So why do you want to blog? What are your goals for your blog? Who is your audience? What will you even blog about? How will you have enough things to blog about? How will you even get anyone to read what you write?
Those are some of the questions that I asked myself when I started blogging. It is overwhelming. I started doubting everything. In turn, I lost confidence in myself my self-confidence tanked even before I posted my very first blog post.
A Scary World Out There
It is scary putting yourself out for the world to see. I know that. And if I can get over it you can too. How do I know that? Easy, a little fact about me. I was the girl who stood in front of my speech class and looked out over those 30 other students. Kids that I had been going to school with for over 5 years. I became terrified and blacked out.
Next thing I knew – I was waking up looking at all these faces fanning me and asking me if I was alright. I was fine but it didn’t just happen once. It happened each and every time I tried to do a speech. My anxiety got the best of me each time. Finally, my parents and my school decided it was too much of a health and safety risk.
My First Blog
It was 2006, I feel like a lifetime ago. I still sucked at public speaking, but my boss at that time pushed me to talk to clients. I worked in a law firm with an amazing attorney. He had the biggest heart and he built my confidence constantly. He even talked me to follow my dream of going back to school to be an attorney.
But, I had just had a beautiful little boy. He was a difficult baby. He couldn’t be laid down without screaming and crying. The only way he would sleep is if he had human contact. I was getting very little sleep and couldn’t continue with school. And then my attorney, as I called him decided, or actually his wife, that it was time for them to retire. So there went my favorite job.
I decided to start my first online business. I don’t even remember the name of the company but I decided to write a blog on it. It was a company that sold air purifiers and water purifiers. My blog was called Perfect Air and was on blogger. I blogged every day for a month and then gave up. I wasn’t making sales and I wasn’t passionate about what I was writing about.
What was I doing Wrong
So what was I doing wrong? I know now exactly what I was doing wrong. It was that I wasn’t focusing. I wasn’t focused on my audience. The views that I was getting were only other members of that MLM that I was part of. Yes, I said MLM. I believe in them, I’ve seen a lot of people succeed with them so I have no issue with them. I even design websites for Younique girls.
But I went off subject there which was another thing that I did wrong with my first through the 6th blog I had. I was all over the place. I blame that on my ADHD or as I call it – my shiny object disorder I have. My mind is all over the place all the time.
I started a blog about my life. I’ve had a crazy life. And I thought it would be great. However, I didn’t know how to monetize it properly. I just threw up affiliate ads everywhere. I didn’t know how to integrate them into the blog or even where to place the thing. I’d look at other blogs and see their ads. Not putting two and two together, that the things they were actually offering had something to do with their subject.
What were they All Missing
My blogging journey didn’t end there, I saw promise in blogging. For instance, a reading review blog and then a parenting blog. I never stayed on point. Also, I never figured out who my target audience should be. Another thing I didn’t do was give any of my blogs TIME.
I find that time was one of the biggest factors of my failure in all my other blogs. Time to learn how to blog, and also time for readers to actually read my blog. I have always prided myself on my research skill but I didn’t research blogging. I just jumped in.
Keywords were also missing. I may have accidentally added them but there were no intentional keywords. I have learned since my first blog what they are and how to use them. Keywords along with image attribute can add so much to your search engine optimization. (SEO)
My go-to for Search Engine optimization is an SEO Guru – Neil Patel, I use his Keyword Ubersuggest website. It is one I totally and completely recommend along with Google’s Keyword planner.
So, Why do you want to Blog
There are many reasons people want to blog. Also, there are many types of blogs.
Personal Blog
Such as a personal blog, this type of blog usually is not monetized. It is more of a diary of your experiences or life. I’m not saying that you can’t monetize it and gain a huge following from these types of blogs. With time and dedication, you can. But, they usually are not focused on anything in particular.
They can be however, they can be your personal travel blog, or a journey of motherhood, even a blog about your marriage, college journey, hobby. And if you niche down you can make an impact and earn money while blogging. By either being an affiliate for products that you use. I plan on going into more detail about these types of blogs in a later post. Just know that you can blog about anything and if you do it right from the beginning you can win.
If you choose a niche you want to blog about. Let’s say you are a mom and you have twins or a child on the spectrum or another type of disability. You can blog about those. You can niche down to Mom of Twins, or Raising a Star on the Spectrum. There are so many possibilities.
I know this is scary, but sharing your journey with people you can educate as you learn. You can also share products that you use to help you in your day to day life. Whether it be a double stroller or a weighted blanket. And you can earn money with these by using Amazon affiliate links. Do a review of the product. Share how it has helped you in your life. Create a course teaching people about the subject. You may not be an expert but you are one step ahead of someone just now entering that life.
Business Blogger
This is the type of blog I wish I had known about when I had my online store. Why? Because it would have done wonders for it. I might have been just selling shirts and other miscellaneous products. But they had a message. They were helping women empower themselves.
So what is a business blogger? A business blogger can be for any type of business, whether it is an MLM or a hair salon. Really, all these businesses can benefit from a blog. You are sharing your expertise in your area of business.
Let’s say you are part of a Makeup MLM, you know there are many. You could do blog posts on your own website, not the MLM website, but your own and you can talk about the importance of skincare, do make-up tutorials, even have a course on the best colors for your specific skin tone. There are so many possibilities.
You can also do your sales promotions through your blog and even better you can collect the emails of your customers and send out email blasts when you know there is a sale coming up.
Same with a Hair Salon, a restaurant, a tire store, even a chimney sweep business. There are people who love to read about what you know. People love to learn. But showing your expertise you are giving them the confidence in you and your knowledge and making them more apt to buy from you or use your service.
The Professional Blogger
This is another type of blog that many use. I am a professional blogger. Wow! Until this moment I would have never said this. So what is a professional blogger? A professional blogger is a person that uses their blog to teach and monetize their blog through affiliate links, ads and digital courses that they share and blog about.
A professional blogger’s goal is to make a living from their blog. And if general terms that is what most types of blogs are. There are different types of professional blogs, however, like the finance bloggers, they blog about how to get out of debt while also showing ads from banks, retirement plans and such, but they may also have a course about how to gain control of your personal finance.
Another example could be the gardener blog, where you show ads from gardening stores, and products. But then you teach a course about how to start a garden in a small space. Like perhaps on your apartment deck. I don’t know I don’t garden. But the possibilities are only limited to your imagination.
Niche Bloggers
A Niche Blogger blogs about a specific subject. This blog could be considered a niche blog. I blog about how to get your blog up and running from the beginning. My other blog is about Keto. It started out just low carb, but as I got more into it I niched it down to Keto, and the effects of Keto on your health.
There are other niche bloggers who blog about dogs, but they niche it down to a specific breed or area of dogs. Like how to potty train a new puppy, and how to teach a dog to do tricks.
Another blogger may blog about traveling and how to find the right prices whereas another blogger could blog about the best places to go. There are so many subjects to blog on but you always want to niche down and blog about something that you are passionate about and also that can help with a problem or a need of another that you can help fix.
Affiliate Blogs
An Affiliate blog is the fifth type of blog I’m going to talk about. Why because there are some very successful bloggers that do this. I do use affiliate links in my posts but I wouldn’t call myself an affiliate blogger.
It is one of the first types of blogs that I did try to do some 11 -12 years ago. But like I explained before I didn’t know what I was doing and I was just throwing up blog posts to sale stuff. I was trying to be the next online millionaire without a clue.
As I was saying however there are some amazing affiliate marketers that blog that I have followed over the years and they are very successful. One being John Chow. I still follow him to this day. He is very entertaining and very smart in the affiliate marketing arena.
Pick up your 166 different Blogging Niche Ideas here.