Blog Topics – Narrow It Down

A list of potential blog topics needs to be pared down.

After I have identified my blogging goals (see How to Start a Blog) and made a list of potential blog topics (see Blog Topics – What is Yours?) – it is time to narrow down my choices. As it stands the list will currently include several choices that

• cover topics that interesting to me and that I enjoy. And,
• are not too broad but still wide enough to handle a few hundred posts – at least.

Because my goal is to create a small internet business from my websites – the two things left to evaluate for each of my choices are

• the strength of the competition and
• income potential.

In this post I will focus on evaluating the strength of the competition for each of the items on my list of blog topics.

Why is it important to look at the competition?

In order to make money from blogs – there needs to be traffic, the more, the better. Traffic can come from many sources. Social networks, word of mouth, and links from other sites will start to bring in a trickle of visitors that will, hopefully, grow as the site matures. But my goal is for a website’s biggest audience to come from the search engines. This is because search engine traffic is what is known as “targeted”.

Let’s say someone types a query into Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask – or one of many others. Building on my previous example, suppose they are looking for information about Golf Equipment. If my site is about Golf Equipment, and is also listed in the number one position of the Google search results then chances are that I will get a good bit of traffic from a group of people that are searching for the exact information that I offer.

If I am running Google Adsense on my site, or if I am a member of affiliate programs that sell golf equipment, or if I own a golf shop – then this targeted traffic will most likely convert into income for me.

The problem is that for every one of the blog topics that I have identified on my list, there will be a certain degree of competition from other websites that are focusing on the same subject. Some of these sites will be very strong and hard to beat.

Who is the competition?

The way that I identify my competition is to do a Google search for the website topic that I am considering. The sites that are listed on page one are the ones that I have to surpass with my new site.

How to Evaluate the Competition

The criteria I use is simple – it is called Google PageRank, something which probably deserves it’s own post. Suffice it to say that Google PageRank is Google’s method of ranking websites. How this is calculated by the Big G is a secret – but many experts believe that it has a lot to do with how many other sites are linking to the site in question. If the page rank of most of the sites on page 1 is high (meaning a page rank of 4 or higher) , then it will be harder and take longer for my new, little site to advance.

Does the Number of Google Search Results Matter?

In my experience – this number is not a deal breaker. Fewer total results are obviously better, but it really comes down to the strength of the sites on page one.

So, at this point – I go through this process for each of the items on my list and cast aside blog topics that have too much competition.

If this process seems a bit tedious, it is. But it is a necessary step.

This is part three in the How to Build A Website series:
How to Start A Blog (part one)
Blog Topics – What is Yours? (part two)
Blog Topics – Narrow It Down (part three)
Website Monetization Planning (part four)

Return from this page about Choosing Blog Topics to the Internet Business homepage.

Related posts:

1. Blog Topics – What is Yours?
2. How to Start a Blog