There have been quite a number of articles that have touched on the type of blog topics which would attract readers in their thousands (and potentially millions). However, there has been a dearth of blog posts that talk about the art of How to choose a blog topic alone.
It is an exquisite art that has been mastered by a few individuals who continue to hone it and attract the audience that they wished for. These sets of individuals who have mastered this art may not have millions flooding into their website on a monthly basis but their audience is very direct and responsive to any call-to-action in which the blog author creates.
That is the goal that I am trying to pass across in this article. I want you to become so vast in this art that the readers will always return to check up the website on a daily basis for new stuff.
Also, we will learn the fact that it does not involve increasing number of articles that you churn out on a daily basis. That is blogging according to the principle of quantity and I want to help everybody proceed to blog according to the principle of quality. Without further ado, we shall move to understand how to choose a blog topic
1. Identify Your Passions
There is no craft that anyone can succeed without identifying the passion that drives it. This is because passion will continue to be the main catalyst that would drive that individual towards achieving the goals.
The idea of blogging is that we aim to continue for a long time. This is the reason why passion would be the fuel that will drive the blogging. An identification of what we are passionate about will also make the topic much interesting as the audience can literally feel the energy and passion that is coming from the author.
This is the reason why we come across some blog posts that are too technical in nature and do not have that warmth that draws the reader into the post.
Identification of passions starts from giving answers to questions like,
‘What am I good at?’
‘What excites me more than any other thing combined?’
‘What do other people always call me a natural at?’
When we think about network marketing, we think of business moguls like Neil Patel and Tony Robbins.
In the same way, when TV live shows are mentioned, the people we think of are Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, and Jimmy Kimmel. I could go on in listing people, who we can see, are clearly passionate about the kind of jobs they are into.
Am I a natural at discussions that are centered on love?
If I find it very easy prescribing the kind of love play that improves intimacy within relationships, or talking about ways to improve the love life of a friend, then I should be thinking of choosing a love topic to write on.
Also, I may be so passionate about exquisite vintage car collections and Formula One races that I may choose topics that relate to them.
I have seen folks who are so much in love with historical fiction that has delved into blogging by choosing such topics and guess what? Such people are doing wonderfully well with their topic.
The idea I am trying to convey is that we need to embark upon a self-introspection journey. I do not mean that we should hop on the jet and immediately fly away to India or some far Eastern country to see the light (readers may do so if it is possible)
I am talking of engaging in quick question and answer sessions. This would not only help how we can choose blog topics but also help the career path we intend to take.
2. Carve a unique niche
Seasoned bloggers who operate on the principle of quality always choose the unique niche to create blog topics on. Such professionals operate with the knowledge that a dabbler in many things is hardly going to succeed in anything.
People who operate on the principle of quantity, dabble into many niches in order to get a little audience from every aspect. I have seen a website that has topics on love, sports, movies and even parenting and I wondered how the website author manages to post content on everything. While the website may look to be cool on the outside, I could easily spot out the failing inadequacies of the topics immediately I clicked on most of them.
The truth was that the topics lacked real stuff and the flip side with this is that any blog audience is quick to spot this out. If an audience smells that the topic looks just like a filler to draw people, the number of visitors to that website will dwindle.
Now, this means that we have to carve out our personal niche and this kick-started when we identified out passion.
If the passion is cooking, then we can begin to choose topics within the culinary niche.
If the passion is reading and writing novels, then we are going to stay within the literature niche.
When we have identified the niche, it is important to keep sticking to it and acquiring better skills. This process will result in increasing self-proficiency in choosing quality topics that would interest blog visitors.
The benefit of choosing a particular niche also is that blog visitors can easily identify with the website and always return. Those blog visitors are the ones that will become unique subscribers to the website and may later proffer topics that we may choose from.
Remember that we are not to engage in dabbling in different niches because a dabbler hardly succeeds in the long run
3. Always Engage In Research
If I wish to know how to choose a blog topic, I must be ready to learn the importance of research in creating that topic. Becoming a seasoned researcher gives anyone the access keys into the blogging hall of fame.
By research, I do not mean the art of stuffing the blog post or topic with so many scientific figures that are mind-numbing. Rather, I mean the art of getting the right information that would improve the validity of the blog topic we wish to post on.
So, how do I research in choosing a blog topic?
There are many sources that I can consult in order to get the job done.
- The first is that I can begin to reach out to seasoned bloggers in the niche I chose. If I am interested in creating topics in the fashion niche, I can begin to reach out to the authors of the Vogue website. I will then proceed to ask tips which I can use in order to create excellent fashion topics as well as the most important tips which the Vogue website visitors give to the authors.
- The second way to research on the topic is by making extensive use of the Google search engine. There is a large stash of knowledge that we can uncover from Google to discover how to choose a blog topic. We can first begin by requesting for the most searched items for the year on a general level. Google is so great that it would actually provide the analytics of the keywords. Then, while working on the principle of quality, we can proceed to check out the most searched items within the niche that we chose.
For example, if I chose to focus on the niche of soccer, Google may provide me with specific keywords such as
- Cristiano Ronaldo
- UEFA Champions League
- Real Madrid
These keywords can be hugely beneficial whenever I choose to create the blog topic I desire.
I will give another example…
If I chose to focus on the niche of technology, a Google search on the hot-selling keywords within the niche may turn up results such as,
- Nanotechnology
- Artificial intelligence
- Blockchain etc.
From these results, I can confidently choose any of them and develop unique topics that would bring newer blog visitors.
I know that many readers are thinking that choosing such topics would mean overcrowding and that leads to the next vital point that we should remember.
4. “Do not feel that any topic is too overcrowded”
It is true that some topics may seem to have been talked about at most periods in time and we may feel that many people do not wish to hear it again. However, we are making a very wrong assumption when we engage in that pattern of thought.
We err because of two major reasons,
- First, we think that many people are tired of hearing that topic. In reality, people are always receptive to old information being produced in a newer light. For example, if we choose to write a story on the topic of love, readers would be excited to identify the perspective we are writing from because perspective is fueled by personal beliefs and past experiences. Hence, I can choose to write a topic on the Feminist movement and I would have a good readership because readers want to know the perspective I am coming from.
- Secondly, we may feel many people have read a particular topic and then decide against it. However, that would be a wrong perception because there are many people who are newly catching up to trends that have passed in other places. For example, many people in China may not have caught on to the topic of feminism and when a visitor from their visits the blog post I created, the individual may refer the post to many others.
No seasoned blogger abstains from choosing any topic because it has been repeated over again. The topic is chosen because that blogger has a new twist to offer to the particular topic and there are always going to be blog visitors who would appreciate any new twist to an old story.
5. Understand That Expert Status Is Not Needed
Many individuals are continually discouraged from choosing the blog topic that is interesting because such individuals think that there is a need to acquire an expert status before choosing the topic.
Now, I want to be very clear on this.
There are a few topics that we cannot write on because it may prove to be disastrous for readers in the long run (especially when we do not attach and warning note to the information). For example, if I am not a medical expert, I should not attempt to write on some medical topics that may place the readers in life-threatening solutions. In order to write on such topics, it would be best that I get the needed qualifications.
Apart from these few topics that we need to acquire a certain level of expertise, there are no topics that you need to have an expert opinion before choosing topics there.
For instance, if we are interested in writing topics about the safety of animals in the areas where poaching occurs the most, we do not need to be wildlife specialists to write.
Also, if I am interested in writing about topics on healthy living in terms of nutrition, I do not need to be a doctor to write on the benefits of drinking water on a daily basis.
Also, I would not need to be a scientist in order to teach blog readers on the importance of maintaining some days of fasting.
A little bit of experience is needed in such scenarios. If we have already experienced disappointment within an office relationship with a co-worker, we can choose to write on “Ways To Build Good Office Relations” even though we do not have degrees in Human Resources.
Here are the most important ingredients we need to choose any topic even if we are not experts here,
- Make a quality research on the topic
- Use personal experience to buttress points.
- Put in a cautionary note that states that the ideas are solely the author’s and do not represent those of the scientific community.
- Make references to relevant scientific authorities if we can
Remember, we do not have to be Egyptian citizens to write on the excellent experience we had on a trip to Cairo and a personal description of the Egyptian Pyramids.
6. Know the Reader base
The reader base is the audience that we will be targeting when we choose the blog topics we desire to write on. Before any venture is engaged in within any field, there is always an attempt to know the audience. For instance, a budding entrepreneur would engage in market feasibility studies in order to efficiently determine the target market.
The question that we have to answer is,
Who is the target audience for this topic I want to choose?
Do the target audience prefers to read blog posts or watch videos?
For example, if I have chosen to focus on MMA fighting as the niche I love, I need to identify if the audience is mostly aged people or the youths. In most instances, I have personally discovered that the younger generation prefers MMA because it is a bloody contact sport and because of the flair that some fighters like Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov bring to it.
I also know that the older generation finds sports like golf to be a gentleman’s sport, and provide a high percentage of the audience for anyone who opts to choose a topic on golfing.
The answer provided to the question of the type of audience will help to formulate the blog topic better and how the final blog post would look like. For example, there are some kinds of language that would be suitable for an older audience and would not really be understood by a younger audience.
Here are a few instances where knowledge of the audience is key:
- If we wish to write in the niche of pregnancy and other related terms, the audience would obviously be pregnant women as well as other children physicians. When we have identified this audience, we can then begin to research what topics affect them the most. In the case of pregnant women, the health of the baby is the primary concern. From that, we can begin to choose topics that center on the kinds of foods that are relevant, types of exercise that can aid the birth experience as well as other topics.
- If we are thinking of focusing on the weight reduction niche, the audience would definitely be obese people as well as others who are looking forward to maintaining their weight. When we identify this audience, we can think of the kinds of personal struggles which 80 percent face when trying to lose weight. After we have gotten that information, we can begin to choose blog topics that would proffer solutions to them.
- Another example is that if we are looking forward to focusing in the niche of human rights activism, we would need to recognize the audience which we are going to address the topic to. For example, if we choose the silent racial discrimination that happens to Black people in a country, the audience will be mostly for black people and government authorities. After we have identified the audience, we can begin to identify the peculiar challenges which the Black people face and then choose topics that will help to improve their state of living.
7. Choose Topics That Are Bold
We have to admit some harsh truths here before we proceed further on how to choose blog topics.
The first is that 80 percent of people do not like stale topics. Topics are not necessarily stale because they are old; rather they are stale because of the author’s unwillingness to add a dynamic touch to the topic. If I have been using the same pattern of topics for some time, there is a high chance that many readers would not want to return to the website because they are plainly tired. Hence, there is a need to always add a refreshing touch when choosing topics.
Choose topics that have bold headlines that may cause a passing reader to chuckle and then proceed to read the article.
The second fact that we have to establish is that more than 80 percent of readers online have the reading capacity of 3rd graders. Simply put, the majority are not likely to understand complex topics.
If we are thinking of delving into a niche like Nanotechnology, Physics and others like them, we may be comfortable with choosing topics that will prove to be very complex to an average reader.
However, when we are thinking of writing in a simple niche, it will be best to discard very difficult topics because people would be frankly bamboozled (‘mesmerized’ and ‘confused’ are similar meanings) and leave to other news sources.
We have to always remember that 80 percent of the Internet audience has a slight reading time of 30 seconds before choosing to proceed on reading an article or not: if the topic is too complex, they zoom away.
8. Discard The Myth Of The Audience.
There is a certain ‘fact’ that states that every blogger should target topics that will draw millions of audiences because that is the only way to make money. This ‘fact’ should be considered as a myth as it does not necessarily work that way.
The aim of everyone who wants to choose a blog topic should be ‘Value’. We should esteem value above every other thing and when we do that, we will be able to get the needed audience even though they are very small.
I have seen some bloggers who focus on writing topics about vintage cars and getting an opportunity to market products from reputable carmakers like BMW etc. These bloggers only focused on the creation of topics that would make the blog visitors return and the income came.
In contrast, I have seen some other bloggers who chose blog topics due to popularity but are still not making much money.
Here is the secret:
An industry chosen by many people yields little while an industry chosen by few brings high yield. (Those who invested in Bitcoin at the early stages would verify this fact better)
Conclusion
There are numerous other things that we can take into consideration before choosing good blog topics. However, we must always remember that obedience to the principle of quality is always helpful, over obedience to the principle of quantity.
We should be thinking of choosing quality well-researched topics that will provide optimal value to the website audience and attract them to become steady visitors of the page. When we choose to esteem the number of topics over this, we may discover that the website is short lived.
