After figuring out why you are here, it is important to realize that the most important aspect, which can be equally the easiest and hardest thing to do, in blogging is choosing on which to blog on.  Why is it the most important?  Because your topic will determine everything that your blog should be concerned about: the number of visitors it will attract, the possibility of increasing their number, and ability to maintain that readership.  I am focusing here on your readership because ultimately your readers and not you will define your blog(just imagine a newspaper or a tv program without any reader or fan).  Why can it be as equally easy as hard to choose your topic?  Basically because of this paradox:

What you can write easily on

  • might not be of interest to other people
  • too many people are already doing it

What might be of interest to them and will be the next big Internet thing

  • you know nothing about
  • there aren’t that many sources

In the end, choosing which topic or niche to write about is a balance between what you know (your interests, hobbies, talents, and expertise) and what readers are looking for (entertainment, knowledge, freebies, and same interest).

Yuga has provided several ideas on how to find your niche, all eventually boiling down to “choosing what you are passionate about.”  Some niches can also come from sparks of ingenuity, much like these two other examples.  Listed below this article are links to proven tips on how to come up with your nifty blog idea, but I myself would like to create my own list.

  • Make sure that what you’re going to do borders on ingenuity.  Of course this is very hard to do, so at least choose a niche where only a few people are dwelling on.  It’s easier to get established in a field where only a few are considered experts. 

  • Narrow the topic down.  Make it as specific as possible.  This will not only give you good rankings in search engines, but, it will also provide you with a smaller area to focus on. Only established blogs can commit shotgun blogging.

  • Research. List all the niches other successful blogs are working on right now. After doing that—CHOOSE ANOTHER TOPIC! You may either fill the holes offered by those niches, or reinvent one the niches altogether. Much like this blog.

  • Be Creative.. Be very very creative. Enough said.

  • Make it personal.  It will be YOUR blog and will have YOUR signature, and unless you are doing it for a company, it will have YOU as its boss. 

  • Make sure that you will enjoy writing on the topic.  It’s just like looking ahead into the future when you marry your boyfriend or girlfriend.  You better jive this early, and you better believe that you have a future together.

  • Most importantly, look ahead and think of who your readers will be.   How “many” are they? Where are they located? Can you make them come back and come back and come back?

This is the first step in having a successful blog. Because I will be presenting these steps as separate articles and they are all available at once, it might seem to you that successful blogging is very easy. IT IS NOT. It takes a lot of time, failures and down moments and the only thing I can provide you here are detailed step-by-step guidelines, which I think no one else on the Filipino blogosphere is doing. In this regard, let me give you a timeline for Dark Knight’s 10 Steps to Making Money Through Blogging.

1. Find Your Niche/Topic 2 weeks - 4 weeks
2. Pick your Domain Name 1 minute - 2 weeks
3. Register the Domain 1 week
4. Install Your Blog 10 minutes - 60 minutes
5. Upload Your Theme 1 hour - 2 weeks
6. Install Plugins 1 hour - 2 weeks
7. Write and Post Articles 2 weeks - 12 weeks before monetizing
8. Customize Your Blog blog’s lifetime
9. Monetize Your Blog start after 4 weeks - 12 weeks from starting blog, blog’s lifetime
10. Wash, Rinse, Repeat forever

It took me 4 months to receive my first payment(or salary) from Google Adsense, and I believe it’s the shortest time of a goal for other Filipino publishers. Yuga didn’t make it to where he is now in a month—he’s actually been blogging since 2000. And you have to understand that as with any business venture dating from Europe’s voyages to the New World, blogging can also fail you. But not without trying of course.

Timespan: 2 weeks - 4 weeks

Links:

P.S. 

As a general rule, all of my articles here in BlueMumble will be merely drafts.  They will be open for editing anytime in case there are corrections and/or additional useful information.  I intend to just add data as necessary, unlike what others are doing wherein a new post is created even if it’s extremely related to a previous one. 

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