceptance this is more in my mind when I'm reading this description. I am envisioning that you are just pouring into someone's, just trying to tell them how much God loves them, and that's a great thing. That's often not how people are searching for information. They might be searching for things like what does the Bible say about this? Or what does the Bible say about being bullied? Because, talking about acceptance, obviously we don't feel accepted in some way and that could be the result of bullying because of our past, because of choices that we've made, things like that. And so when you step into that side of it, that is how you find what they are seeking, as it pertains to that thing you're wanting to write about.

LeeAnn Fox: 6:31

Okay, so now let's move over. I said that a minute ago. So when you're looking at determining a niche, right, so let's take it from just general Bible study Helping women or men grow stronger in their faith, grow in the knowledge of the word. So more Bible study, kind of focus or helping them to have a more focused prayer life, so things about prayer. So there's a lot of things within that, and I just use the Bible study one because that's a very common one. I mean we need to teach people the word of God so that they can learn it, use it, apply it, and so within that you could then focus on a particular type of person, so maybe pouring, helping men, helping young men, helping married men, helping young moms, helping single women, helping women later in life, things like that, women in the workplace, how to be a Christian in the workplace, and so there's a lot of different.

LeeAnn Fox: 7:26

Who like the target person? That could still fall under the same niche, so the niche being, say, bible study or prayer or something like that, christian living, if you will. And so from there, kind of focusing the who, the what. So who is it? The young mom, the what, helping her grow stronger in her faith while raising little ones. So in that sense you might have some biblical content specifically like Bible study, and then you may also have just some general motherhood encouragement or general parenting, you know, resources for the little kids, things like that. So there's a lot of things within that.

LeeAnn Fox: 8:02

So I hope I'm making sense here. I mean, this is when we spend a full week of this during my boot camp, because it is so, I guess, confusing a lot of times for focusing down. But at the end of the day, the bottom line is is anyone looking for what you are offering? And the easiest way to find that out is to jot down 10 to 20 blog post ideas with whatever the main concept of that idea is, and then go into Google using a tool such as keywords everywhere and I will link that down in the notes and doing research on it. I do have another video about keyword research, so I'll link that one down there as well.

LeeAnn Fox: 8:38

But this is very important because this creates the foundation to find the people like you're creating content that people are literally looking for, and so I call it bait.

LeeAnn Fox: 8:50

We're putting that out there into the internet to hopefully hook some people that need it and then bring them back to our website and then from there we hopefully get them on our social you know following us on social or joining our email list much later, not right now and then that's where we can pour more, you know, intimately, spiritually, into them, in those conversations, in the email and such. So again, I know this is a confusing topic, but this is the most important part for any new Christian blogger, and any blogger really in any niche, is to hyper focus. Hyper focus, but to a point that you still have an unending, almost amount of topics you could write about. Again, you can write about whatever you want, unending like I can talk about anything, but if nobody's looking for it, there's no point in writing it. Okay, so you're seeking out and needing God's word and you are the person that God has chosen to deliver that message, so we need to make sure that you're putting it in the right package.