How to Select Blog Niche & Ways to Find Topics

Blog Niche :
The first and foremost thing which should come to your mind while you are planning to Blog is of Selecting the Blog Niche. You need to focus on what you are Capable of and what you can do along with what you are interested in. Here is a detailed process on how to get started with the type of blog you should start.

First of all write down atleast 10 different words/keywords on a paper randomly which ever come to your mind first. Dont use any tricks or search for these, but you need to just write down 10 different keywords, key phrases or anything which come to your mind. This can help us in finding what you are more interested in. Example : If you are a movie lover, obviously more % of the words you note down would consist of the Celebrity Names & Movie Titles. The same goes with any category, if you are a Techie then for sure you would write down something like Mobile Phone, Laptops, Digital Camera etc which would mean that you are more inclined towards the Gadgets and Technology related stuff.

Next try to expand the above stuff by writing down few topics on the above selected keywords and decide what you can write down blindly without even searching for any source or similar content. This means that if you had selected few Gadgets then for sure you would be able to write down 300-400 words of articles on each of these without any source and this could be more easy if you are a owner of any of these gadgets because that would mean real hands-on experience resulting in better writing. You should also focus on the topics and niche which you discuss on while you are a member of Social Networks, ie if you are on Facebook/Twitter and if most of the time you are discussing with your friends and followers about some topic, then that would mean that you are having good amount of knowledge in it and you can write well on it.

Sometimes the Niche you may be selecting may not be having High Search Volume or else would not be good paying, then you should try to explore more related stuff on which you can write down easily. Blogging is not a Short-Term stuff which would mean that you would start blogging today and stop within a few months because its a Responsible Business where you are going to work seriously and continiously for a long term period and if you select a very narrow niche then you would be out of topics and content ideas. Hence, its recommended to plan down what are other possible niche and topics you can focus at the same time.

Finding Topics – The next point we are going to focus on is – the way of finding topics and for this you need to be a smart person and try to cater those stuff which are not available already on the web and which can have demand. Here are few ways to find blog topics.

• Social Bookmarking Websites You need to spend some time reading the most voted and shared topics on the best social bookmarking websites like Digg, Propeller, StumbleUpon, Delicious etc and click on the category which is relevant to your niche. Then find out what are the most read stuff which can still have a great demand and create a list of topics from this.
• Reading Forums Forums are discussion boards where members gather up and discuss on different topics. You can find many forums for each niche with thousands of threads and replies and most of the forums have sorting feature with option to sort the threads by replies count and also views count. This way you can find all the topics which have got the maximum replies and also views. These topics can become your next topics to blog on since they are in demand and have been in demand from a long period.
• Website Logs & Stats Instead of roaming around the outside stuff why not first focus on the things you own, ie the logs which you have got for your website. You need to merge up all your stats for a complete year and then find out what are the most visited topics which have got the highest page views. These can give you a idea that i f you write more on these topics you can get better traffic since your website is ranking for these topics already.
• Ask Readers & Subscribers You can also start a poll, ask in comments section or ask through a email Newsletter all your blog readers and subscribers on what topics you should write next and then proceed writing on these topics. These can be a hit because this is user selected topic and they are for sure going to be read and also you can expect good amount of comments on these topics.
• News Buzz If you check out all these source – Google News, Topix, Yahoo! News, Bloglines, Technorati and Blog Pulse, then you can find out all the list of topics which are currently in real high demand and can get you seriously very high number of visitors. You need to continuously track these source and keep yourself updated with different news to get different topic ideas.