First Step To Becoming a Blogger – Part I

So you want to Blog? Most people do. But a lot of people give up their blogging dreams as they feel they are not technical enough to setup and run a blog. Those who get over that first hurdle by using services such as WordPress.org or Blogger, will face another challenge: Creating Content.

To create and post content to your blog, you need to first figure out what the topic of your blog should be. Brainstorming should be the first thing you do really. After all, you don’t want to stop writing about a topic that you have no interest in after 2 weeks.

Here are some quick questions you can use to figure out the best topic for your blog:

• What is your main area of interest? What is it that you can’t stop talking about (or reading about) on the Internet? If you can’t stop talking about it, there is a good chance that you can come up with fresh talking points for your blog after the first two weeks.
• What is your area of expertise? Do you have knowledge of a topic that is highly in demand (e.g. you may be a SEO professional in your day job. If so, writing about the latest SEO best practices could be one way to go).
• Is the topic that you are interested in blogging about popular? If you plan to write about the red UFOs that have landed on earth, you might as well blog to yourself. There are people who are interested in such topics, but you need to find out your market size before getting yourself in the market. I am all for creating Blue Oceans, but not for creating Blue “micro lakes.” So do a little market research. Go to Google, and search for the topic that you are planning to blog. See if anyone actually searches for that topic. You can also use Google Keywords tools or Aaron Wall’s SEO Keyword tool. See how many searches are done for the most general term in your niche.
• Is your market mature? This is really subjective as you need to figure out if it’s the right strategy to enter the market. A lot of people love going into Red Oceans, but in Red Ocean markets the competition is more fierce and you have less room to maneuver.

These days you see a lot of bloggers who blog about the most monetized topics on the Internet (insurance, banking, law). It’s fine if you are interested in blogging about those highly popular blogging but think about the Nash equilibrium. In essence, unless you find a niche in those market to set yourself apart from thousands of other bloggers who are writing on those topics, then you could just get lost in that Red Ocean. If you can’t stand out, you have less chance of making it in this business. So until next time, think about what can set you apart from your competition. In the next part of this series, I’ll talk about some of the tools that you can use to help with your brainstorming process.

P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to OT’s RSS if you haven’t already.