Blog About Topics That You Are Passionate and Knowledgeable About
One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is that they choose blogging topics based on how much money they can make. This is an almost surefire way for your blog to die a slow and painful death.
It is a pretty easy trap to fall into. You might read about how much money stock market sites or gadget sites make in terms of advertising dollars, so you figure, hey, I'll start up a blog about those topics as well. The problem is that if you aren't passionate and knowledgeable about the topic, your readers will see right through you and will never visit your blog again. People won't link to your articles and the site will never get off the ground.
I believe that in order for a blog to succeed (at least at the beginning), it needs at least one quality post per day. This will keep the readers reading, and this will keep the search engines (and most importantly Google) coming back for more. Google rewards sites that produce fresh content, so producing one high-quality and unique article per day is a great way to get your new site off the ground. If you stumbled upon a new site and saw that it was only updated once every couple of months, would you return again the next day? Probably not.
In order to develop a successful blog, you need to figure out what topics you are passionate and/or knowledgeable about. You don't necessarily have to have an expert-level understanding of the topic, but you have to at least be passionate about it. Being passionate about a topic means that you will have no problems researching and learning about it. This newfound knowledge will flow through to your readers, and they will reward you by returning to your site regularly, telling their friends and linking to your articles. This is how a site makes it.
Write down a list of things that interest you. Maybe you have a passion for rebuilding cars. Maybe you are a video game junkie. Maybe you travel through Europe every year. These are all great topics for a blog, and you should strongly consider writing on these topics. Blogs that specialize in taxes may make a lot of money, but if you don't know or understand the topic, then the blog won't make it.
If you are insistent on pursuing a certain topic but don't have the passion or knowledge, then consider finding someone who knows the topic well and have them write your articles for you. You will incur extra costs going this route, but at least your blog won't crash and burn.
The formula for success is pretty simple for developing a successful blog. It's no secret. Pick a topic that you love, and better yet, a topic that you know. Write unique and interesting articles daily. Pick strong titles for the article. Keep writing. Things will be slow-going in the beginning, but that's ok - that's part of the game. In a year, if you consider writing almost every day, you will have over 300+ unique articles, and likely a captivated audience. Once you start building up some traffic, then you can think about monetizing the site.
Again, don't fall into the trap of picking topics that you think will make you the most money. Pick topics that make sense to you, and the dollars will follow.
Filed under: Making Money Online | General Knowledge