What to blog about? That’s a question that many people have when they decide they’re going to get into the online pastime. You may have spent hours looking through others’ blogs and websites, found lists of hundreds of ideas for topics, and still found that you’re asking yourself the same question.
The truth is you don’t need ideas. You need tips on choosing your own topics to blog about.
It Depends on Your Goal
Before you even think about choosing a blogging topic, you need to think about the goal for your blog. What do you really want to achieve? Is it to sell an affiliate product? Maybe you want to showcase your skills as a writer. You may even want to offer tips and advice to others on a particular subject. There is no wrong or right answer when it comes to your blogging goals. They are personal to you and depend on the things that drive and interest you.
If you are promoting a product or service, you would need to cover the benefits, comparisons with others and your personal reviews of using it. However, when you’re showcasing your writing talents, you can cover a wider range of topics to do this.
Write About Your Passion
When creating a blog and starting out writing, you need to enjoy what you’re doing. So, when you’re thinking “what to blog about,” you need to think about what you love to do or what you have a passion for. It could be about anything that you enjoy—chances are someone else in the world enjoys it too. If you love reading, write reviews about the books you read. Photographers will offer tips and advice, along with photos that they have taken.
Writing about your passion will mean you never run out of ideas. A good blog is updated regularly—at least once a week—as it keeps people interested and gives fresh content for the search engines to log. By writing about something you enjoy, you won’t get bored or feel annoyed that it’s time to update it yet again.
The passion will also show in your writing. Readers will see that you love the topic, constantly have fresh ideas and really want to help them. It encourages them to come back and read more—and they may even subscribe to your blog to get your updates.
It’s really common for people to pick a topic that others make money from in the hope they too can make some money. Although the reality is it isn’t actually the topic that makes money, but your passion and the readers’ engagement in the posts that make a blog successful.
Write for Your Readers
When you’re blogging for money, you need to keep your readers coming and encourage them to buy your products or services. You need to give them a reason to click your affiliate links and buy the products or sign up to a website. The best way to do that is write specifically for them.
Think about the type of problems your readers have within your topic of expertise. Is there a common question you find unanswered online? Maybe the answers you find are wrong or misleading. Create a blog post that covers that question and gives the reader clear, honest and correct answers. You will also find that those answers bring up some other questions, so you can create follow up posts.
If your readers learn something new or get the answers to their questions, they will come back for more. More than that, they will share your posts with their friends, which boosts your readership further and boosts your position in the search engines.
Discuss and Debate with Your Readers
When you’re really not sure what to blog about, think about the type of posts that will create conversations with your readers. You want them to comment with questions, their opinions and encourage others to jump in. To do this you need to create posts that offer the ability to discuss or debate a topic. It could be a recent controversial news topic where you offer your point of view or it could be your way of solving the nation’s debt crisis (just as examples).
You will need to be careful with this method. Posts like this can come across as volatile and purposely pushing buttons. You will also receive comments from readers who like to push others’ buttons and cause debates; known as trolls. It is up to you to determine those who are getting into a healthy debate and those you need to delete and ban because of the hurtful nature. It is also best to stay away from topics that you’re sensitive about.
Keep It Focused
Finally, make sure your blog is focused. Pick one topic and stick to it. The trick is to find ways that another topic will link to yours, so you constantly have something new and interesting to share.
Focused blogs are successful because readers know what to expect. They’re more likely to subscribe and check back when you have new posts. If you’re all over the place, you can’t target to a specific audience. It may seem like you have more readers, but those reading about last week’s topic may have no interest in this week’s topic and decide never to come back.
If you have multiple passions, create multiple blogs and set up a schedule to add fresh content to each blog. Although it’s probably best to start with one blog and build up the passion for it. The more passion you have, the more it will come across in your writing. This is really important to create fun, interesting and engaging content which will soon have your readers coming back for more.
Many thanks for penning this
Great tips. Thanks for sharing.