How to select a profitable blog topic that attracts traffic

Best blog topics

One of the most crucial and essential parts in creating and planning your blog is choosing a profitable blog topic that attracts traffic and will generate you good cash.

When it comes to selecting an outstanding topic that will generate more profits and make you have a large number of audiences, you will need to have many factors to consider.

Things such as topic know how, the interest of the audiences and you competitors tactics should be considered before coming up with a topic. As a blogger, you should always come up with unique ideas to help you outdo your competitors in the market.

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Here are some of the factors you should consider.

  1. The audience targeted– The content that you are going to write should aim at a particular audience
  2. Are you targeting a large audience? – You should consider how you are going to reach and inform your intended audience about the blog.
  3. Is the topic you are choosing have more to write in the future?
  4. Does the topic have many competitors in the market?
  5. Which measures are you going to take to make your topic unique and different from other competitors?

If your goal is to attract millions of visitors every month to a blog, the topic you select should have mass appeal or be somewhat mainstream, yet have a unique twist to it. As you try to determine the size of your audience, be realistic and develop appropriate expectations.

For example, a blog that addresses the political happenings in your town of 300,000 people may very well become the hottest thing in that town, but the audience growth potential has a ceiling. People in other towns, much less in other states or countries, will have little or no interest in your blog.

Even if you create the most incredible blog and the potential audience is the people in your town, realistically, it’s likely that only one out of every 10 people in your town will have the time or interest to read blogs in the course of their day, and of those few people, even fewer are most likely interested in local politics.

So while the topic of local politics may excite you personally, the reality is that this topic is very limited in terms of its potential audience and ability to grow. Bloggers just like you have achieved success blogging about a wide range of topics.

The following are just a few general areas that you might consider as you choose what you’ll blog about.

If you’re operating a blog for a company, the blog itself can focus on your company, its philosophies, and/or the people who run the company, for example. The blog can (and should) be targeted to your potential and/or existing customers or clients.
Consider using a company blog to explain how to best use your product or service (i.e., provide step-by-step how-to information), share customer testimonials, offer product comparisons, and/or interact with your customers in an informal way in order to share new information about products/services on the horizon.

If you’re at a loss for words but have photos that can tell a story, consider creating a photo blog or using a service like Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest to share your digital images. Just as with traditional blogs, there are no rules for creating photo blogs and/or online galleries, so you can opt to include a detailed photo caption for each image, or allow each photo to speak for itself.
Photos displayed in a pre-determined sequence, for example, can be used to tell a powerful story. It’s also possible to publish exactly where and when each photo was taken, and link keywords or tags to each photo, which make it easier for people to find.

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Factors to Keep in mind when you select a blog topic

There are numerous factors you need to keep in mind when you select a blog topic that will create profits or let you build a large and dedicated audience for the blog.

You have to keep in mind public interest, your expertise on the topic, the potential longevity of the topic, and the audience’s interest in that topic. It’s also imperative to study the competition and develop a way to deliver your content that’s different, more engaging, and simply better.

Begin by coming up with a few possible topics you’d like to use, and
then consider the following:

  1. Who is the audience for your topic? As the writer, you’re going to cater to that audience and write or produce content that the audience can relate to.
  2. Does the topic have some long-term appeal? Is this topic going to be relevant in a few months, a year, two years, maybe even five years down the road?
  3. How large will be your target audience for this topic? How are you going to reach your future audience to notify them of your blog?
  4. Is there going to be sufficient to write about this topic in the future? In a few minutes, can you write down twenty-five things you could blog about in future posts? Will you be able to come up with some new things to blog about to keep your content fresh over the long-term?
  5. How much competition is there when it comes to this topic? Consider other websites, blogs, magazines, newsletters, newspapers, television shows, vlogs, podcasts, radio shows, YouTube channels, and Facebook pages. There are many other outlets you can consider, too. Think about the other content that’s available to your targeted audience.
  6. What will you do that’s different to make your blog more appealing,
    entertaining, engaging, and interactive?

For every potential topic, you can offer experiences, opinions, commentary, how-to information, news, and delve into subtopics that relate to your main topic. You can also focus on any controversies that surround your topic in order to engage your audience.

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General areas you could consider blogging about.

  1. Industry Related Topics.
    Focus on a certain industry and blog about that industry as an entirety. Most of your time preparing content is going to be spent looking for industry news, following any developments, reporting about innovations, and debating industry talk.
  2. Personal Topics.
    There are numerous successful bloggers who don’t cover a specific topic at all, but they cover a variety of topics with humor. If you’re
    good at making others laugh, then go ahead and try a humor blog. If you’re a photographer, artists, songwriter, musician, poet, writer, or another creative genius, then you could share your work online and build up a fan base.
  3. Political Blogs.
    Maybe you have an insightful and informed opinion, or you
    have an interesting way of communicating your ideas and opinions. You could consider a political blog. If you want to have a political blog but not proclaim personal opinions, contemplate using your blog as a sieve to help your audience plow through all the political mambo jambo out there.
  4. Special Interest or Hobby Topics.
    Many bloggers have achieved a lot of success just selecting a topic they were previously ardent about. You will find informative, creative, gossipy, and how-to blogs about many different hobbies out there. The trick for this type of blog is to find a niche that you are knowledgeable about and interested in, and then share your unique
    information and perspective about this topic.
  5. General Interest Topics.
    Never limit yourself to the topic areas that have
    been listed this far. There are thousands of possibilities out there for blogs! You never know what’s going to spark some interest or catch on. If you have a crazy idea that just might attract some attention, then go for it!
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Conclusion

When you are choosing a topic to blog about, remember to choose one that isn’t going to dry up. Public interest will rarely stay on a subject for long, so be sure to choose a topic that’s held the interest of your target audience for quite some time and will continue to keep doing so in the future.

You also have to have or develop a more than normal familiarity with the chosen topic if you want a reader to take you seriously. Readers are not going to stick around to read things they already know or that they don’t believe is interesting or relevant.

Therefore, never choose a topic that you don’t know anything about. Chances are, if you know nothing about it, then you most likely don’t have much interest in it. Ideally, when your audience is reading your blog, it should be obvious that not only are you an expert on that subject, but you’re also passionate about it.

In addition, be sure to research competition. Find out who they are and how much of it really exists. Unless you develop an original approach, you’ll do yourself harm by entering a topic that’s already flooded.

If your topic area appears crowded when you first take a look, remember that every topic has countless niches that have been unexplored. Do your homework and find a topic no one else has done and what might work for you, based on your knowledge, experience, passion, education, and interests.

Before you commit yourself to a specific topic, understand that whatever theme you choose is going to become the central point of your blogging career. Your passion and interest for the topic should be strong enough to sustain you through times when you’re not sure you can bring yourself to read another article on that subject, much less write another blog entry about it.

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Blogging Startups in Kenya

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Introduction to Blogging

The history of computers and related technologies played a vital role in the emergence of e-businesses that brought new dimensions to the traditional “brick and mortar” way of doing business in the early 1990’s.

It follows a very logical sequence, of course, that is not difficult to comprehend considering the speed with which the computers could be used to add, sort, analyse and process all sorts of information and data with just a few keystrokes. It was a boon for any business, big or small.

In the late 1990’s, the Internet transformed the business world drastically replacing dusty old ledgers with modern computer networks that connected millions of businesses worldwide and helped in the transaction of billions of dollars across fibre optic cables.

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The Power of Blogs

In the early days, the blogs were nothing but a form of a personal diary or journal that was easy to maintain and log daily. This was made possible due to the fact that the blogging platforms were freely available with free hosting and domain facilities, creating a blog was easy, and did not require any special technical skill or knowledge to post content.

Therefore, anyone could open as many blogs as they wished, using the free templates provided, and maintain them very easily. It was a breeze to post content of any kind without too many hassles.

As the Internet evolved, so did the blog; making it a very powerful medium through which you could get your voice heard. Any individual could express strong opinions, suggestions and even provide useful up-to-date information through blogs. Even more attractive feature of a blog was the fact that one could interact directly with its readers in the form of comments that could be posted below the posts.

Blogs were an easy way to target specific audiences and also could be optimised, by virtue of the content posted, for it to be found on search engines. Another advantage of the blogs was that it was a comprehensive service, which offered a variety of tools and gadgets that made it versatile and user friendly.

Obviously, it did not take long for businesses to appreciate the full potential of a blog in attracting customers to its site and also providing a great platform to communicate with them directly. Some of the big business companies like Google realised this power, importance and effectiveness of the blog and incorporated it into their business strategy very effectively.

These companies have shown how a blog can be used for different purposes like marketing, educating, community building, public relations, customer feedback and announcements etc.

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1.1 What is a Blog?

A Blog is a contraction of the term ‘Web Log’. A log, as we all know, is the written record of events/messages in a chronological order. It is like a journal or diary wherein people record events, experiences and observations.

Therefore, we can describe a “blog” as a journal, which is available on the web. Technically, a blog can be defined as the chronological arrangement of a collection of text, data, images and other media objects recorded and retrievable through a web browser.

Originally, blogs started out as static websites but over the years they gradually evolved to include many advanced features making them much more conversational and interactive in nature.

1.2 Classification of Blogs

Since blogs have been used in every conceivable way over the years and have covered almost all topics under the sun it is very difficult to categorize each one of them by type, therefore it’s best to classify them instead. Blogs can be classified in one of the following ways: –

  1. By Genre: Blogs that focus on a particular niche or subject are grouped under this category. Some examples are: Political Blogs, Celebrity Blogs, Art Blogs, Music Blogs, Sports Blogs or Travel Blogs etc.
  2. By Media Type: Blogs can contain any kind of content other than simple text in its post, like photographs, videos, audio files or even games and therefore they can be grouped according to the specific media content present in the blogs. Using this form of classification, a blog that contains primarily videos is called a “Vlog”, blog that contains photos is called a “Photolog” and a blog containing links to other web pages is called a “Linklog”.
  3. By Status of Publisher: Here the word “publisher” refers to the blogger. Therefore blogs can be grouped according to its purpose as defined by the blogger as “Personal Blogs”, “Business Blogs”, “Corporate / Organizational Blogs” etc.

1.3 Who Can Blog

Well, anyone can start a blog at anytime. However, the idea is not just to start a blog and leave it at that but to be able to sustain it, and be read too. To become a serious blogger, there are certain things that one needs to know before a blog is started.

Blogging involves extensive writing and so be sure that you have enough time to spare to be able to keep up with regular postings on your blog. You can write anything that fancies your imagination or interests. Usually blogs are written in an informal tone, especially if they are personal blogs, however, if they are for business or official purposes, then the writing has to be of a higher quality and sound professional. The quality of the content on your blogs will determine the kind of traffic it will draw.

Knowledge and passion for writing are both important factors. It is always better to write about topics that you have knowledge of and are passionate about as it is reflected in your writing. Even the most seasoned writers find it difficult to write on topics that they have no knowledge about. Be passionate about writing if you want it to be a long haul, otherwise you will find yourself slipping away after a few months.

Maintaining a blog is a long-term activity that can be quite time consuming.

To be a successful blogger requires a lot of consistency, hard work and commitment on your part. Many blogs that have been started in full earnest fall by the wayside just because people cannot stick to the schedules they have set for themselves.

Writing new articles or posts requires a lot of research to be done unless of course, you are a specialist in your field and know exactly what you are writing about. A lot of time is also required to promote your blog and individual posts in order to get traffic.

But, all said and done, just about anyone can start a blog and there is no special qualification or experience needed.

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Immutable laws of blogging

Whether you just started that blog or you’ve had it for some time now, I want to cover the five immutable laws of blogging. If you pay attention to these laws, you’ll succeed over time. Ignore them, and you’ll find it nearly impossible to drive any respectable amount of traffic and ultimately monetize your blog.

1. Focus
Blogs need focus. You need to have a specific industry, niche or topic that you write about repeatedly. Try not to go all over the map. You’ll find that veering off on tangents will make you lose your core audience.

People want to visit a blog — and keep revisiting it — because it fills a need or a void. That happens by staying focused and on-topic.

2. Quality
People think that blogging is about pushing out an enormous amount of content. But it doesn’t work if it’s thin content. Your content needs to be quality content. It needs to be thorough, well-written and cite its sources.

If a study is referenced, it needs to be linked to. Don’t skimp on quality if you’re serious about monetizing your blog.

3. Value
Your blog needs to deliver value. What can you teach other people about? What are you an expert at? Take the time to deliver value. Create thorough tutorials and informative posts that interweave things like videos and other media to truly help people understand or figure something out.

Value is a precursor to income in any industry, but especially in blogging.

4. Engagement
How engaging is your content? Does your blog incite people to spend a lot of time reading articles, watching videos or messaging on a forum, for example? The more people engage with your content, the more likely they’ll be to purchase something from you. Without engagement, there’s very little chance of monetization.

5. Authority
How much authority do you have? How well-known are you in your field? The more authority you have, the more likely you can monetize your blog quickly.

For example, if you have a large social media following and you decide to launch a blog, you can drive traffic quickly.

If you’re an expert at something else or a best-selling author, for example, you already have authority, all you need to do is leverage it.

Starting a Blog in Kenya.

1. Identify your area of interest
You should always write about what you know. But you should not write about everything you know. Select a niche. Decide upon the main topic and write posts related to that topic. It’s more likely that your audience will come back and read your other posts if you’re writing about similar topics. People will know what to expect.

Starting a financial coach blog implies that you write about all things concerning money and finance stuff. Starting a travel blog implies you write about traveling. You can write about something slightly off topic once in a while of course, but try to stick to your niche. An audience of a travel blog doesn’t expect a blog post about gardening.

2. Purchase a domain and choose a blogging platform
Creating your own personal blog takes a few steps. First, you need to decide on a name for your blog also called a domain name, and choose a blogging platform.

Read More: How to Create a WordPress Blog

3. Do your Keyword Research
Once you’ve chosen your niche and setup your blog, you should do some solid keyword research. Try to find out what people are searching for. What words are they using when they want to read about your niche and your topic? You should really get inside the heads of your potential audience. If you do your keyword research properly, you should end up with a long list of keywords you would like to be found for. Try to come up with competitive, head keywords as well as with less competitive long-tail keywords.

4. Write Your First Post
Take some time to do keyword research and to think about site structure. But don’t take too much time. Just write that first post! Put pen to paper and just do it. Your blog starts with the very first post. That post doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be published.

Read More: How to Choose the best Topic for your Blog

5. Optimize for Search Engines
As you write your first post, create an awesome SEO title and a decent meta description. Finetune your text. Make sure your text is both readable as well as SEO-friendly.

Read More: Search Engine Optimization

6. Promote your Blog
Using social media is the best way to reach and grow the audience of your blog. That’s why your blog should have a Facebook page. Sharing your posts on Facebook is a good marketing strategy. Don’t forget Instagram and Twitter either!

Read More: 10 Proven Ways to Monetize Your Blog

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