During the last few live question and answer sessions with my Blog Mastermind students at least one person every call asks for help determining whether they have a good choice for a blog topic.
Given that new people join the program each week, it’s not surprising that question crops up over and over again. Everyone new to blogging faces the challenge of topic selection as the first big hurdle, and while I can never offer the “right” solution, as only the market can tell you that, I do my best to offer my suggestions and tips for conducting research to aide with topic selection.
What Topic Is Right?
Topic selection for a blog is similar to niche selection for a business. What you decide to write about determines what type of audience you attract and how you make money from that audience. In today’s e-commerce landscape, content is the driving force behind traffic and purchasing decisions online, so topic selection is a big deal.
Today I want to offer a simple answer to this problem, to help choose what topic and niche is right for you. I say simple because it’s possible to make this a very complicated choice, with in-depth keyword research, market analysis and other assessable factors weighing in on the decision process.
Unfortunately I find that many people who do extensive research become paralyzed. With more data comes more awareness of the different variables at play. Sometimes knowing less is a good thing because it gives you a clear next step – an action you can take that actually moves you closer to a result.
This is especially important for newbies and people with personalities that demand they know everything about everything before taking that first step into the big wide world. As someone new to Internet marketing, learning about all the different ways to research a potential topic may be so much work and such a big learning curve that it takes months before any action is taken to actually test the topic in the market.
You have to learn how to choose a niche before even choosing a niche!
I’m not saying you should bury your head in the sand and take a leap of faith when choosing a topic, but you can certainly make it easier on yourself.
Spotting Opportunities
Let me explain how I have selected topics for the businesses I have run in the past. In almost all circumstances the process has gone something like this -
- By virtue of my day-to-day activities I’m exposed to different markets (people) and observe first hand their needs and wants, or I personally am part of the market and experience needs and wants myself.
- After realizing the need or want, I brainstorm ideas on how to solve it (in recent years focusing solely on Internet based solutions) and then determine a basic business or blog concept in my head.
- I go online and create a website for it and begin the marketing process.
That’s basically it. Yes it lacks any in-depth research process prior to launch and probably would benefit from a little more analytical and competitive analysis, but there’s one fact you have to realize – the barriers to entry on the web are virtually non-existent.
Because it is so easy to test something online I find the best research tool available is putting something out there and giving it a real world trial. No amount of pre-launch research will ever tell you as much as actually attracting an audience and/or making a sale to a customer (or finding there is no audience or no people willing to spend money or that you hate what you are doing).
What’s especially great about my three step formula is that it simplifies the lead-in process so much that your first action step is actually testing the idea in the market.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t go in completely blind. The brainstorming process to cement my idea takes into account everything I have done online and may include looking at what sites already exist.
Having already done a lot online I can call on what I know from experience. This is not an advantage a beginner to Internet marketing has, however I still argue the best way to gain this experience is to action an idea rather than analyze it to death before it even has a chance. That’s what I did when I was a beginner.
What About Keyword Research?
I’ve used keywords to help come up with elements to tweak for the SEO of my websites, but I never use it as a decision making tool for choosing a topic or business idea. It’s good to know what words to use in the title of a blog post or in tags, but that’s about the extent of my keyword analysis.
Keyword research is great if you care a lot about the numbers. People who like the process of making money regardless of the niche that the money is made in will probably think what I do (or not do in this case), is crazy. How could you not find out where the money is and how many people are looking for something before starting a project?
For those of you who don’t like keyword analysis or number crunching the fact that I have achieved what I have online without focusing on analytical tools and data should give you hope. You can succeed without ever looking at keywords, if you are willing to take action.
My Favorite Online Research Tool
What I rely on to come up with ideas for topics, or businesses, or products or even just blog posts, is people.
People are the driving force behind the statistics. If you can assess what people are asking and isolate the emotional drive and the logical decision making process going on in their head, you can determine everything you need to know.
There Internet is made up of people so you don’t have to look far to find answers to your questions, provided you are able to form assumptions based on observable behavior (a little intuition and familiarity with your market helps).
My favorite place to observe behavior is in forums. The great thing about a forum is just because it exists (assuming it is popular), demonstrates there is a market of some size. For those who like numbers, forums also provide great statistics for free – things like total members, active members, number of posts and topics, and number of replies to a topic, which can tell you what’s hot and what’s not in a particular niche.
Fran’s Forum Offers The Answer
Fran, who you may remember as one of my students I talked about in the Conversion Blogging video and runs a blog called High On Health, was recently thinking about what information product to create next to sell from her blog. As a person with a lot of experience and education in her niche, she had too many ideas for what she could cover.
Although hesitant at first, Fran added a forum to her blog purely because she was sick of responding to email questions and thought having a permanent archive in a forum for all questions from her readers was a good idea. It also helped alleviate some of her workload as other people in the forum could start helping with responses to questions too.
Most forums start slowly (read my tips to grow a forum) and Fran’s was the same. It took several months to build an audience, but since she directed all questions she received to the forum, it eventually became popular. It’s not a big forum by any means, but it is popular enough that something amazing happened – her forum became the best source of intelligence about her audience she could ever ask for.
It didn’t dawn on her immediately, but I remember clearly the moment Fran realized she had the answer for what her next information product should be about within her forums (she skyped me when the light bulb went off in her mind).
Her next information product could address the top questions that were consistently asked in her forum. It was so clear because she didn’t need to guess what she needed to cover – her members were telling her. An 80/20 rule was evident as a majority of the people came to the forums asking the same few questions.
In Fran’s case she created the forum that led to the answers she needed, and it’s great she owns a growing forum, however that is certainly not something you need to replicate.
There are thousands of online forums that right now have the answers to your question of what topic you should cover, or what blog articles you need to write to answer the most popular questions, or what product you should create next or what business you can launch.
Look For Common Questions
The key when researching forums is to understand that you are looking for patterns of popularity. When a topic is started with a question and it evolves into a hot conversation thread, that thread alone offers a wealth of information. Even if the conversation leads to a conclusion and supposed answer to the question originally asked – that doesn’t mean you can’t take that question and address it yourself through an asset you control, like a blog or a product you create.
Even an extremely popular forum represents only a small portion of the overall population of a niche. No forum has the entire audience, and if you create your own resource that answers the common questions you can take a share of the audience.
Look for common questions, provide the answers and you have the formula for a successful blog.
It’s Not Quite That Easy
Obviously there is more to it than just what I outlined in this article. Just because someone asks something and it leads to a hot thread in a forum or there are many people all asking the same questions in a forum, doesn’t guarantee there is money to made in that topic.
What’s important is a forum can tell you about the behaviors, desires, goals, motivation and interests of a group of people and best of all, it’s very detailed, specific and – raw – real responses from real human beings.
This information alone is enough to guide you towards a topic you can develop into a blog or a business. I can promise you that the direction will change over time, but the important thing is that you take action in the first place and put something out there. If forum research can give you enough clarity to determine the next step, that’s a great result.
Yaro Starak
Mining Forums
I found this post and comments very informative. I have not yet looked into forums but will certainly explore. I have taken an approach you have mentioned in previous newsletters about writing what you are passionate about and then determine my market from there. I write about a very wide range of subjects but always try to relate the topic to my theme of living a life of no regrets. I thought about starting additional blogs until I read one of your newsletters about how it is better to have one good blog as opposed to several mediocre blogs. I agree that taking action first and then fine tuning is the best approach. Like General Patton said; “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” Thanks for providing useful information to help me improve both my blog and business.
I would like to hear how people feel about having photo(s) in their blog posts. I have seen those with none, one and many photos.
I’d also like to add that you should look at your interests/hobbies, since you’ll be more likely to continue working at it if it’s something you truly enjoy…
A common theme I’ve picked up on through your posts is the attempt at making things simpler.. of which I’m a big fan!! We all complicate almost everything we do, and it’s refreshing having an “authority” say that it’s not necessary
wow Yaro, this is a topic well explained by you, It’s one of those pillar articles, isn’t it??
One of those that you read through no matter how long it is.
Cheers, amr
Ok, I was sitting here quite paralyzed about what to do – trying to decide on a topic for a blog and a niche for a business. I’ve been researching for a few months now. Too many options, too many reasons why each one might not work. So many marketing options and social networking options and SEO things to do.
Then along came your email newsletter pointing to this article. Talk about good timing. I’m one of those that need to know everything about everything before I start. Ok, I’m going to just try something. Thanks, Yaro, for the boot in the pants. Deb
I’m one of those people that tends to do a lot of research, and it does paralyze me, just like you say. I love the three step method that you put forward here because I like the idea of just taking an idea and seeing if it will fly in the real-world. I do tend to analyze everything to death and what I find is that I usually talk myself out of doing things – your method neatly sidesteps that issue. I like the “throw it against the wall and see what sticks” practicality of it. After all, I see so many ideas that I would have thought no one would be interested in, take off in a big way., especially on the Internet.
Yet another interesting post, Yaro.
After 4 years of trying to find out what a ‘keyword tool’ actually does I have given up on keywords whatsoever.
I think they are an Urban Myth.
I have been given, or bought, at least 8 keyword tools and every time I attempt to use them I give up after about 30 seconds.
What they return is junk, most of the time. I have no idea what those numbers mean and there is no way they are going to tell me. LOL
As for forums I never visit ANY. Have you noticed that they are populated by people that know nothing?
I never visit hospitals because they are full of sick people and I never visit forums because they are full of the internet’s terminal losers.
Sorry guys, but why would you go ask a question from people who have no idea what they are doing.
Look on forums as palliative care units for terminal would-be marketers.
As for finding a niche – easy, see what subject you have most PLR items on your PC for.
Blogs ARE terrific. It’s just a pity you can’t have one that looks good in both Firefox and Explorer.
As a Bum Marketer I find forums a very good place to find starving crowds>Just don’t make the mistakes that a lot of Internet Marketers make and jump in and start pounding your latest greatest product,make friends first answer questions try to be helpful answer questions with good informative comments.If you are not greedy you can be successful doing this.Take your time!I see this on most of the forums some dodo trying to pitch something before people get to know them.Anyway just my thoughts.Anyway have good day Mate
The post right after my post is a prime example of some s**t bird trying to hype his latest get rich skeam.He’s not interested in making friends he wants your $$ not good form I wouldn’t sign on with a guy like that for love are money! Just my thoughts ! Like to hear what you think Yaro??
I have Spent too much time on key words and not enough time building a site like you said
” I find the best research tool available is putting something out there and giving it a real world trial”
After reading your article I am going to try a new approach, but first will spend a couple more days on your site.
Thanks for pointing me in a new direction
Hi Yaro! Been following you for a while. Hope it’s OK; I put a link to this page on my website. Love your stuff! You are so down to earth, like a regular person!
Hi Yaro,
i am really confused about niche selection..
i am basically a software engineer. I dont find more than 2 hoursd a day for surfing but wish to blog desperately..
i am a BIG fan of ur blog.I am just missing something out of this article…that hw to find own passion…(blog topic basically)…and how to start blogging…how to write first blog…
please help me in this regard,
Thanks in advance,
Sagar
Yaro
Good information. Which I wish I read long ago. I used to spend half my time looking for the perfect niche. I know must admit I barely do any since I try to focus on content, backlinking, etc in my niches.
Getting your niches quickly will let you make $$ on them!
When starting out, try niches that you have a real passion/interest in as it makes the whole process easier.
Then the content for the first few niche sites you make will be easy to write and you’ll just need to concentrate on things like the design, seo, etc. You may not make a lot of money out of them, but what you’ll learn will be invaluable and allow you to then create niche sites on other topics you don’t know so well much more easily.
“How To Simplify the Niche Selection Process” It all over depend on your website goal.
Hi Yaro,
I think that you’ve hit the nail on the head for a beginner like me. I thought that I had an idea that I could go with (this is still a possibility) but the more I have explored the more daunting things have seemed. It feels like I have to get absolutely everything sorted before I take the first step. Your approach is suggesting that I hesitate no longer and just try something out.
You have a very reassuring way about you that I find inspiring and you are so matter of fact and confident that I feel motivated. I would like to think that my next contact will be to say that I have taken next step and started to blog. I can’t guarantee that I won’t still get scared but right now I have the intention to take action.
Thanks for the wonderful resource that you are.
Regards,
Stan
London (UK)
thanks for the great tips. for newbies like me, this can be very useful. as you said, the best way to test if a topic is good or not is to put it out and see how it is received.
Hi Yaro…Thank you very much this helps a lot, i am new and tried to have two blogs u can visit my page from wordpress , iam so impressed about ur work , you are so kind giving information free of charge
thanks again ….God bless you
To be honest with you that this article is great and I have learned some exciting things from here and hope to see more.
Thanks
Alam
Hello Yaro, I am of Polish poorly know English but translators like Google tranlator bears your articles, although I know exactly about it, I think I found your niche, only in Poland is much biednch people and hardly anyone buys something other than food. I run two blogs: https: / / coopernik.wordpress.com /, http://www.nasz-ebiznes.cba.pl/ how you want to see how I idzie.One are currently at the free hostingach but soon I move on hostig professional. I wonder how to find sponsors who will support financially my blogs. Yours sincerely.
Coopernik
http://www.nasz-ebiznes.cba.pl/ https://coopernik.wordpress.com/
Testing the market real time is always a good idea, you don’t even need to create a blog to do it. You can use 1 page websites to create an article type publication that tests what sort of interest you get. Sites like Squidoo and HubPages are great for this sort of experiment. You could actually go on to publish lots more on your subject choice using these same resources, but personally I think that ultimately you are better publishing on your own domain using a blog platform like WordPress. At least that way you own the resource and have less problems with terms and conditions or what advertising you use.
For me, I usually go with the keyword research to check the traffic and competitiveness and then move to see the products available in the market.
However you have given me a place to do more in depth research, the forum.
Just come across your blog and have been totally inspired by the range of content you have. As a newbie I understand the concept of keyword selection for your niches, but no blog is going to generate any income unless it is high up in the google rankings. When you look for info on SEO you are just faced with complete overload. Are there any real proven ways to get ranked quickly?
Keep up the good work.
Yaro, thank you so much for once again guiding me in the right direction. Thanks to you and Gideon you both have made it possible for me to become part of this blogging community. I was at the cross roads to opening another blog and was struggling with the topic issue and did have the analysis paralysis due to all the “gurus” out there selling their products. You have kept me grounded and focused on exactly what I should be concentrating on. When I start making big bucks from the value I contribute, then I can buy the bells, whistles and formulas. You are the best!
Your student,
Matt
Yaro, I am learning a great deal from your posts and the comments given here. Choosing a subject has been very hard for me, you hit it on the head when you said analyzing and having to know every thing about the subject turns an easy project into a confusing mess. Thank you for spelling it out to me.
Hello Yaro, this is my first commune with you. I am starting to really enjoy reading your blogs.
I am going to be open and honest with with you as possible.
I am writing this reply on my phone in my lorry cab.
4 months ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of having a blog of my own, to be frank I’m not even sure what a blog was. I have learned what I previously know about the internet (which wasn’t much) by just clicking away.
y friend, also a lorry driver was looking into online bussinesses, basically to get out of the daily grind, because it is just not worth the effort, and to be able to maybe make some serious money and live as you do, free and with little or no worries, so I can properly take care of my fiancee and maybe make some dreams of mine come alive.
So we both have spent countless hours now in front of a computer screen watching videos about how to make money online, from such people you may or may not have heard of trying to explain thier systems. ewan Chia, Jamie Lewis et al. All not really laying it down in black and white.
My friend has paid for all the sign ups as I do not have the extra funds to throw at this endeaver, he has let me ride along on his good will.
Then I found you and Gideon on the net, or rather found becomeablogger.com. Watched the free videos and found myself setting up my own wordpress blog. I find Gideon very easy to listen to and he explained how to set up the wordpress very well, I think you two work very well together.
Now a few weeks into my blogging efforts I find myself in doubt, despite the fact that I reseave great emails from you and Gideon (the mini course is great).
I have grown to like you both.
i find myself in doubt because I am not sure if what I am writing about can be construed as a blog (my chosen topic is self evident in my url) and I find it hard to come up with blog ideas, (I downloaded freemind but either not working or I don’t know how to use it). i can really see me simply running out of things to blog about, I have got a few things either in the pipline or up my sleeve, but…………
Thank ypu for this blog. now I keep thinking that “at least I am giving it a go”, ” I am taking decisive action” even though I am not the best of writers, I am am sort of proud of what I have done so far, but not sure if anyone else does.
I do not have the time or content to right a blog every day
I have had some replies but most of them are blatent advertisements, I hope I can be as successful as you, I would like to join your class but surcomstancies prevent it, like I said above I do not have the extra funds.
This was probably not the best avenue in which to communicate with you, but saw the opportunity and took it, if you blog works in the same way as mine you choose not to “moderate” this comment, I will not be offended.
some times with passion is not enough, just a lack of skill to fulfill your dreams.
I just listened your blog profits blueprint audio book, the report you made is indeed great, but finally selecting niche become difficult for me. My current blog consist of random topic posts and I am double minded now to proceed with your training or just continue like I am doing before.
Hi Yasir, my comment, below yours, may solve your problem
IMO, the only topic worth blogging about, is something you’re passionate about.
Otherwise you’re wasting your time blogging, unless you’re doing it for your own amusement or just to make money.
Regarding keyword research, I have used micro niche finder along with google keyword tool and have found that the number of searches and competing pages are not linked to achieving high ranking. I have blogs that have over a million competing pages ranking at No. 3 whereas another of my blogs is at No. 9 with only 250,000 competing pages. Both blogs were optimized in the same way. Are backlinks the answer or is content the only king here?
Keep up the good work.
I used to participate in Yahoo Answers (the point system gets a bit addictive) and found myself answering the same problem (but faced by different sufferers).
I totally agree with Yaro on this one.
We all know content is king and therefore before getting all bogged down by keyword research we must make sure we find our “passion” and our drive towards a particular topic.
So if someone doesn’t have content even if there site or blog is SEO proof and a “targeted” niche the traffic will never culminate into affiliate sales, etc. and sooner or later will be blacklisted from the readers list and even if the site has high search rankings people will resort to avoiding the site. Nobody wants to come back to a site that doesn’t offer value and meaning.
We can take the example of Collis and Cyan Ta’eed of Envato, When Collis bought over Psdtuts from Sitepoint, The site suffered badly even though it had high organic search rankings.
Just by flushing in quality content he was able to make psdtuts a very successful and reliable source for Photoshop tutorials.
While knowing the demographic trend and focusing on people is integral but the major portion is action
Action –to go out there and just do it.
Action –to be driven by passion rather than figures.
Action –to believe in one’s ability to produce “Pillar Content” (read: Blog Profits Blueprint-Yaro Starak)
And we have to remember
“Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself”
Not the outcome , not the result but the inability to channelize our efforts and Just Do It (read: copyright Nike Inc.)
So, In a Nutshell the key?
FOCUS ON SEO AND OTHER FIGURES AFTER YOU KNOW YOUR PASSION AND HAVE AN UNWILLING DRIVE ABOUT THE TOPIC KNOWING THAT YOU ARE MARRYING YOUR BLOG AND WILL HAVE TO NURTURE YOUR BLOG LIKE A WIFE.
TREAT YOUR WEBSITE LIKE YOUR WIFE AND SUCCESS WILL FOLLOW,
STRIVE TO BE EXCELLENT AND SUCCESS WILL FOLLOW.
Cheers,
Arjun Narain
great stuff , i bookmarked it. very knowledgeable article.
Thanks
Misbah Mumtaz
Yaro, are you not using any premium keyword research tools like Wordtracker? Once you’ve picked the keywords, do you test it with AdWords before investing time in link building?
Thanks,
tom
Hi Yaro,
This topic is a great motivator. Sounds like we always have to decide more quickly and take action than thinking too much.
thanks a lot!
What a great post. Really interesting, the idea of using popular forum topics as a potential to find a niche area. I will certainly try this one! This idea would never have occurred to me, but a hell of a good idea.
Yaro, you made my day with this wonderful piece. Though, I don’t know much about SEO when I started my blog, but used content to get to the first page rank of Google.
Otherwise, SEO is good too but would also want to learn a little bit of this to maintain my rank. Thanks for sharing this!
Thank you again Yaro for another ‘ah ha!’ moment!