What Should I Blog About? 39 Ideas for All Bloggers

Indeed… what should I blog about? What a question! It’s a question that requires two different answers to be honest, because if you’re asking yourself this you will likely be in one of two different positions.

1. You want to start a blog and are looking for a niche and wondering what that niche will be.
2. You already have a blog and a niche, but you’re stuck for blog post ideas.

So I’ll treat these positions separately.

Firstly I’ll answer from the perspective of someone who’s thinking about starting a blog and suggest some things to consider. Let’s call this group pre-bloggers. Afterwards, I’ll list some ways to come up with ideas for blog posts to fire your imagination.

So the first part of this post will be useful specifically for pre-bloggers. The second part will be useful for both pre-bloggers and those who have already begun their blogging journey.

Part 1 – What Should My Blog be About?

Perhaps you understand that people have a made a lot of money from running a blog? Maybe you’re looking to escape the 9 to 5 treadmill and see blogging as the mechanism to help you do that? Or perhaps you need a creative outlet and feel that a blog would help you express yourself?

The first thing you should do is to be honest with yourself about your motivation and understand whether it’s intrinsic or extrinsic.

Why is this important?

Extrinsic Motivation

You might be the sort of person who is driven by reward or the achievement of goals. This might describe you if your goal is to make money, and you’re not particularly bothered about what you blog about to achieve this.

You would look at a niche you know is profitable and decide to build a blog around it, even though it doesn’t interest you at all. You’d be prepared to produce content for the blog with the idea that your sweat investment might yield a financial return at some point in the future. This is an extrinsic motivation.

The fact you have no interest in the niche is not a problem for you, since it’s only the medium through which you’ll achieve your reward and this motivates you.

Intrinsic Motivation

You might be someone who wants to write blog posts about a specific thing you are deeply passionate about. There is something in your life you enjoy doing, making or learning and you’d like to share what you know about it with others.

In this scenario your motivation is intrinsic: you would blog about the object of your passion simply because you enjoy it.

You might be able to make money from this passion, but it’s not what motivates you to commit yourself to writing regular blog posts about it.

Profitable Blogging Niches… Generally!

If you want to start a blog to make money, the first thing you should know is it will not happen overnight. It may take years to reach a point where your blog can sustain you financially. But that’s okay… because in the interim you can make a little side money to spur you on!

Your blog can be about anything, but if profit is your end goal some are more profitable than others. Of course these ones happen to be the most competitive, and as a consequence it will take longer for you to make any sort of impact within them or make any money.

Nonetheless, the following blogging niches are generally considered to be profitable:

• Personal finance.
• Making money online.
• Health & Fitness.
• Food.
• Fashion.
• Beauty.
• Travel.
• Relationships.
• Parenting.
• Technology.

Of course within each of these there sub-niches you could blog about too. For example, in personal finance you might focus upon credit cards, mortgages, loans, investments or savings. Get the picture?

Regardless of whether you want to blog about these profitable niches with an extrinsic or intrinsic motivation, you’d better be sure the information you’re giving people is absolutely correct and valuable.

Profitable Niches Are Competitive

In competitive niches your competitors will be well-established and working hard to win the available traffic and to retain it. The blogs at the top of the search results will not be winning their search visibility with thin and valueless content. You’ll have to be able to produce content that is at least as comprehensive and valuable to get a foothold… preferably more so!

This might be more difficult to do in the long term if you are extrinsically motivated with little interest in what you’re writing about. The reason for this is it will take a long time for you to start to build enough traffic to make money in a competitive niche. As a result it may be difficult to remain motivated enough to maintain blogging consistency and value for however long it takes.

However, if these profitable niches are your passion and you are intrinsically motivated, you may have an advantage over less interested extrinsically motivated bloggers. A genuine interest in any niche will make it a lot easier for you to maintain your level of effort regardless of when the money comes in.

Niche Blogging Niches!

An alternative to looking to profitable niches is to blog about something you know about or something you have a real interest in. I’m talking intrinsic motivation here!

The things you enjoy, from sports and hobbies to pastimes and learning, can certainly become niches you can blog about. The great news about more specific blogging niches compared to broader profitable niches is they are much easier to grow. There may be less demand for them, but the demand will be very specific and perhaps less competitive and underserved.

Additionally, writing about the things you enjoy is the motivation itself… and it’s a motivation that’s self-fuelling. The act of writing posts is likely to be more rewarding than writing about subjects you hope to make money from one day, but in which you have no interest.

I’m not saying that “niche niches” are not profitable… far from it. Many people make a great living blogging about specific dog breeds, varieties of foods and making candles. So you don’t necessarily need to be swayed because the niche you’re interested in is not on the most profitable list!

Finding Out If a Niche Has Potential to be Profitable

Before you embark upon your blogging journey and commit a chunk of time to it, you should do a little research to see if there are possibilities to earn money from it. This is easier than it might sound because you don’t necessarily have to spend weeks in researching like a marketing pro.

1. Carry out keyword research for your niche to see what people search for and how frequently. You can use a free tool like Ubersuggest for this.
2. Make searches in Google and Bing for the keywords you find to see if people are paying to advertise products.
3. Browse sites like Amazon for products in your niche you could discuss.
4. See who else is blogging about your topics.

Once you have carried out this research you can gain an insight into if and how your idea hits the blogging sweet spot.

The Niche Blogging Sweet Spot

If you’re a pre-blogger, my advice would be to look for a blogging sweet spot. The blogging sweet spot combines:

• What you’re passionate about.
• What you know about.
• What you believe can make you money.

You’re looking for the point at which each of these 3 things intersect:

I believe it’s totally possible to find your blogging sweet spot!

Part 2 – What Should I Write About?

As promised, part 2 of this discussion relates to bloggers who already have a blog AND pre-bloggers, when stuck for ideas about what to write about.

39 Ideas for Blog Posts

1. What’s happening in your niche at the moment?
2. What do you love most about your niche and why?
3. Create a list of expert tips from popular bloggers in your niche. (Here is as an example: 19 Blogging and Content Writing Tips from Marketing Pros)
4. Write about a recent event in the news and how it affects your niche.
5. Review a YouTube video.
6. Write a post answering frequently-asked-questions from Quora.
7. Describe a typical blogging day.
8. Create a list of your favorite inspirational quotes and explain what they mean to you.
9. Explain why you decided to start your blog?
10. Write a review of two different products in your niche and choose the best one.
11. Post about the bloggers in your niche you admire.
12. Run a competition and offer a prize.
13. Write a roundup of Tweets from bloggers in your niche and discuss them.
14. Discuss your latest project.
15. Review a movie or TV program relevant to your niche.
16. Write about something you’ve learned relating to your blog.
17. Highlight a cause you’re passionate about.
18. Share a list of resources about about a certain topic.
19. Create an infographic to your blog and discuss it.
20. Turn one of your Twitter threads with lots of comments into a blog post.
21. Share a wish list of things you want to do with your blog.
22. Review a book relevant to your visitors.
23. Write about an important event or people in your niche.
24. Share tips you’ve used in.
25. Write about a launch relating to your niche.
26. Curate a list of under promoted people in your niche and explain why you like them.
27. Write about a recent travel experience.
28. Discuss a milestone you’ve reached.
29. Share a list of useful things or activities relevant to your readers.
30. Recommend a list of your favorite products you’ve used or books you’ve read.
31. Write about special occasion.
32. Update an existing blog post with new information.
33. Share a success story.
34. Write about something that hasn’t worked so well for you.
35. Create a tutorial or “how” to blog post.
36. Compile a list of reasons to do something.
37. Write about why your blog is so good!
38. Share your upcoming plans.
39. Write about a personal experience.

If you’re still blocked, check out this post: How to Create Blog Post Ideas When You’re Stuck!

Summary

If you’re a pre-blogger, choosing the right niche is extremely important. If you haven’t yet decided what to blog about, think about the type of person you are and whether you would need to be really interested in the niche to maintain your interest in blogging over the long term.

Make sure your niche looks like it has the ability to generate money for you before you start it… if that will be your intention at some point. Remember to do your homework to find the blogging sweet spot!

If you’re stuck for ideas for what to blog about, read my post on How to Create Blog Post Ideas When You’re Stuck!

Whatever you blog about, make sure you write excellent content that provides real value to your visitors. If you don’t do this your blog will like be a whisper in a storm!

Thanks for visiting.

Paul

Anything to add? Feel free to leave a comment below or ask me a question… you know it makes sense!