Having written for many years both for myself and for others I have found that as my favorite author the late Terry Pratchett once said ‘Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself’.
It can be both fun and frustrating too depending on your chosen topic and what/how you are going to write.
What can I blog about to make money? Literally anything. The beauty of blogging is that you can write about anything you are interested in. Even things you are not, too. As a rule, you are best off finding a hobby or topic you are passionate about or at the very least quite interested in. If you are not then it can reflect in the quality of your written work.
Ok, so you want to make money blogging but you are not sure where to start. You have read some articles telling you to pick a great niche and to write killer content but now what?
You have never written before and you feel more confused than ever, right? So let me guide you through a few things you will need to think about and do before you begin on your journey.
By the way, it’s much easier than you think so stick around and let me show you exactly what I mean.
Picking your topic
I really recommend picking a topic you are familiar with or have an interest in. If you are not too knowledgeable about the topic it doesn’t matter as long as you think it will be something you can work on for a long time without becoming disillusioned with the subject.
I have selected a few of the more popular topics that can generate a lot of traffic, that is get many people to visit your site. As a rule, you need to think more people seeing your content = more money-making opportunities you have.
One word of caution though. If you do embark on this journey, then stick with it. The reason why most people fail is for main reasons
- They give up too soon
- They don’t write enough content
- They don’t write what people want to read
- They don’t have a plan
- They don’t know how they want the site to end up ie. No goal
So, if you only plan to do one thing do this: DON’T GIVE UP! Keep going, if you think you can earn $25,000 a month by writing 5 articles containing 200-300 words then you will have successfully wasted every minute you spent on your site.
If, on the other hand, you write consistently well thought out articles of 1,500 words or more then you can rest assured after you have about 40 or so articles on your blog then you can expect to see some money start to trickle in.
It won’t be much at first but if you keep going then as more and more people come to your site, the search engines will gradually reward you by ranking you with higher authority. The higher authority will rank your articles higher and cause more people to see your links and visit your site.
Hobbies
Another huge category but this is different in so far as the sup topics can be very unique and so would/could attract less competition, for example, jigsaw puzzles and fly fishing have pretty much zero overlaps (apart from a jigsaw puzzle of fly fishing, yeah I know some of you were thinking that!) so what could you write about? Here are a few topics I think could have scope:
- Woodworking – Outdoor/indoor/
- Arts and crafts – A huge topic in it’s own right and my absolute preference!
- Outdoor activities like paintball, golf, hiking
- Collecting – Could have a for sale page to link buyers and seller together
- Traveling
- Jewelry making
Some of these hobbies can be quite expensive and as such you could be looking to promote items that you own or use.
So let’s have a look at some of the big topics you could possibly think about for your blog niche. Now, these topics are huge topics so after we have had a look at them we can then think about how to take a small chunk of one of them and focus on that narrower area of that topic.
Health and Fitness
This is a great topic if you are keen on looking after yourself through exercise or diet. As you can imagine the number of things you could write about here are huge.
After spending a few minutes thinking about this topic I came up with the following possible topics to consider for a blog:
- Weight loss – Gym routines and diet plans to reduce your overall fat levels and weight
- Weight gain – Gym and diet plans to help you bulk up muscle mass
- Healthy eating for kids/adults/seniors
- Keeping fit with certain medical conditions eg. I have a prolapsed disc in my back which prevents me from lifting heavy weights in the gym
- Running for fun and fitness
- Hiking where, how, gear you need etc.
Personal Finance
Everyone except the most wealthy or financially stable of us needs to think about money in some shape or form. A few ways you could focus on this topic are:
- Debt reduction
- Saving for college
- Having children (expensive hobby)
- Planning for retirement
- Budgeting
Again with this topic, you could steer people to financial advisers, banks, or even towards yourself if you are qualified to help them. Even if you are not then advice based on your personal experienced could prove invaluable for many people.
Making Money
This is quite a competitive topic as you can imagine how many people search the internet each day looking for ways to make money like you are now. There are many ways that people can make money both on and offline so you could find a sup topic here to help people, areas such as:
- Survey completion blog
- Creative writing course
- Graphic design training
- Job board
There are many sites that offer these services and you can compile helpful lists of resources for people to use to help them make money.
You can also recommend sites that are willing to pay people to do things like Odesk, Fiverr, you may be able to get commissions from some of them too.
Self Improvement
This is also a huge topic. Again there are so many ways people are looking to improve their lives. So I believe if you are interested in this topic then you will be, like the other topics, spoilt for choice. Let’s have a look at a few possibilities:
- How to be a good listener
- How to be a more confident speaker
- How to reduce stress
- How to be a good parent
- How to cope with loss
- How to deal with rejection
As I said there are so many things you could write about in the niche, I came up with those 6 ideas in about 45 seconds so you can see how easy it can be.
Beauty and fashion
A topic that makes billions of dollars worldwide. You can imagine just how many things you could write about but remember this is one of the most competitive niches so you need to think narrower and more focused. For example:
- Makeup tips for girls with acne
- How to dress well when you are very tall/short/fat/thin
- How to find your perfect shoe for comfort, fashion and at a good price
- Make up for mature women
- How to dress your age
- Grooming tips for young men
- Smart vs Causal clothing
I think if you are interested in this area and you sat down for a good few hours you could brainstorm at least 20 or 30 good topics you could write lots of great articles about.
Lifestyle
This is almost as large as hobbies as a niche topic. How many different ways do people live? We can talk about living a high life or a very simple life. City or country living, the list goes on.
- Urban life – living in a city and how to get around
- Country life – Choosing a quieter pace. What can do do where you are
- Sporty lifestyle – Where can you go to do your ‘thing’
- Casual lifestyle – Where are the cool and trendy places to hangout
- Bar scene
- Cafe scene
- Living healthy
You don’t need to be an expert on everyone’s lifestyle, just yours. If you feel you have a reasonably good lifestyle then you can write about it. If you don’t but are wanting to change it then you can write about your journey and inspire people.
Food
A massive topic again, when you think of the food you can think of about 20 kinds of food right off the top of your head, but what about dividing it up into smaller topics?
- Mediterranean food – Food from Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal.
- Asian Food – Food from Japan, China and Thailand.
- South American Food – Food from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia.
- Vegan and vegetarian
- Paleo Diets
- Diets
- Fast Food
- Cheap food
- Cooking
- Restaurant reviews
As you can see there really is no limit as to what you could write about in the food niche. A good topic if you are a real foodie.
Think about ideas for your sub topics
So now let’s take the time to think about a topic that we want to write about that could be a smaller subtopic of one of the above topics.
Let’s say you wanted to start a blog about parenting. Before we even begin to think further we can assume that this is going to be a huge topic as being a parent when your children are between 0 and 18 are when your responsibilities are at their highest.
So how can we trim this down to a smaller subset of parenting? Think back to your past. Maybe you have a daughter who is 10. Great. Now you can share 10 years’ worth of information.
Let’s dig down further though as a 10-year-old has different needs to a 6-month-old baby. Let’s look at 3 – 8 years of age. These are years when you can begin to talk and interact with your child and it’s during these years when their personalities are being formed so we can share a lot of knowledge here.
So what areas can we focus on? We can share experiences of:
- Growth spurts – how to buy clothes to last a bit longer
- Dietary changes – When your daughter decides she doesn’t like peas anymore
- Rules and how to enforce them
- Tantrums and how to control/stop them
- Being a role model
- Teaching them to have responsibilities
- Having fun
- Learning
If you think you may not be an expert then have a look at your child. If you have raised a well-rounded, happy child then you can tick the expert box. Remember you have stories and tips that many new parents are dying to get their hands on.
You need to rethink what the words expert and authority mean when you are thinking about a topic to write about. If you feel confident telling a family member or a friend a helpful tip or piece of advice then you can write a blog.
You are not directing critical surgery nor are you advising someone to sell everything they own and put the money into some crazy crackpot scheme.
Think about money making topics
Now you have thought about a topic then it’s time to think some more. This time you need to think about how you can make money from something.
Now as a rule you can make money on just about every topic if you can get enough visitors to your blog. Making money though is an area you need to think about especially when selecting your topic.
If you are passionate about collecting buttons (the sewn-on kind) for example then you may not have much of an audience to follow you, but if you focus on vintage buttons and how to make retro clothing with them then you could be in business. Where a blog can typically make money can be split into 3 main areas
Advertising – When you sign up to work with an ad company they will place advertisements throughout your website. Usually on each web page and post and on the sidebars. You can sign up for advertising right at the start of your website or you can choose to add them later.
The revenue you can expect to earn when you have reached about 50,000 page views per month can be around $15 per thousand views so you could be looking at around $750 per month just from this source of income
Affiliate – This is where you promote a product on your site and if somebody clicks on the product and buys it then the company that owns the product or service will pay you a small commission for driving that person to their product. If, for example, you are advertising a product on Amazon that costs $100 and 2% of the people click through to Amazon and then 15% of those buy it then you could also add:
50,000 x 0.02 = 1,000 people going to Amazon
1000 x 0.15 = 150 people buying on Amazon
150 x 4 = $600 ($100 x 4% commission from Amazon (% subject to change without notice) = $4)
Now you are looking at another $600 to add to the $750 ($1350)
Own products – Selling your own products in the form of a book, guide, or even video training can substantially add to your earnings too. Let’s suppose you write an ebook and sell it for $5 on your website and just 3% of people decide to buy it.
50,000 x .03 = 1500 people buying your ebook
1500 x $5 = $4500
Add them all together and you can see that you could be earning $6850 per month. Now it could be more and it also could be less too. I would say this could be your earning potential for a pretty good niche, with you having around 70 or so articles on your website which is about 2 years old.
If you write well-written and informative articles then there is no reason why you cannot achieve success with your blog. Learning how to write quality content can be somewhat of an art form but after time you will get a feel for what works and what doesn’t.
Engaging your audience
If you don’t really excel at anything else then you need to excel at this. Forming a bond with your target audience is a must. You do that by connecting with them at an emotional level.
I don’t mean by using lots of expressions of feeling or other such means but by answering your reader’s queries, and writing articles that they want to read and keep coming back to time and time again.
This too is an art but one of the key ways you can do this is to try and get into the heads of your readers. Why are you writing the article? What do you hope to share with the reader? Does it answer a question? If so how well?
To be authentic is another key to connecting with your readers. Try to use grammar and vocabulary you don’t normally use in your day-to-day life and you will not sound genuine. If this happens people will not stick around and will also badmouth you to others.
Remember people want to be impressed by you not fooled. Be real, write as you would speak, and just try to be as helpful as humanly possible this is called your ‘voice’. If you write how you think and speak then when people meet you or see you in a video then they will recognize you and this will give you credibility. This is the secret sauce for growing a large audience.
Good content is a huge factor for keeping your hard-earned visitors engaged and wanting to come back time after time. Again it does not have to be the most well written but it does have to be the most helpful. People will be quite forgiving of the odd spelling mistake here and there if you are really helping them.
Interesting photos, videos and linking
Having good images on your website can make a huge difference to how it looks so get snapping wherever you can. You don’t need a high-end camera to get a reasonable-looking picture.
Take a look at the images below that I have taken during my travels. I took them using a Samsung Galaxy S7. I did pick this particular model because of its exceptional lens so it will take some pretty decent shots.
If you mount your mobile on a tripod and have a Bluetooth button to take the picture then your images will have less wobble and will look even better.
The picture below was taken while I was vising Wat Prathad temple on Doi Suthep mountain. Unfortunately, I forgot my tripod so have to try and get as steady a shot as I could. I feel it came out well so I am sharing it here.
The next picture, below, is from Thapae Gate in Chiang Mai, near the old city. It was a super hot day and I wanted to capture a long shot of the moat. Maybe not the most exciting topic but I quite like the picture angle
Lastly the image below was taken during the Spring Festival in February. The streets of Warorot market were nicely decorated and there were many Chinese people there enjoying the Chinese and Thai street food as well as a Chinese theater performance in the main square.
When you have a sufficient amount of blog posts with nice images then you can begin to branch out to increase your audience size. Using other platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube can really grow your audience quickly.
If you have a topic that is very visual such as cooking or fashion then some great photos will entice many people to your blog. If your post is more informative or instructional then a video may help bring those visitors to your site.
Conclusion
Whatever you decide to write about stick to the basics and don’t stop. Even if you feel like it’s going nowhere. It takes a while to build up influence. With your audience, with Google, with everyone. But when it comes, be prepared! If you have followed your plan faithfully then you will see changes that are beyond your expectations, some of which can be life-changing.
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