HOW TO CHOOSE A BLOG TOPIC

Picking the right blog topic can make or break your business.

It may seem like a no-brainer, but it will effect your website SEO and rankings, how much work you have to put in, and how engaged your audience will be. At the end of the day, the right blog topic can help you make more money. So what can you do to make sure that you’re choosing the right niche? Don’t worry because today I’m going to show you how to choose a blog topic AND give you the free guide to researching it to make sure that it’s worth your time. Ready? Let’s dive in.

I have made a few wrong topic choices when I just started out, so I know how hard it can be. I just picked a general category and though that would be enough. Mine was beauty but there are so many others like lifestyle, business, health, fitness, travel, gaming, etc.

But what does a “beauty” blog even mean?! Who is the reader? What do they need to know?

I couldn’t answer any of these questions – so how was I going to make money off my blog? I was writing about a ton of different categories – natural beauty, budget beauty, new product news, reviews, high end products, etc. And because I had no clear topic, I was attracting all kinds of different readers.  Their interests were all over the map so it was super hard to think of anything free or paid to offer them – I didn’t even know what they wanted or how to ask them. And when I did consider a possible course idea, I knew that it would only apply to some of my audience – so why the hell was I writing the other content that wasn’t attracting the right people?

I made a huge mistake by focusing on a topic that was way too big. Writing about all the different topics burned me out and I was working so hard to get a huge variety of readers who weren’t clicking my ads or signing up to my email list. I was getting 10,000+ page views a month but I had no clue to turn that into a community. Plus by not thinking about what I would actually do to make money or to get people onto my email list, I ran this blog for over a year without any real business plan or results.

This is really where I learned that a targeted audience is better than a large audience – any day. My growing audience wasn’t bringing me money or fulfillment at all. I didn’t even know what I was doing. Getting 10,000 people to your blog does not matter if they’re not interested in what you’re offering or if you’re offering the wrong thing. 100 people who want to buy your product is way more valuable than 10,000 visitors that read some posts but never buy anything from you or click on any of your ads. Page views does not matter if you can’t convert your audience from viewers to buyers. I knew that I had to choose a different topic.

How to Choose a Blog Topic

When I went to start my next blog, I knew that I had to use a different approach. I wanted to make money quickly so I could quit the full-time job that I hated. I needed my blog to be set up for success so that I would be able to be making money in a month or two. But how? I finally realized that the topic of my blog had a lot to do with how I would make money off of it. So I asked myself the following questions and you should do the same!

What do I know about? You don’t have to be an expert, but you need to know a little bit to pass that knowledge on. The best businesses are about providing solutions or solving problems – so this is a good place to start thinking.

I knew that I needed a way to get people onto my email list. Opt-in forms alone weren’t cutting it so whatever blog topic I chose, I knew I needed to be able to create some bit of content to give away for free (like a content upgrade). You need to provide value to your readers. It’s not all about making money – it’s more important to serve people. The money is a byproduct of helping your community! The stuff you give away for free helps to establish you as an expert and as someone who can really help them. It helps to build trust.

It’s also essential to get people on to your email list. Your email list is the foundation for a successful business. But just asking for emails isn’t the most effective strategy – your conversion is going to be pretty low. So to convert more of your visitors to subscribers, you want to offer something valuable for free in exchange for their email. It’s a proven tactic that will get you lots of subscribers fast. Even if you’re not interested in selling products or courses, having an email list will help you make more ad revenue and affiliate sales. It’s a must-have.

So you need to have content to give away for free. It can be a checklist, a guide, an ebook, a video, etc. Anything that your readers won’t be able to resist signing up to get! Even if you can’t create a product or service right away, free content upgrades should be something that you’re always offering so that you can build your email list for the day when you do have something to offer. 

With my new blog idea, I also knew that I needed a way to make money from it. I wanted my blog to be my full time income and when I started that beauty blog, I was pretty clueless. I figured I would just write posts and advertisers would reach out to me… I was wrong. I knew that I would have to create the income for my business instead of waiting around. I truly believe that selling a product, course, or service is the best way to make money from your blog. Start thinking about what you can offer! And if you already have a course or product idea, you can actually work backwards. You can pick a blog idea that supports your future products.

For example, if you’re going to sell a few different courses on living a vegan lifestyle, you want to make your blog topic related to a vegan lifestyle. This way, all the people who click over to your website will be potentially interested in buying your course and you’ll get more sales. But if you have courses on vegan lifestyle, and you’re writing about all kinds of fitness advice, there’s a lesser chance that every reader will be interested in veganism. You won’t get as many sales.

Same goes for physical products. You need to decide on the client you’re trying to attract with your product and build your blog around it. If your clothing line is super trendy and celeb-inspired, then your blog should be too. It should be teaching women how to live this trendy lifestyle and giving them the news they’re interested in. Your posts need to relate to your consumer.

By doing it this way, you’re going to work less hard for the same results. Instead of posting about everything and attracting all kinds of viewers, you can post about specifics and attract your actual dream customer.

Now that you have a few ideas, follow the formula to make sure the topic isn’t too general or too specific: 

The best way that I’ve found to find a niche that is not too general but not to specific is to combine two subtopics. Going back to our fitness example, you might try to write about paleo diet + lifestyle. Instead of focusing on all of business, Girl Biz Online is about online business + young women.

These niches are perfect. They’re broad enough that you won’t run out of ideas, but targeted enough that you can build authority with an engaged following. You can create content just for them and they’re more likely to opt in to anything you’re selling.This doesn’t mean that one day you can’t branch out. For now, though, this will help you grow an email list and make money quickly.

This strategy works. You can see it in action. 

Look at some of these other incredible girl biz sites and think about their topics. They’re a mix of subtopics or a specific enough subtopics that the author knows exactly what her reader is looking for.

Take Simple Green Smoothies – they have a pretty specific niche but it works! They’ve taken smoothies + greens and made a money-making business. They could have chosen all smoothies or all greens, but they have an insanely engaged and targeted audience because they’ve gone so specific. Their readers come for easy, green smoothie ideas, so every post applies to them and they know exactly what their getting into when they subscribe for their email list. It’s also so much easier to sell their nutrition plans and book because their readers are already interested in the topic. Their business really thrives off this model.

Temptalia is a great example of someone who doesn’t sell courses but has built huge influence and a successful business anyway. I think that a specific strategy is even more important when you’re not selling a course. You need a much bigger following to make money off of advertising and sponsorships – a specific topic helps to get you that following faster. Temptalia dominates the review space. By focusing on ONLY reviews, she has become the go-to for the best, most informative posts. She also has a review on almost every product. People know who to go to when they’re thinking of trying a new makeup product. Brands also know who to reach out to when they want the best sponsored reviews. By focusing her efforts, she’s created a crazy profitable business.

I could really go on and on but I think you get the idea. Choose your topic wisely – it could change everything.

Once you have an idea, let’s research it.

You might be able to tell right away that this is a good topic. You may already know that there are people who want this information. That’s great, then it’s time to get started. But if you’re not sure, you have an incredible FREE tool at your disposal – Google Keywords. And it’s not actually hard to use!

Want to see how to use Google Keywords to make sure your idea is sound? You’ll figure out how to make sure your idea gets enough searches, how to analyze the competition, and how to rank high on Google!

You can find it in the Girl Biz Library, where there are TONS of other workbooks and cheatsheets to help you grow your business. Enter your email and I’ll send you the password!

Good luck biz babes! If you need anymore help, you can always post your ideas and/or questions in the Facebook group! I’m always active in there so if you’re stuck I’ll be happy to answer any questions – you can even post screen shots of your keyword research and I’ll give you hand 💕

 

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