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With the economy headed in a downward direction, people are starting to pay more attention to their finances. This means spending less, saving more, and doing some research on how to wisely invest or ways to cut back. But who are some reputable people who can tell them how to do that?
You will need to be a reputable source in the finance world for any hope with a Personal Finance blog. Google will look for credentials in this niche, so if you have a degree in finance be sure to list it!
If you have the credentials, I would encourage you to read on. Doing research beforehand is better than going in cold!
Why Credentials Matter in the Personal Finance Niche
The Personal Finance niche is part of the Your Money, Your Life (YMYL) category that Google has set in place. This was established because these types of niches directly impact a person’s finances or well-being. To be clear, this includes all sub-niches of the Personal Finance niche as well. Google wants to ensure that the information people are reading is correct.
If you have the credentials, the first step to your Personal Finance blog is already a success! Google is going to rank the qualified individuals higher than those with no education or experience. However, simply having the qualifications doesn’t guarantee your success. You will need to provide your audience with helpful content related to your sub-niche.
Even though you have credentials, you will need to document that on your blog. Be sure to have an “About the Author” page and share a little bit about yourself. Let your audience know that you are a real person and some an A.I. bot creating content. Let them know about your experience in the niche that way you are seen as a reputable source!
Included in the “About the Author” page should be your degree(s). Whether you have a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D., list your degree. That is very important for the credibility of you, your blog, and your content. I wouldn’t necessarily post a picture of your degree, but stating you have the degrees let’s people know that you have a firm understanding of the Personal Finance niche and you can truly help your audience.
For more information on the Google YMYL classifications and how to prove you’re qualified to blog about Personal Finance, you can check out their description through the link.
Choose a Sub-Niche
The Personal Finance niche is huge, so it would be in your favor to dive a little further into the niche. Something like budgeting, tax information, or credit cards are a few ideas. The purpose of the sub-niche is to find your corner of the niche and write helpful content there. This will make you more attractive to Google and boost your chances of ranking on the front page of Google.
Before you choose your sub-niche, you need to check out the competition. This is going to be crucial toward the success of your blog. If there are dozens of well established blogs in the budgeting sub-niche, you may have a hard time getting traffic to your website – I have not looked into the budgeting sub-niche, only used that as an example.
Find an underserved sub-niche in the Personal Finance niche. People will always have questions about their finances, think of questions you have and see if there are blogs regarding those topics. A caveat to this is that you need to make sure there is enough search volume to justify a blog in that sub-niche. If a sub-niche is only getting 5,000 searches per month, you may want to pick a different sub-niche.
Write Helpful Content
Any blogger will tell you that when you are starting out, content is king. I’d like to adjust that just a little bit. Helpful content is king. You need to be creating content that answers the search query, not content that gets off base. If the search query asks how to figure out which tax bracket you are in and you drift off into budgeting, Google isn’t going to rank your post highly.
Helpful content is thorough, answering multiple questions in one post. Answer the search query, and then think about questions that your audience may have after that. Cover all of that in one post to create a comprehensive blog post that your audience will be inclined to read, and possibly share!
Focus on Quality Over Quantity
Quality is always better than quantity, especially for a new blog. There are plenty of reasons why but I will give you just a few here.
Quality blog posts will help you in the long run. Once you start ranking – it will take a while but with hard work and great blog posts your time will come – people will start reading your content. And with each blog post they read, they subconsciously judge your content. They determine whether or not your post answered their question.
If you put out 50 subpar blog posts, sure the quantity is there and there is a lot more for Google to index but the posts aren’t as good as they could be. However, if you put out 10 blog posts that answer search query’s thoroughly and is truly considered to be helpful content, readers opinion of you will be a positive one.
Another reason you should focus on quality blog posts is other bloggers will read your blog posts and decide one of two things. Either your blog post answered the search query in a way that they would not be able to beat you in the SERP, or they will link back to your post in their blog post. In either situation, that is great for you.
Backlinks are not as important as they used to be, but it is still a great way to boost your domain authority. Domain authority is Google’s way of determining how trustworthy your blog is. At the beginning you will start out at zero. But with each quality blog post that will slowly increase over time!
Pros
- Personal Finance is one of the most profitable niches.
- Affiliate programs are lucrative for most sub-niches.
- Personal Finance will always be a relative niche.
Once you break through the Personal Finance niche, your earning potential becomes very high. Between affiliate programs, ads, info products, and potentially courses you have a very high earning potential.
Cons
- YMYL – You will need credentials.
- Personal Finance is a very competitive.
- Will take longer to rank than other niches.
Just because there are some heavy cons for the Personal Finance niche does not mean you should ignore this niche altogether. If Personal Finance is your passion, then this is the niche for you. I cover how to know which blogging niche is right for you here, but making sure you are passionate about your niche is the most important thing when selecting your niche!
Be Patient
As I’ve mentioned multiple times, the Personal Finance niche is a challenging niche to break into but very worth it if you have the credentials and the determination to stick with your writing during the “ghost-town” phase. There will be times where you think it’s not going to work out because you aren’t getting traffic. Don’t worry, traffic comes with time.
It will usually take anywhere from 3-6 months for you to start getting some consistent traffic. Don’t let that discourage you though. All that means is that during that time, you have the opportunity to publish new blog posts and set up your website the way you want to. No one is going to notice the changes to the layout or which are posts are edited. Think of that waiting period as a good thing, it’s preparation for your introduction to your audience.
The Personal Finance niche is challenging, and finding the right sub-niche for you can also be a difficult. However, given the right sub-niche and sticking with the blog by publishing 2-3 posts a week you have the possibility to succeed!
