Ten years ago I started my blog—Army Wife 101.

Initially, it was to keep my extended family up to date with our lives (before FB was cool). Today, this blog supports my household and has given my family amazing experiences that otherwise we would never have. From all expense paid trips to Universal Studios, to filming commercials in NYC, my family has been truly blessed by Army Wife 101. Best of all I am able to have the freedom to take my work with me no matter where I go.

You will often find articles about my experience working from home and earning money because I understand the challenges presented to military spouses when it comes to finding employment. I personally am a fan of remote work, and want to help as many military spouses as I can (who want to) work from home.

That’s why in this series I am going to help you start a blog in just a few easy steps and provide access to my FREE Facebook group where bloggers share how they make money by working with brands on sponsored opportunities and using your favorite brands affiliate links (like Amazon) to earn commission on products you recommend to your new readers and friends.

In this post we will discuss how to pick a topic to blog about.

What’s A Blog?

A decade or so ago blogs were simply online journals where people documented things happening in their daily life. Today bloggers are now referred to as “content creators” or “influencers” and create content sites aka blogs on everything from general lifestyle topics to sites that focus on one topic only such as “keto recipes”. In fact blogs are where most people get their information from now.

Today, 77% of internet users read blogs and use them to make purchasing decisions or to learn how to do something. There are over 31+ million bloggers in 2020. But, don’t worry there is still room for you!

Pick A Niche (Topic)

The first thing you will need to do is pick a topic or what we refer to in the digital content world as a “niche”.

How To Pick A Blog Niche?

What’s the one thing you can talk about all the time and never get bored? What’s that topic that friends say “you are so good at that”? What’s that one thing people always come to you for? Maybe it’s crafts, or recipes, or some weird talent that you have that you’ve been longing to share with the world.

And, even if you feel there isn’t any one particular thing you are good at that is worthy of writing about, everyone has something they are interested in. Use your blog as a chance to learn more about a specific topic and become somewhat of an expert on it.

Niching Down

Remember when I said there’s room for everyone? The reason why is because the key to successfully launching a blog today is taking a broad topic and then breaking it down into something smaller. This leaves lots of room for tons of topics to be written about.

For instance instead of saying “I like Netflix so I will blog about and review all the movies on there”, you could choose just one genre of movies to write about. So instead, maybe you only review horror movies on Netflix or documentaries. As we talk about sponsorships opportunities and working with brands later on, you will learn how niching down opens you up to potential paid opportunities and experiences.

Sample list of broad topics and niched down topics:

What If I Can’t Niche Down

While niching down is always recommended, you can always go the lifestyle option. This means choose one topic and then cover a number of sub topics in that area. For instance Army Wife 101 is a military spouse lifestyle blog. It allows me to cover a number of topics, but from the military perspective. For instance if I talk about travel, I usually only talk about places that have a military connection or a military discount.

Research The Topic You Pick

If you have no desire to make money with your blog and it’s only for self fulfillment then don’t worry about this. However, if you want the opportunity to build an audience and earn money— this is important.

On To A Little Research

First, don’t let the word research scare you off. You simply want to see how many people show interest in your chosen topic. One of the easiest ways to do this without getting to technical is Google Trends. With Google Trends you can simply type in a topic and see how the interest in a topic has increased or decreased over a time period. You can also see other details such as what people are searching pertaining to that topic and the geographic areas from which they come from.

Let’s use horror and documentaries for an example.

Notice how interest in horror films seems to have decreased over the years, while documentaries look like it has been steady with slight increases. This would tell me there might be more interest in that topic and to consider it as an option.

Honestly Speaking

Now I don’t want to give the impression that this is all the research you will ever have to do.

If you want to turn blogging into a business there is work down the line and continuous research you will have to do on things like keywords and SEO (this is basically the process of making sure your site shows up in search engines). These are the things that will help increase traffic and visibility to your site.

That said, I am all about simplifing the process and am excited to tell you that getting started with your blog is easy and our steps will have you on your way to earning money while maintaining life on the homefront.

Overall, you want to make sure what you pick is something you are interested in and will remain interested in. The great thing about blogging is it gives you a chance to learn things and deepen your own perspective. You will be surprised how many other people share the same interests as you.

On To Step 2

In Step 2, we will show you how to pick a name, get your website URL (domain) and a brief overview of how to set up your blog.

Before you head to the next step, be sure to join our Milspouse Influencer’s Group on Facebook.

 

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Krystel is the mom of two and an Army Wife. In addition to Army Wife 101 she is the Co-Founder of SoFluential.com a digital media agency that connects brands with the military market. She has appeared on MSNBC ,FOX LA and formerly was a weekly contributor to HLN's "Raising America". She has written for various outlets including Sheknows and Lifetime and is a big fan of cupcakes and french fries.

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