4 Tips For Choosing A Blog Topic

Welcome to day 1 of the Back To The Basics blog series. Well, enough introductions, let’s get started:

Before you do anything like picking a domain name or ordering a hosting package you should pick a topic for your blog. What is your blog going to be about, who is going to read it, and are you passionate about your chosen topic ?

Look At Your Hobbies

Before I start a new blog (or even if I am thinking about killing one off) I create a list of the top 5 hobbies I have. After that I will put a little star next to hobbies that I know quite a bit about (computers, computer programming, computer repair, gaming, etc). Those are my possible blog topics.

Although it would be safe to choose pretty much any of your hobbies as a topic, your best bet is to stick with ones that you’re knowledgeable about.

Popularity

There are 6.5 billion people on this planet. There are hundreds of millions of people online. Chances are someone is interested in the same things as you. However, the question still remains, will there be enough people looking at your blog?

Your topic should be general, while being specific. About a year ago everyone talked about how starting blogs about a single topic was the way to go. Some people took that too literally and thought a blog about iPods couldn’t talk about the Microsoft Zune market share at all, which is plain wrong. If it is somehow related to the main idea then it is safe to write about.

Take a look at ProBlogger: It is a blog about professional blogging (the general theme), but it also contains articles on search engine optimization, marketing, etc (sub-topics). Each thing that is discussed is related to everything else it covers.

Competition

Blogging is unique in the sense that all competing bloggers are friends, not enemies. Bloggers help each other out by linking to articles, doing guest posts, and even communicating via e-mail or IM. If someone says something interesting that is related to your blog, why not mention it? Unless you write crap content, your readers aren’t going to run off just because you linked to a competitor.

With that said, trying to enter into an incredibly popular market is insane. Starting a gadget or “make money online” blog is almost always suicide, and while it is very possible to be successful in those markets it requires an enormous amount of hard work and determination.

If you must enter into a competitive market, look for a part of it that no one talks about. There is always a void somewhere, and filling that void is a sure-fire way to run a popular blog.

“Making Money” Is Not A Goal

Probably the most annoying thing I see on a nearly daily basis is when supposed “Internet marketers” tell prospective bloggers to choose profitable niches (topics) and they don’t mention anything about choosing a niche that you are passionate about. If you really want to do well in blogging, choose what you know, don’t choose something just because its AdSense CPC might be 10 cents higher.

While I have no problem with people making money online, I do have a problem with people making money online by giving crap advice, offering shitty content, and doing it all “just to make money.” Choosing a topic you know nothing about will guarantee you do all three of those things. There should always be a point where you ask yourself, “Am I helping or hurting the Internet?” and the problem is most Internet marketers never ask themselves that.

I think a good example of this is Mesothelioma blogs and niche sites. Generally speaking, the people who make them are not doctors, they know nothing abut the topic, and they make them to “make a quick buck.” Those sites add no value to the Internet, and all they do is spam the search engines with crap content.

If you love many things and one of them is more profitable than the others, then go for it. Just don’t talk about stuff you haven’t a clue about and that you aren’t interested in just to make a quick buck. This will be a theme that will be discussed throughout this entire blog series.

Well, that’s it. Stay tuned for some more great articles in the month-long Back To The Basics blog series.

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