How To Find The Right Blogging Topic Ideas For Beginners

It doesn't take a super-sleuth to realize that writing isn't as difficult as it appears. But deciding what to write is a whole other story. When deciding on the type of writing you'll do on a regular basis, two considerations come into play: What are your capabilities, and what do you hope to achieve?

Do you excel at creating compelling fictional character stories, or do you prefer to write nonfiction? Do you want to write for the purpose of educating, entertaining, or making money?

Whatever path you choose, writing will undoubtedly involve certain steps, the first of which is research, which will serve as the foundation of your work. While research is more important in non-fiction writing than in fiction, it is still important for fiction writers to understand the value of research, especially when looking for references to base the elements of your story on.

Initial Research For Your Blogging Topic Ideas

This is the stage at which you should gather as much information as possible. You don't have to spend a lot of time reading and analyzing studies, articles, books, and even videos when conducting preliminary research. All you have to do is find them and save them.

Step 1: Deciphering the Mysterious

Of course, the first step in research is determining what you want to write about. You should think about a topic that you can talk about for hours or even days on end – preferably one that you're passionate about. Make sure it's a topic you're well-versed in, or you'll end up writing fluff, which your readers will notice.

Making a list of at least ten of your interests is the best way to determine which topic might be suitable for you. Then, for each interest, write as many sub-topics as possible that are closely related to their parent topic.

After that, choose the topic with the most sub-topics – this is your golden topic.

Step 2: Obtaining a magnifying glass

Now that you've decided what you want to write about, it's time to begin your research!

The term "research" refers to more than just gathering facts. It also entails deciding how to write your piece in order to make it both unique and valuable. For example, if you want to write about money, don't just stick to money as a broad topic; dig deeper, finding a sub-category, or a micro niche, so your book can be laser-focused.

If Money is the main niche, then its micro niches (or sub-niches) include personal finance, investments, and so on. What about writing about personal finance or investing?

Step 3: Collecting the clues

The following stage of research entails gathering a large amount of related materials. It is critical that you conduct thorough research, avoid inaccuracies, and nail all of the minor details that can accumulate and eventually ruin a good book or article.

Data collection can include anything from facts and information about your chosen topic to published works on topics similar to or tangentially related to yours. However, keep in mind that this is similar to making a stew. You simply toss everything into the pot without first doing any extensive reading or analyzing.

All you have to do is go through your resources and look for potential references; read the titles and subheadings, possibly even the introduction and conclusion, and simply toss them into your improvised database if the material appears to be relevant.

Check out books that are similar to the topic you want to write about when deciding what kinds of materials "would fit." Examine the table of contents to get a sense of what the book focused on.

Make a list of what all of these books have in common in terms of content, as well as what makes each of them unique. If this sounds like a lot of work, here are some resources to assist you:

• Google Scholar – Use Google Scholar if your topic necessitates academic search results. There will be peer-reviewed studies, books, articles, and journals, among other things.
• Google Search Operators – When using Google, it is beneficial to learn the various operators available so that you can obtain more specific results.
• YouTube – Videos are an excellent source of instructional materials such as how- to's. You might be able to gain a new perspective on topics if the way they are presented is altered.

A Simple Advice to Note

Do not immediately begin researching using blogs, as you may find yourself overly reliant on them. Only begin looking for relevant blogs after you have a specific (but not required) outline in mind. For leads, check out Alltop and Reddit.

Find posts that are closely related to your main topic and assess whether they are valuable enough to use as research material.

• Is the article or post in question widely shared on social media?
• What about feedback?
• Is it one of their most popular posts?

In general, these metrics are what you want to see because they usually indicate that people responded positively to them.

Sort out the good from the bad. Check out what readers said in the comments section to learn how to separate the good from the bad. When writing your book or article, categorize these as dos and don'ts.

Keep a copy of everything relevant to your topic, including the link(s) (it's research, you'll need to return to your sources frequently), compile them in the same place, and make it semi-organized – basically, know where you can find what in the shortest amount of time. When you've finished reading everything there is to read on the subject, sort your collection by relevance.

Following this stage, it's basically just reading, reading, and more reading before you start weaving everything that works well together and discarding everything that doesn't. Use the outline you made earlier to help you decide what to focus on and what to write about.

Concerned about devoting too much (or too little) time to research? Don't put too much pressure on yourself. In fact, you can complete your research in a single day and begin writing the following day.

Writing, Restructuring, and Analyzing

Examine everything. Remove the non-essentials and the bad stuff. Use what's left on your table. Then, just like the private eyes on TV shows, start mapping out all the clues. They gather all of their newspaper clippings, suspect photos, maps, and other forms of evidence and arrange them on a cool-looking board, wall, or table.

After you've eliminated the non-essentials, create your final outline by dividing each section with its own headline. Make a note of what "worked" for the readers and try to catch the same "lightning" in your own metaphorical bottle.

When it comes to writing, grouping information by relevance is also beneficial. Writing will become very easy once your paragraphs can flow with relevance and your structure has a harmonious flow. Based on your preliminary research, you already have everything you require. All you have to do is put them to use – make them work for you.

Conclusion

It should be noted that, while some people prefer to research, read, write, and then research again, this is simply inefficient. It takes your attention away from your writing. However, by researching everything first (read: compiling all relevant data) and then reading everything later (and removing the irrelevant parts), you can focus solely on your writing.

Finally, there are a few other things to keep in mind while writing:

• Make sure to properly cite your sources. (Aren't you glad you saved all those links?)
• Based on the data from your research, draw your conclusions, i.e. things you can defend on your own if questions about the validity of your conclusions are raised.
• Before deciding what to include in your writing, learn to use good judgment and to consider both sides of the coin. A popular viewpoint is not always correct.

Remember to only write things that you can back up with credible sources. When in doubt, go without. Happy finding the right blogging topic for you!