Personal blogs can be more random if it’s simply sharing what you’re doing with friends and family. But a blog for business or one on which you plan to make money needs to have a purpose. It may be your purpose is to post random drivel. But that is a purpose.

Generic will kill you and “too specific” will make you crazy. Trying to post a blog about being a stay at home mom might find fierce competition. Trying to post one about how a stay at home mom can run an internet business might be more specific. But don’t go posting a blog until you’ve taken a look around. You don’t want to be number one million trying to climb to the top of the heap. The whole point is to find a position that isn’t already occupied by everyone else.

Is a blog about bunions too specific?

Although I love the alliteration of Bunion Blog, a blog about bunions could get boring fast. While the hot phrase is niche, you don’t want to make it so specific that you run out of ideas in two weeks. And there’s a good chance you’ll run out of bunion material. However, you could instead have a blog about foot problems and this would open up all sorts of titillating subjects of interest like plantar fasciitis or narrow feet, high arches or flat feet. Now we’re talking. We can go into shoes and wrapping devices, socks. I could go on as the excitement is never ending.

Your blog should be about a passion or something about which you are an expert. You are sharing knowledge and expertise. Someone is looking for something and lands on your blog because of a keyword. And you have to have something there that captures attention and makes them want to return, buy, click, rejoice, kiss up to you or crown you prince of Egypt. And a blog is more personal. Which in a place as impersonal as the web, is a big advantage.

So niche doesn’t have to mean a singular, extremely narrow subject.

That’s not to say that drivel.com wouldn’t be a viable blog. It would be. In that case, any audience is wanting to be entertained on various subjects on any given day. They are looking for random of comedic posts and nutty articles.

Research your keywords

Don’t go choosing the most competitive keyword on the planet earth. Not everyone searches that way. In fact, most people use a combination and that’s where you climb in the back door. Here are some keyword tools to get you started:

http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

http://www.seo-browser.com/

http://webpreppro.com/blog/index.php/2008/03/11/free-seo-and-sem-ebook/