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Deciding what to blog about

Guide to Making Money Blogging - Part 2
Blogging: Deciding what to blog about

You now have an understanding of where blogging came from and why it’s here to stay, so let’s see if we can figure out what you will be writing about.

Because this guide is geared towards making money, we’re going to focus on niche blogging. The reason for this is that niche blogs, in my opinion, are now the only way to work your way in to an already busy and bustling blogosphere. I suppose you could make a general free for all blog successful, but it would take an enormous amount of time and energy and in the world wide web time is in high demand. Most niches still have room for growth, so if you find a core subject and develop your message and blog around it you should be able to work your way in with very little time.

The first thing you’ll want to do is define your purpose. In my case, I blog because I enjoy the topics I blog about and I’ve found ways to make money while doing so. Are you doing this just for financial gain or do you want to make a paying hobby out of it?

If you’re in this for the money and the money alone, you might want to do some research on what’s hot and what’s not. Because you have no need for topics that you personally enjoy, you might as well go straight to the top and pick niche with the most traffic and highest click through rates.

To find these niches plan on spending a good deal of time watching Technorati. Technorati keeps track of the blogosphere and the hottest tags, and it updates this list in near real time. Today the top tags are Google, YouTube, and Google-YouTube. I’ll step out on a limb and proclaim that this is because of the announcement that Google will be buying YouTube. Even on a normal news day the tech tags seem to take the top. These are the kinds of things you want to watch. Find out what most people are looking for in the blogosphere and implement your own custom way of providing the information for them.

If you’re more interested in making some money with a topic or niche that you enjoy you should start out by making a list of hobbies and interests. Once you get 5 or 10 topics or hobbies you’ll want to go to Technorati and spend some time searching through blogs that write on the topics. You aren’t looking for a topic that only has a few blogs, rather, you’re on the hunt for a topic on your list that has the most blogs.

Regular websites that use regular search engines hope for less websites in their niche. This is because they actually compete for traffic. The blogosphere works because it shares traffic. You want a niche that has a lot of traffic so that you can network with other bloggers and squeeze your way into the niche community.

With niche blogging you really want to try your best to stay focused. You can work the tags all you want, but you aren’t going to get link love until you become an expert in the field you’re blogging. When I say expert I don’t mean some dude wearing pointed glasses and a white coat. No, I’m saying that you as an export have a firm understanding of the field you’re blogging and you make sure to pass the information on as soon as you find it. Once you become known as a good stopping point for information on a targeted topic, you’ll find your feed readership on the rise and inbound links expanding in numbers.

The bottom line is that if you’re niche blogging make sure it’s something you’re comfortable with. The best content comes from the plaves where the creating actually cares about the topic being explored.

Hope this helps!

Kind Regards,
Eric (AKA e-Rod)

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This is the first part of Guide to Making Money Blogging.

Watch for future chapters.
1- Blogging: The New Media Revolution (why blogging is important and where it is headed)
2- Choosing your topics. Do you want to opine on everything? or should you choose a niche?
3- Choosing a blogging platform and setting up your basic blog
4- Tips & Tricks for a blog that runs smoother and tells more people about itself
5- Tips & Tricks to help you understand the blogosphere and ways to put your blog in front of the eyes of the blogging community
6- Marketing your blog
7- Show me the money!
8- Splogs. What they are and why you should avoid them like the plague.
9- Resources

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