What to blog about? Beginner’s guide to writing what people want to read

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Last updated on October 21st, 2023

“What to blog about? Any ideas about what should I blog about? Why does nobody read my blog posts?

Are you here because you are asking these questions right now?

Guess what? You are not alone.

There are millions of blog posts published every day in the world: see Worldometers. Will all these posts get read? Unfortunately, the answer is NO!

It’s no fun to write so many blog posts and nobody reads it.

I know and understand how you feel.

I am like you all too when I first started blogging one year ago.

One important thing I learned from this one year of blogging is that you have to write for your audiences and not for yourself.

A lot of beginner bloggers make the common mistake of only writing posts that they are passionate about. They write for themselves and they are their own audience. After a while, when no one visits their blog, they start to wonder why.

Lets Start From The Beginning:

If you are thinking of starting, a blog but have no idea about what niche you want. You can read my post: 7 blog niches with the potential to earn a 6-figure income

One thing to keep in mind is the reason why you want to start a blog. Ask the right question and you will have the right answer.

So, firstly, you must ask yourselves “Why” do you want to start a blog? Is it for sharing your passion with others or to make money online?

The reason is when you have your answer to the “WHY”, you will be able to find your topics to blog about.

Look simple enough, right? May not be!

Passion or Make Money?

Take my friend as an example. He wanted to start a blog to make money online (that is the WHY). When I asked him what will he be blogging about, he said: “history“.

I asked him will there be a huge audience searching for these topics. If there isn’t you will not have any audience.

No audience = no money! How then you make money with your blog?

He answered: No Idea whether are there any people searching for this at all.

I asked again if there is no search for your history niche, is it possible to change your niche to an evergreen topic? Such as personal finance, weight loss, etc. He said “No” as he has no interest in these niches at all.

The conversation ended just like that as my friend does not want to write anything else except history topics as he cannot see beyond his own passion.

I am not saying that the “history” niche has no audience. I am just pointing out that if you are going along with your passion, you must do your homework and find out if is there any search for these topics. Even if there is, is it huge enough?

You must remember your main goal to start a blog. If your goal is to make money online, the niche you choose will have a direct impact on your income potential.

But of course, the best scenario is to be PASSION + MAKING MONEY. But how many types of passion have the possibility to make money?

Now, What To Blog About?

In this post, I will only discuss using a blog to start your own business to make money online. With that as your main goal, what should you blog about then?

The answer is simple: write what people already searching for.

“What are people already searching for?” : You may ask.

As mentioned above, in my post: 7 Blog Niches With Potential To Earn Six-Figure Income, I explained which are the 7 niches that are very popular, evergreen, and their income potential.

Of course do not just limit yourself to these 7 niches. There are many other niches you can choose from too.

Evergreen niches mean that its topics and contents are always relevant and not dependent on seasons or trends.

Those niches that are dependent on trends will eventually slow down or die off, such as fidget spinner. Seasonal niches will only be popular during its seasons, such as Christmas.

Below is an example of how a trend-related niche (fidget spinner ) was so popular from April 30 to May 6, 2017. After that, its trends just slow down (based on the “Past 5 years” trends).

What to blog about -Google trends explain

Therefore, in my opinion, it is better to find niches that are evergreen.

Our challenge here is to find a niche that has huge traffic (it may not be your passion) but you have to feel comfortable in writing about the niche.

Now Let’s Find Out What People Already Searching For

In order to find out what people already searching for, we need to do some digging around, or a better word to use is research.

A good place to start is Pinterest.

Pinterest

Many think Pinterest is just another social media network like Facebook and Twitter. But the truth is, Pinterest is more than that. It is a search engine.

A lot of bloggers use Pinterest to do their research. If you do not have an account with Pinterest, you can visit Pinterest and have your account set up for free immediately.

How to do research on Pinterest?

Let’s take “gardening” as the niche I am going to do research for.

At Pinterest, type “Gardening” in the search box.

This is what my Pinterest looks like. Now, see those pins below the search box. This is where your research starts.

What to blog about -Pinterest research

Click one pin and start your research.

What to blog about -Pinterest research

Here is a pin I selected. Two things to take note (see arrows):

  • The Published date
  • Number of repins

The goal here is to find pins that have a high repin number and it would be great if it is published this year or last year.

Take the pin above, it was published on 15 February 2019. Within 5 months, it already had a total repins of 18k. This shows that there is a lot of interest in this topic.

This is one of the topics you can consider blogging about if you are in the Gardening niche.

You can visit the blog to read about how the person writes the post but please do not copy if you choose to write this topic. You do need to have your own voice. That’s the thing that made you different from the rest.

What Not To Do

See this infographic pin below. Although it has a very high repins rate (33k), the click-through rate to your blog may not be high.

Pinterest infographic pin

The reason is that all the information is already listed in the pin. Pinners normally like to save infographic pins on their board rather than visit the blog posts.

Therefore, No infographic pins!

Do as much research as you want on Gardening. Do add a few other niches to your list too.

With the research result you have, let’s head to Google Trends.

Google Trends

Google Trends is another site that bloggers use to do their research.

Key in “Gardening” in the search box. Below is the result:

Google trends gardening search result

Do note that the number on the chart does not represent traffic.

As Google Trends quoted:

“Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. A score of 0 means there was not enough data for this term.”

Therefore from the chart above, “Gardening” is considered seasonal.

The search term for “Gardening” will peak every year in April-May. The reason that spring is here.

But if you read the chart carefully, you will realize the interest in the search term “Gardening” is declining. The above chart is based on the past 5-year search.

If you change to “2004 – present”, you will notice the downtrend.

Google trends gardening trend result

Does that mean “Gardening” is no longer popular? I do not think so! This only shows the interest over time for this search term “Gardening”.

Possibilities are gardeners are using other search terms or other keywords to search on Google.

So, how to find these keywords?

Let’s proceed to the third tool bloggers like to use to do their keyword search – Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a great SEO keyword suggestion tool by Neil Patel. The best part: It is FREE!

The best person to explain how to use this tool is none other than Neil Patel himself. Watch the video here.

In conclusion,

Those 3 methods I have suggested above are not the only ways you can use to do your research online. There are many more out there.

One thing to highlight here is you do not need to follow the sequence listed above to do your research. Mix it up, do as you wish.

I hope by doing this research, you will have a better idea of what to blog about.

If this post has helped you in your blogging journey, do leave your comment below. I would love to hear from you. Check out my other blog posts too!