How My First Failed Blog Taught Me Choosing the Right Niche

🚧 The Backstory

In 2016, I launched a niche blog on a software testing tool – Selenium WebDriver. It was intended to be a tutorial site — helpful, code-rich, and ideally monetized through AdSense. I poured months into content, code samples, SEO tweaks, and tutorials. I learnt WordPress, SEO, Hosting, PHP (a little), CSS and whatnot. Needless to say the hosting and domain costs over the years. I wanted to make passive income like many of you. I heard and read many good things about how blogging helped people become so rich. I failed miserably because I knew nothing about choosing the right niche.

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“Nine years. One blog. Less than $100. Here’s what I learned the hard way.”

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After 9 years, the blog earned less than $100 in total. That’s not a typo. This is the screenshot of my adsense account.

I finally shut it down in 2025.

Here’s why it failed, what I missed. I am writing it down for you so that you don’t do the same mistakes that I did.

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❌ Why My Selenium Blog Failed

1. Overcrowded Corporate Competition

There are companies, big-big companies I was competing against unknowingly. Is it even possible for a person with a day job of 9 to 9 (We know 9 to 5 is just a phrase, most of the days we stretch formally or informally).

• SaaS giants like LambdaTest, BrowserStack, TestProject
• Established blogs by full-time dev teams
• Companies spending thousands in paid marketing

They could afford better content, free tools, case studies, and SEO consultants. I was a one-person army.

2. Low Consumer Intent

My readers were mostly:

• Developers looking for free help
• Students learning automation
• People not looking to buy anything

• No real affiliate potential
• No products to sell.
• No services they needed to pay for.
• Just… free traffic. And not much of it.

3. Tutorial Burnout

Software Industry evolve fast. Very fast. New tools get launched every day.
Old posts got outdated quickly.
I couldn’t keep up.
Maintaining the content became a burden, not a joy.

4. No Real Brand Voice

The site was helpful, but dry. It sounded like StackOverflow.( a community driver forum where thousands of software developer contribute) How could I ever compete ?
It lacked emotion, story, or relatability.
I had some very good guides but Nobody remembered it after they got their fix.

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🧠 What I’m Doing Differently Now (Choosing The Right Niche)

After spending so much energy and time, making so many mistakes, I have learnt many things on blogging that I am going to teach you for FREE.

Blogging is good, but you have to what and how..Here’s how to choose a niche:

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✅ Factors I Now Consider When Choosing a Blog Niche

1. Evergreen Value

I want content that doesn’t expire every time a tool updates.

So I’m shifting to personal finance — a space where core truths stay constant:

👉 How to Earn money
👉 How to Save money
👉 How to Grow money

These principles won’t change every six months.

2. Affiliate Potential

This time, I’m looking at niches where people:

• Research before buying
• Want comparisons
• Appreciate product guides

Amazon Associates, finance tools, even books offer monetization routes here.

3. Mass Appeal, But Unique Voice

Everyone has money problems. But Internet is full of Get-Rich-Quick schemes. And you know thats just plain fraud. That doesn’t work.
Not everyone talks about money slowly, peacefully, and without hype.
That’s where my new blog — SlowMoneyGuide.com — comes in.

4. Low Corporate Dominance

I avoided niches where:

• Corporates invest huge budgets and teams

Instead, I chose something that represents my voice, my experience, my honest learnings, not a team of 20 content writers on a payroll.

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5. Can I do this long enough?

• Ask: “Can I still write about this 5 years from now?”

If the answer is YES, that’s your niche. example: when you look for profitable niche, a very frequent suggestion is “Pet care: dog food and accessories.” I can write few blog posts with the help of chatGPT and my experience but I can’t do that for 5 years. It’s too boring for me. I have no interest in Pet Care.(Don’t hate me for this) . You get the idea right?

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Let me know your thoughts !

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