Deciding what topic to choose for your blog can be a stressful thing especially if you are trying to choose a profitable niche for your blog. So how do you do this? There are many questions to ask and here are some that I would suggest that you might consider in your pre blogging stage.

• Firstly are you interested in the topic that you’re considering? To sustain a blog for the long haul which is what your going to need to do if you want to build a profitable blog you need to have some level of interest in the topic, you need to have something that will drive you back to the keyboard day after day after day for two, three, four, five years in order to build the blog to its potential, so are you interested enough in the topic to see yourself writing at that level for that length of time.
• Do you have any experience in the topic that you want to write about? You don’t have to be an expert in the topic that you blog about as you can research and study the topic and then write about it. However you will have to work even harder so its advisable to choose something that you have experience of and would enjoy writing about.
• What are you going to bring to your blog? Do you know enough about the topic to see others wanting to come and listen to you or read what you have to say about it? Would you listen to yourself on the topic? Try to bring something different to your blog, something that will catch a users attention that will make them want to subscribe to yourblog.
• Can you say something unique about this topic? If there are already other blogs blogging on this topic already can you add something to the conversation or can you add something in a in unique way that will bring something different to it. People won’t be interested in coming to your blog if they have read the same thing before. An example of this is the new blogrush that came out recently. So many bloggers wrote about it thinking they would get traffic but they were wrong because now its old news and people know about it and know how to use it. If you go to digg and search for the keyword you would see that majority of all articles with the blogrush keyword hardly got any votes.
• Is the topic itself popular, is it something that people are searching the web for? If there is no one looking for the information on the topic you want to write about your going to have a difficult time building that blog. Use Google keyword suggestions too to find out if people are searching for it. Study this for a few days to see if you results change over the days. This will determine if the topic is growing or shrinking. For example, if you write a blog related to Christmas you might see a huge niche in this right now but the number of searches will sure decline afterwards.
• What competition is there in that topic? Even if there is competition it doesn’t really matter it just means you will have to work harder.

These are all something’s that you may want to consider before deciding on a topic for your blog

Below is a list of 101 personal blog ideas that has been created to help you decide what topic to base your blog on. The list is endless but you can choose the ones that best fit your area of interest and expertise.

1. Photo blog - show off your favourite photos to the world you could even have picture of the day on the homepage to attract more visitors to your blog
2.  pregnancy or baby website - if your a mum or mum to-be then why not share your experiences with the rest of the world. you could make a forum and invite readers to join and start a socialising with other pregnant ladies or mothers.
3. Wedding help and advice - wedding tips
4. Parenting advice or how to raise your child - if people call you agony aunt or uncle then why not offer your advice to your readers.
5. How to train your pet
6. Camping or Recreational Vehicles (RV)Resources
7. Fishing
8. Travel and Tourism - Create a Travelogue of a Blogger or even a simple blog telling others about the places you have visited.  You could have a photo gallery, maps, favourite eating places, FAQ, must see places etc
9. Iphone Technology
10. Digital photography
11. Education Resources - directory of local colleges and universities including maps, reviews from other students, course details etc
12. Arts and Crafts - share your talent with other people include diagrams and step by step instructions. You can give away great ideas for Christmas and Easter that are sure to bring you heaps of visitors, for example do it yourself Christmas cards or how to make your own gift photo frame
13. Wood Merchandise – you can share your expertise on how to make wood furnishings and include tips and step by step instructions, preparation materials and diagrams.
14. Sewing - Share your special sewing modus operandi with other people
15. Ice Breakers and energisers – great for team building and teacher trainers who look for this information all the time.
16. How to organise your home or business office - You can demonstrate to others how to systematize, organize paperwork, team building tips etc
17. Music Resource Site – everyone loves to listen to all kinds of music – You can create a portal for new bands and artists, with links to audio downloads and shopping. You can include music lyrics, musical gadgets, lessons and where to get them etc.
18. Movies – write about New Movies and Upcoming Movies, create a review category and get others to review your favourite movies, DVD information, movie trailers and previews.  
19. Volunteer to build a site for someone else for example your local community, baby group etc.  I have voluntarily built a blog for my community. It’s a small girls group website designed for members only and is used to keep in touch with one another, informing others about news, updates and announcements as they happen.
20. Garden Resources – Provide plant information, illustrate plant features, and give expert advice and gardening tips,
21. Sports and Recreational Activities 
22. Computer and Internet Training – I have created one at http://www.tutorials.allofweb.com/ and http://www.allofweb.com. These websites has been designed to help those who wish to learn or improve their computer skills.
23. Schools Web Directory for your country or a site with information about courses, research, schools, and departments. Include details of news and events.
24. Literature – a blog where people can discover resources about books, authors, and creative writing.
25. History – write about your favourite history, research it and share the information with other people.
26. Hobby Interest – do you collect something like stamps, foreign coins? etc, you could do some research and write about them, provide resources etc
27. Horseback Riding stables and horse rentals – you could offer information like how to ride a horse with horseback riding lessons. People could learn online
28. Bike Riding – include safety tips, bike riding for weight loss; learn how to bike ride etc
29. Mountain Climbing – offer images, stories, articles and more
30. Go-Kart Racing – Provide information about the sport, what it is and how to find your nearest karting track
31. Fishing
32. Writing – create an online community for creative writing, literature writing, story writing, poetry writing, etc…
33. Reading or a Blook Club- write about favourite books you have read and have reviews about them
34. Water Surfing – how to surf, tips for staying safe, best time to surf etc
35. Singing – offer singing tips, learn to sing, singing techniques
36. Teaching tips - Provide information on how to enhance Teaching Effectiveness, Practical tips on improving your teaching, Classroom Appraisal Techniques, Techniques for improved teaching and learning
37. Creating Music – you could build one especially for kids or adults or both and include quiz’s and games 
38. Instrumental (piano, violin, piano, etc…)
39. How to cook different recipes
40. Jokes - Build a blog of jokes to keep your readers laughing and entertained
41. Comedy - have funny videos, games, jokes and news
42. Astronomy news – offer daily astronomy and space news, star charts, pictures of planets, space missions, eclipse etc
43. Chemistry - include Chemistry articles, homework help, demonstrations, news, periodic tables, chemistry resources etc
44. Engineering Resource Tool – create a community for engineers and help them to find engineering jobs
45. Electronics and gadgets
46. Science
47. Pharmacy- you can provide a Collection of sites with information on medications, information about pharmacists, tips and health advice, health articles
48. Herbs – offer articles and information on growing and using herbs
49. Mountains – provide facts and information about mountains
50. Oceans of the world
51. Unexplained Discoveries – you can research this topic and provide a collection of strange stories from the World
52. Animals – provide facts, information, photos, pictures, sounds…basically a site that will explore the animal world
53. Cultures Resources on the cultures of the world including things like languages, traditions, religions, holidays etc
54. Religion – provide an introduction to many of the religions of the world including Muslims, Sikh, Sikhism, Maori etc
55. Geography talk about climate, countries, people, maps, and flags.
56. Languages - include a listing of sites about specific languages and that teach the language.
57. Environment
58. Boating
59. Politics ad Government – create a portal to public service information from your countries Government, including directories, online services, news and information of relevance to specific groups.
60. Psychology
61. Games Resources - Provide links to other sites where people can play free games online.
62. Interior Decorating –provide a blog dedicated to decorating and interior design advice, services, products and articles
63. Catering Magazine
64. Fashion magazine – beauty tips, shopping, health, travel and culture trends
65. Farming – provide Farming news, information, and veterinary news
66. Weather
67. Women’s Magazine
68. Men’s Magazine
69. Health Articles
70. Exercise and fitness
71. Retirement - provide Retirement savings strategies & advice, calculators to plan your retirement, tips etc
72. Investment
73. Stock Market
74. Mortgage Advice
75. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Provide a list of resources, directories, search engines and sites where people can submit RSS feeds
76. Weight Loss – if you joined a weight loss program or lost weight on your own then tell others about it, tell them what you did, what you ate, what were the stresses and how you over came them
77. Developers - make a site where people can ask questions and share coding solutions to blog design.
78. Personal and home care aides you can provide tips about how to care for the elderly or disabled
79. Grand parenting – write about issues when grand parenting and how to deal with them, provide  grand parenting tips and provide a lists of recommended books and resources to help raise grandchildren.
80. Do It Yourself (DIY) - offer tips for fixing things around the house
81. Tools - Offer a variety of power and hand woodworking tools.
82. Flying Magazine
83. Good Housekeeping
84. Flowers – a place where people can buy flowers online, have them delivered. You could provide all kind of promotions
85. Ceramics - Pottery
86. Children Book - write a children book online with animation, sound and bright colours.
87. Jewellery and watch maker
88. Cosmetics/Beauty
89. Hunting - Include information on hunting forecasts, licenses, game reports and special managed hunts.
90. National Parks – provide a list of national parks and information about each, photos and captions
91. Poetry
92. Hosting and Domain Registration
93. Data Recovery Specialists
94. Lifestyle consultancy – you can offer individualised sessions like  lifestyle consultant, keep moving programme, provide a bridal section, articles , healthy recipes, photograllery etc
95. Shopping
96. Real Estate
97. Safety and First Aid
98. Science Fiction History
99. Marriage Secrets – Tips on how to make your marriage a success
100. News Reports
101. Celebrity News and Gossip 

Deciding what topic to choose for your blog can be a stressful thing especially if you are trying to choose a profitable niche for your blog. So how do you do this? There are many questions to ask and here are some that I would suggest that you might consider in your pre blogging stage.  Questions to ask yourself before choosing a Niche Topic for your blog

Today I’m publishing my first competition since launching the blog 6 months ago. I felt it was time I did something for my readers and although I’m not giving away anything as exciting as an ipod, how would you like to win $5. All you have to do is simply share your best blogging tip.

How to enter:

• Write a post about the contest, sharing your best blogging tip and link back to this post.  
• After publishing your post, share your tip on this post in the comments area.

I’ll pick the winner and post the winning blogging tip on my blog along with a link back to the winning entry. The winner will also receive their $5.

The Contest is open to everyone world-wide. Contest ends October 8th. Winners will be announced Wednesday October 10th. Have fun and get sharing those blogging tips.

Update: October 8th

I did not receive very many entries, so I have extended the contest to November 30th.

To get someone’s attention with Blog Rush, the primary thing you need to do is write COMPELLING 7 WORD HEADLINES (or approximately no more than 40 characters including spaces). This guarantee’s your whole headline will be syndicated in Blog Rush’s widget without getting cutoff.

Several common mistakes I’ve seen already is people who are:

Writing LONG headlines which get cutoff before you can understand the topic of the post.  Read More

1. Volume blogging:
   The average number of posts published by a successful blogger every week is an estimated 28 (that is 4 posts a day). When you publish this many posts you not only increase your blog readership but the search engines notice your blog more and come back to revisit every day. Getting a large number of traffic sent to your blog via search engines can increase your readership by a large percentage bringing in visitors from all over the globe.
2. Value blogging:
   We all want to write about stuff that no one else has thought of writing or has written about yet but it never quite happens because someone always gets there first. I’m not talking about every time but at least once a week a successful blogger will write a blog post that he/she knows will attract attention. That’s called value blogging. It might be a list of tips and tricks from the web or a list of the top 10 must use plugins but successful bloggers know it’s what people want to read about and it’s those articles that’s gets them the hits. Something else successful bloggers want to write about are upcoming events. They will research them in advance, find out what’s happening and then write an interesting article about tha event…somethng their readers will want to hear about and hit PUBLISH. These bloggers are smart because they know that aound that time people will start searching and they will get all the hits.
3. Decide the brand
   Successful bloggers place a high importance on personal branding. Take Problogger for instance, Darren Rowse recently changed his theme with a total new look and logo. The goal of successful branding is to visibly associate the organization, product or service with an image or identity in the mind of the audience. If you want to establish the brand use a noticeable logo, favicon even brand the RSS feeds.
4. Run blogging contests
   Blogging contests are a great way to get traffic and create excitement. Participating in contests, with other bloggers isn’t just fun to do. It’s also a great way to increase your blog’s audience and build backlinks to your site
5. Encouraging guest posts
   A successful blogger will invite other bloggers to write guest posts for their blog. Think about it, if any blog reaps over 1000 visits a day then wouldn’t you want to write for that blog? In this case both the blogger and the guest benefit. The blogger gets a free post and the guest gets a free link.  
6. Intensive blogging
   By Intensive blogger we mean someone sitting down, researching and developing their ideas and writing several posts in one or two days, this is the single-most secret that any successful blogger doesn’t want to tell. The secret is this, they don’t publish all theposts on the same day but they will schedule them for publication and then forget about them. This way they don’t have to worry about that blog for a few days and can concentrate on another.
7. Revenue streams
   Google Adsense is the most popular and common program for making money (It;s the easiest money making choice that everyone has heard of). A successful blogger has as a minimum of 10 different revenue programs apart from Google Adsense including affiliates. Some of these are Text link-Ads, Blog Mastermind, Auction Ads, BlogRush and Chitika eMiniMalls. Not many know about these.

Here are my own Blogging Tips:

1. One way to make your site popular INSTANTLY is to run a blog competition on your site. Everyone loves contests and participating especially if there is a prize to be won and the prize is worth their time and effort. Contests are the best way to get more traffic coming into your site.
2. Find relevant posts that you can link to. To do this you can search Google’s blogsearch and find blogs on your favourite topic and that is relevant to your site. Once you have found a post that you would like to comment on, send a trackback ping as discussed in my article “Increase your Blog Traffic using TRACKBACKS” This is a great way to get incoming links, hence more traffic for your blog!
3. Do you get lots of SPAM messages every day in the comments column of your blog? If yes, then Install Akismet. It controls spam and filters them seperate from the legitimate ones. This will save you so much time.
4. Get others to review your blog. There are so many forums you can resgiter with that has its own section for reviewing blogs, one of them is webmasterworld.com. Get feedback for your site on things like the navigation, look, Google Adsense optimisation, etc. You’ll be amazed at how many things others will find that could be improved on and they might be able to spot other things as well like spelling mistakes or bugs. Ask them how they see your blog and how it could be improved. You don’t have to do this online if you don’t want to, you can ask friends and family. Even a simple questionnaire filled in by real people can be more valuable to you than any other tool such as Google Analytics giving you realistic results. Try it and see. You will get some valuable ideas from others. 
5. Use your own domain name not a sub-domain of Wordpress or Blogspot.com. Read this post “why host a blog on your own domain“  Although the option of having a subdomain on these blogging platforms sounds exciting because you get a free domain you have to realise that they will ALWAYS own your domain. This means you don’t have the freedom to do what you want with it in the future. What if you want to sell it if it becomes popular or worse still what happens if the blogging platform your using goes corrupt along with your domain or is banned by a search engine? You will be the one to loose out so why take that chance. What if you want to move it to another blogging platform for example from blogger.com to Wordpress and you don’t want to lose your search engine rankings? You won’t be able to do that either.  Take my advice and host your blog on your own domain, apart from anything else it makes your blog look more professional. You’ll be glad you did in the long run.

For more information you can get a list of the top 10 Blog traffic tips here.

Well those are mine and you too are welcome to share your best blogging tip by simply posting it as a comment in the section below this page.

On so many forums I see people asking for links because they believe they will be able to drive more traffic and make their blog popular a lot faster. It’s not as easy as that believe me. Your site will not get popular overnight.

Making a blog successful takes time so you have to be patient.

I have had this website BloggerHolic for 4 months now and on average I get about 120 visits a day which is not bad for a young blog. I have 371 links to my site that Yahoo found and most of these are link to my site automatically, in other words I don’t have to do anything other that write good quality content that people will want to link to. I’ve learnt that the best articles that work for me are those with bullet point or numbered lists in them, they tend to get linked to a great deal more than ordinary length posts written in essay format.
 
This is some of the web sites that have helped me get blog traffic.

• I liked this article written by Darren Rowse at Problogger. The 31 Days to Building a Better Blog
  You are guaranteed to learn so many things you didn’t know. Follow through with the ones you feel conformable with.
• I like to use Google Analytics. Learn how to use your stats. I can see how may unique visits I get every day, which is sending me the most traffic, what content on my site get more page views. You’ll soon realise you can’t live without it. 
• Add your blog to blogexplosion and add a small banner on your blogexplosion account at http://www.blogexplosion.com/
  It doesn’t cost anything and It brings me 10-40 new visits a month. My banner is rotated across the top of all my pages of BlogExplosion giving me more opportunities to generate additional traffic to my blog.
• I use Wordpress blogging platform so when I publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services such as technorati, pingomatic etc (you can add as many services as you want). For those of you not using Wordpress you can use:
• http://pingoat.com and http://autopinger.com
  Both are excellent
• Know your competition
  I use http://www.alexa.com/ and http://wholinkstome.com/ the ultimate SEO tool. It will show you your Google page rank and how many links the search engines have found.

I hope the above tips have been useful. You are welcome to leave comments and share your best blogging tip.  

If you do then did you know you can block such spam messages? All you need to do is install Akismet (recommended) or Spam Karma2 and Bad Behavior. These are all anti-spam plugins for the Wordpress blogging platform. It will filter your spam separately so you can delete them from one location within the Wordpress admin panel with a single click. I use Akismet and it works great. Since installing it, it has caught 173 spam comments for me.

You can search for these plugins in Google or go to the Wordpress website however, most themes already have Akismet installed for you. All you have to do is activate it and register using your wordpress.com API key. The instructions on how to get your API key will be given to you as soon as you activate the plugin.

This will save you so much time especially if you have a busy blog.

Hope this helps someone.

I’ve had a few people asking how they can add a second column sidebar to a one column wordpress theme. To do this you will need to edit the template files index.php, archive.php, page.php and single.php.
Here is the code with step by step instructions. Before you begin you will need to decide where you want the sidebar.

1. Login to your Wordpress administration panel
2. Select Presentation ->Theme Editor from the navigation menu
3. On the Theme Editor page, you will see a list of “theme files” to the right of the page. Select the “main index template” (index.php).
4. Copy and paste the following code before the last </div> of the <div id=”primaryContent”> and before <?php get_footer(); ?>. This will ensure the sidebar appears above the footer.
   <?php get_sidebar(); ?>
5. Save
6. Still on the Theme Editor page, select the “sidebar template” (sidebar.php).
7. Add the following code after the last </div> of the left or right sidebar
8. <div class=”right-sidebar”>
9. Save
10. Now open the style sheet (style.css) and style it up how you want it to match the theme. For example
    .right-sidebar {
     width:190px;
     right:5px;
    The best thing to do is to see how your other sidebar is styled and copy that code just changing the left or right wording.
11. Save

You can view your site now and you should be able to see the new sidebar added to your main home page. You need to now repeat the above steps 1- 5 on the following template files:
archive.php - this will show the sidebar on all your category pages
page.php - this will show the sidebar on all your pages you create in Wordpress
single.php - this will show the sidebar on every single post

That’s it your done! Feel free to comment if you have any questions.

Believe it or not you can get fired for writing a blog and it’s called foolish blogging – let me explain. Employees are getting fired for wring blogs related to the company which is illegal if against company policy. Writing about things that may cause offence to someone in a blog bears the same consequence if you were to do it in public.

Most companies now have it in their policy that no employee shall share company information with the general public and this means in blogs too. This also applies to writing about your employer, boss or colleagues in the workplace that would be offensive or rude in anyway. This can be a sacking offence. In fact, simply writing a blog could be against company policy, particularly if the blog is about your job or your work. You will be amazed at how many will actually copy work content for their blogs to make them popular and if you do this and you are caught then you could be fired from your job.

Many have made their blogs well known and some even famous by committing the above offences. Peter Whitney who was an employee at Wells Fargo was sacked for writing behind-the-scenes blog posts (his blog continues at gravityspike.blogspot.com).
Delta Air Lines, Google and other major companies are firing and disciplining their employees because of the blogs they write containing comments relating to the workplace or saying wrong things about employers or disclosing confidential information about the company or an employee/employer that are against company policy.   

If you are a blogger and you have a full time or part time job then you should read the following to avoid blog firing:

• Find out what your company policy says about blogging and if it is allowed before blogging about anything related to your work. Some Companies will not allow so it’s best to make sure.
• Don’t be a secretive blogger even behind the scenes; let your supervisor or manager know. A personal blog is bound to touch on the work place and you can still get into trouble if they find out your blabbing away about them or sharing confidential information about then in your blog. 

I imagine this problem will get worse as blogging becomes a part of more and more people’s lives. Just remember that a blog is a live published website that everyone in the world can see so don’t post anything that you wouldn’t say in public.