How to Know What to Blog About
Now that you know what a blog is and we’ve given you all the reasons to start a blog, you may be ready to get started! That’s step one, now step two is knowing what to blog about!
There are several ways to go about coming up with an idea, and it’s important to take some time to think this through in order to have the best chance for long term success.
Your Blog Should Be Cohesive
It’s fine for a personal blog to be more of an online journal or diary of your life, with each post simply reflecting thoughts and feelings of the moment.
But once you step into blogging as a more serious venture, it’s time to think about creating a theme and having a plan for what your posts will be about.
When you wish to grow traffic to a blog, it’s helpful to ensure that your posts are related to one main topic (or niche), and that you are able to provide information in such a way that you can be seen as an authority on your topic.
Not to mention, you want it to be clear to people when they land on your site, what they can expect to find there.
People today are short on time, they will only take a few seconds to look at your site, and if it’s not clear what they can expect to get there or that you can solve their problem, they will move on to the next one.
How to Brainstorm Blog Topics
Think about the following as a way to start brainstorming a topic for your blog:
- Consider what you are passionate about and will feel inspired to write about for years to come.
- What’s something you know more about than the average person?
- What’s a problem you’ve learned to solve that others may benefit from knowing the solution as well?
- Are there blogs that you read but feel like you could do a better job at explaining/providing the information?
- Think about things that your family and friends often ask you and consider whether there may be others who need the same help.
- Think about a specific person who’s problem you could solve.
- Check and see what people are searching for on the internet and consider whether you could provide better information than what currently pulls up in an internet search.
- What questions do you get asked the most on social media?
- Consider whether you could make money from the topic, whether by traffic to your site, affiliate recommendations, creating a product, etc.
- Keep an open mind for the obvious, something you may take for granted and think is too simple may be the perfect topic to help someone else!
The Importance of Getting Specific
If you hear us say one thing again and again, it’s that you need to niche down if you want to grow your blog.
The problem may not be that you don’t have enough ideas, it may be that you have too many!
It’s great to have a head full of ideas and heart on fire to share them all, but it’s really important to be intentional and specific when you start your blog, if you want to make sure and grow organically.
It’s best for SEO if it’s really clear what your site is about. It’s also best for users if they know what to expect from you and can share your “expertise” by recommending you to their friends or sharing your posts on social media.
If you would like some help figuring out your niche, be sure to sign up for our email list! You’ll get our Intro to Blogging email series as well as our downloadable worksheet to help you figure out your niche!