If you’re considering starting a blog (see our full guide on how to do this here), one of the very first questions you’ll be asking yourself is What should I blog about?
Well, there are really two things you need to consider..
First, you want a topic that pertains fairly close to you. There’s no point selecting a writing topic you know little about and have little interest in. The options for good topics are endless, so above all else pick one that will keep you motivated to put the effort in.
The second thing (and kind of the third thing) is to consider your purpose and audience in starting. Writing is really nothing without a readership, and a readership is really nothing without a purpose. Are you looking to start a blog to raise awareness, find like minded people interested in the same things as you are, or are you starting a blog to monetize it and make money?
You need to consider your potential target audience. Finding your audience providing them with the content they actually want is hugely important. This together with finding a niche you’re passionate about is the real recipe for success.
Putting in the time to choose a great topic will pay off down the road many times if done right!
Table of Contents
Things To Blog About: Start By Considering Your Options
A great first step in terms of deciding what you should write about is considering all of your interests and hobbies. Take time going over this and make your thinking as comprehensive as possible. You can make a list of everything you enjoy doing to help clarify your options.
Based on this list, you can start to form an idea of your different blogging options in your mind. You most likely want one overarching theme or topic to your blog, and it does need to be something you truly care about. If you have a cluster of interests which are all in a similar vein (such as lifestyle topics like home décor, recipes, and fashion), then you can get away with having a broader focus.
You also should make a decision on whether you want your site to be more personal or more topic focused. This is totally up to you, although some topics benefit from a personal touch more than other. If you’re creating a travel site, you’ll likely want to put more of yourself into your writing. However, if you’re starting a business site, it’s less likely your posts will require so much personal information (although a hint of personal experience tends to work well).
Niche Ideas
Choosing a niche for you should be based on you rather than just picking one from a list of types. But if you’re struggling for inspiration, looking at what’s out there can be quite helpful. Here’s a starter list to get the ideas flowing.
One note here is that you should consider scope of a topic when selecting a niche. A website about fashion can encompass more topics than a website about ‘Fashion in Chicago in the ’80s’. So think about how broad you want to go with your content when deciding. Websites on very narrow topics are often referred to as niche blogs. You can read more about them here.
Fashion
Fashion blogging tends to have posts relating to upcoming trends, shopping guides, outfits of the day and hauls.
Beauty
Beauty sites (which can be further broken down in skincare, makeup, hair, nails, etc.) can have blog posts about beauty trends, new product launches, product reviews and more. You can read more about to start one of these here.
Food
Food sites can either be based on home cooking (with recipes, tips, and tricks) or restaurant reviews.
Travel
Travel blogs tend to focus on guides to certain cities or countries, plus anecdotes, and travel tips. You can read more about to start one of these here.
Money
Money blogging tends to relate to trends in saving, tips, and tricks for personal finance, financial freedom, and passive income ideas.
Books
Book websites can feature post ideas like book reviews, author interviews, event information, and shopping guides.
Business Blogs
Business blog post ideas can be about topics such as marketing trends, recruitment, specific industry tips and more.
DIY
DIY content tends to feature “life hack” style posts, with tips and step-by-step lists to help you unleash your creativity. They can vary from home improvements to party planning, to creating clothing.
Fitness
Fitness sites can feature workout routines, exercising tips, information on food and special recipes and clothing or gear reviews.
News
News blogging relies on the news cycle and often adds a new, fresh perspective to the most talked-about current events of the moment.
Political Website
If you dare to and this is interesting to you, consider wading into the fray with your own political content. You can read more about to start one of these here.
Music
Music posts can be about album reviews, gig reviews, band interviews, or just general favorites.
A Blog About Love
You can create content around an intangible feeling as well!
Personal Blogs
Personal blogs tend to be more like an online diary, relating to the daily routine and life events of the blogger. They tend to offer more freedom in terms of post topics, although the lack of a defined structure can make personal blogging quite challenging. One topic you can cover in a personal site is exactly the “what should I blog about” dilemma. You can read more about to start one of these here.
Photography
If you have a passion for taking photographs, snapping angles, or displaying photography, consider starting a site about it! You can read more about to start one of these here.
And Many More
Truly, there is great content to be created on every topic you can imagine – just search the internet for [hobby] + “blog,” and you’ll find an extensive list of results. Figuring out your chosen topic should be a fairly natural process, though dedicating time to it can help. You really shouldn’t struggle to find one you are interested in, have ideas regarding, and can write a lot about.
Find Your Niche: How To Decide
If you’re stuck between a few different ideas, there are some questions you can ask yourself to help you come to a good decision. Firstly, do you truly care about a topic? In order to be a successful blogger, your interest in the topic should be infectious. Your posts should both excite the people already interested in a topic, plus draw new people to it.
You should also ask yourself how much you can write about on any topic? Successful blogging takes time, and you’ll need to be able to produce an almost infinite number of posts relating to your chosen subject matter.
One of the most important aspects of publishing content is consistency, so you need to be sure you’ll always have something to write about pertaining to your chosen topic. This is essential to avoiding a future writer’s block and wasting time.
If you’ve considered both of these questions and are confident in your abilities within your chosen blog theme, the next stage to consider is the wider blogging landscape. This can help you better tailor your topic, plus find your specific niche within the market.
Blog Ideas & Types of Blogs That Make Money
For those of you interested in starting a content website to make money, this is a biggie to consider!
Buying intent has a big impact on how much a website can make. If you’re going for ad revenue, you should consider a niche that has the potential to run up the traffic numbers and attract a lot of people as more eyeballs equals more ad revenue. If you’re going for affiliate marketing, you should consider niches that have products people will buy.
A website on the best new tech items for instance has much more potential to refer product sales than a website all about how to read someone’s astral signs.
Niche Research
Look at the most successful websites in your chosen niche. Take time on this research, and try to make a note of the things they have in common. While imitating these blogs will never bring you their same level of success (and can actually come across as quite annoying to potential readers), they are a valuable resource in terms of style of topics which are attractive to potential readers. This can be a great way to implement content marketing for your own site.
Most Popular Blog Topics (Popular Niches Now and Over Time)
When trying to narrow down your decision on what to write about, it’s worth considering what is popular within your chosen niche. While mimicking popular trends will not be a lasting way to create a successful blog, keeping up with the current trends is part of your job. Look at what others are doing and put your own spin on it in order to make your site both unique and on trend.
Most Profitable Niches
Part of your research if you’re looking to make money on your content is to figure out how profitable a certain niche is compared to another. Things like cost per click pricing estimates and cost for google ads can give you an approximation on how much money people are spending to advertise in one niche verses another. It’s best to go for the niches where the money already is.
Different Sites Within the Same Niche
No two authors or content websites are exactly the same. This is because the most popular and successful ones all fit a particular niche. Finding yours is key to finding your target audience and eventually making money writing. There are tons of ways to make your site unique. In order to determine your niche, think about what makes you unique.
This can be almost anything. For example, do you write in a particular tone of voice? Do you have a very broad, outlining focus – or do you focus on one very specific topic per post? Making these decisions will help you brand your blog and make it stand out from others which may otherwise be too similar.
Unique Blog Ideas: Finding Your Unique Angle
One thing that all popular sites have in common is their unique nature. Standing out from the crowd within your chosen niche is hugely important. Think about it: there is a multitude of blogs, many of which focus on one fairly specific topic. Why would a reader come to you instead of one of the others? Answering this question will help you grow your readership and successfully market your site.
Tactics For Growing An Audience (Whatever You Chosen Blog Topic)
It’s likely that when deciding what you should blog about, that you’re hoping to grow your blog and find and maintain an audience. While finding a niche and maximizing on your unique selling point is essential to making the most of your readership, there are some extra tips and tricks which can help. Remember, though, that if you have a poorly chosen or fuzzily defined theme, then even using these tactics will be unlikely to help your site take off. High-quality content should always come first.
Search Engine Trends
In order to help direct traffic to your website, you want it to appear high on the list of any search engine’s results. You can do this by using search engine optimization tactics, which help you find and use popular keywords in order to make your site more visible. If you’re producing content that people want to know about, search engines will favor your posts.
Promotion
Social media is an indispensable tool in terms of promoting your content. In order to help your blog reach as many people’s lives as possible, you need to create social accounts in order to promote your site. Creating high-quality content and promoting it to your target audience can help garner social shares, which are essentially free promotion. Social media is also invaluable in terms of networking, particularly with other writers.
Headlines
One of the principal reasons someone will click on a post link is because the headline interests them. Consistently choosing engaging, clickable headlines can make your readership grow without you having to compromise on the content you’re passionate about writing.
Headlines should directly relate to what people want to know. And while the content of what they want to know varies hugely from topic to topic, there are some general themes which run throughout. People want solutions to their problems, so having a headline centered around a common issue with promises of a resolution is always a great idea.
People want to learn and achieve something, so any headline which promises teaching and tips for success will always be, well, successful. And people want something that is fun to read, so a snappy, catchy and non-dull headline is absolutely essential.
What Should I Blog About? Be Flexible
In order to gain a loyal readership, people will need to know what to expect from your blog. If you position your site as a place that produces content about art with a humorous tone of voice, then that’s what you need to deliver consistently. People like to know what to expect from a website, and that they can rely on it for this type of content.
However, in order to give your site longevity, it’s important also to be flexible. Today’s world is extremely fast-paced, and trends can change very quickly. If you are too set in your content-creating ways, your writing can become stale and seem older and less relevant.
Don’t be afraid of expanding or slightly altering your niche as your site and readership grow. We’re not suggesting abandoning the content which has got you this far – rather, being open-minded and flexible in terms of your website’s growth.
Readership Plus Passion Equals Blogging Success
As we’ve discussed, the best formula for a successful site is combining a personal passion for the topic with tactics to reach your desired readers. However, it’s important to bear in mind that these two facets of success actually help feed into each other.
If you don’t have a passion for and interest in your writing topic, then it’ll be almost impossible to create high-quality content which an audience will enjoy. But if you aren’t reaching your desired audience, then your passion for the topic (and therefore your writing ideas) will inevitably suffer as a consequence. You cannot have passion without an audience, just as you can’t have an audience without passion. Work on and nurture both in order to achieve success with your site.
Conclusion: How To Pick A Topic When Starting A Blog
While the path to success is never exactly the same for everybody, there is a general path to follow. You first want to look at yourself – what you like, what you care about, and what you’re good at. You then want to use this information to look at the market – what works, what doesn’t, what is popular and what has good potential for growth.
By looking at your chosen industry, you can then better position your site, and make it stand out in the sea of content with the similar subject matter. You can then use some tried-and-true techniques to help grow your website’s audience.
Put simply: the balance to strike is writing for others while also writing for you. If you do this, you’re well on your way to a successful site.
What do you think of our guide? How did you choose your niche? Sound off in the comments below!