Chances are you read blog posts every day.

Whether you’re looking for a guide on installing a ceiling fan, the latest celebrity gossip, or trying to come up with ideas for that holiday that’s coming up, you probably gain a ton from blogs.

But have you ever thought about flipping the script?

Becoming a producer, instead of a consumer?

Instead of reading the blogs, writing them?

Many of us have. Especially when it comes to a topic that we genuinely love reading, learning, and talking about.

If that’s you, stick around.

By the end of this post, you will:

• Know whether or not blogging is for you.
• Understand the upsides of building a blog.
• Gain insight on what not to focus on when building one.
• Have researched and decided on a niche to pursue.

We have a lot to cover here so if you’re ready, how about we jump in and get started?

7 Reasons You Should Start a Blog:

If I could write out all the reasons there are to start a blog, well, I’d be here for a while.

Instead, we’re going to focus on just a few key things you might want to think about before you get started.

Here are a few reasons you should at least consider building a blog:

Allows You to Focus on Your Passion

When you start a blog, you get to choose what you talk about.

You get to choose the niche you write about and what direction your content goes in.

So whatever you’re interested in – be it food, travel, personal finance, making money, music, books, television/movies, hobbies or crafts, space exploration, leadership, art, whatever it is – you have complete and total control over what you decide to focus on.

Whatever your passion is, whatever you’re most interested in, you can create a blog around that topic.

Now, let’s understand one thing: Some niches are more profitable and popular than others.

We can probably agree that there are more people searching for the latest smart gadgets in 2023 than those interested in the dynamics of the 7th Century Tang dynasty, right?

So the niche you choose to tackle does have an effect on how much you can get out of it, but that doesn’t mean you’re limited to only a few subjects.

Later in this article, I will offer a few quick pointers on how to quickly research and validate the niche you’re considering. I’ll show you how to tell if the niche is already too competitive, or if there’s enough interest in that topic to take the blog to the level you want.

But before we get to that point, spend a moment thinking about the different topics you’d like to cover. If you’re considering starting a blog you probably have already thought about this.

If not, that’s fine. But take a moment to make a short list of possible subjects you’re interested in. Think about those subjects that you get excited to talk about. Think about the things that you’re always looking to learn more about.

These are the subjects that will suit you best as a blogger. When you’re genuinely interested and enthusiastic about the topics you cover, blogging doesn’t even feel like work.

You Enjoy Writing (or Speaking)

Blogs are, at least traditionally, focused almost entirely on written words.

Yes, there are plenty of unique blogs out there that involve a lot less writing.

Some blogs focus on images, curating links from around the web, or any number of other unique content ideas.

But the vast majority of blogs are focused on writing. You know this already.

So if you don’t like writing, blogging may not be for you.

The one exception may be if you prefer video.

Today, around 1 in 4 blogs include video content.

If you believe video is a better way to deliver your content, there’s never been a better time for that.

And you’re not just limited to uploading to YouTube.

You can quickly and easily embed your videos into your website, and even include a transcript of the video on your blog to help with SEO.

There’s another route for blogging that involves outsourcing your content creation to freelancers and ghostwriters, but that also comes at a relatively high starting price.

Most individuals simply won’t have the resources to begin with outsourcing, but it’s always a great goal to aim for in the future.

For me, blogging was the most viable option for this very reason: I enjoy writing. And sometimes, I’m even a little good at it.

Just remember that you don’t have to be a professional writer to become a successful blogger. I’m certainly not. Every day I run into blog posts that are clearly not written by a professional.

If you have a genuine interest in your topic, and the expertise to go with it, the writing doesn’t have to be perfect.

It just has to be valuable.

Build a Business Around Your Hobby or Passion

I know I spoke about passions earlier, but bare with me here: there’s a distinction between just talking about your passions and building a business around them.

“If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life”

This was the text on a poster that was up in my high school. Not the exact image above, the poster in my school had a cat on it.

I remember that because I walked past that poster every single day for 4 years. And it’s always stuck with me.

How cool would it be to do something I love? I always thought. To do something that I looked forward to doing.

When you love what you do, Mondays are a pleasure. You don’t have to work, you get to.

That’s exactly what blogging is for me. Not only do I enjoy the writing itself, but all of my blogs are focused on topics I have a specific passion for.

And by turning my blogs into a business, I not only get to spend my day talking about what I love, I get to make money from it too? Sign. Me. Up.

When you’re researching the topic you want to cover – which we’ll go over a bit later – think about how you might wrap a business around that blog.

For instance, to use my 7th Century Tang dynasty example from earlier, how would you wrap a business around that?

You could always place ads on your site sure, but what other options are there? Could you write a book going into depth on the empire? Or the culture and time period vs how it is today?

Or could you create an e-commerce store that sells traditional objects and trinkets related to that culture?

I don’t know much about 7th Century China – or anything at all, really – so I wouldn’t even know where to start. But if that’s your niche, you probably have some ideas.

And if you’re struggling to think of ideas, try looking at other websites on the same topic. How do they monetize their sites? Could you do what they do? Or something similar?

Make a list of possible ways you could wrap a business around your chosen topic. Much like writing, often times once you get a few ideas rolling, they just sort of pour out of you from there.

Build a Community

Building a community around your blog is not only the best way to grow your site, but it also allows you to surround yourself with people who enjoy the same topics as you.

I can’t tell you how many times blogging has allowed me to engage in lengthy conversations with my readers about the topics I love.

And I can’t tell you how much more I’ve learned about my chosen subjects because of these conversations.

That community you build also has a lasting effect on your readers because now they too have a place to go where they can surround themselves with like-minded individuals.

Trust me when I say that it’s a good feeling when you see interactions within a community that you’ve built that leads to others learning something or gaining new insight.

On the other side, being a blogger itself offers a new way for you to join other communities.

There are no shortage of Reddit boards and Facebook groups that focus on blogging.

Especially as a new blogger, take some time to find communities you could join that will help you learn more about building a blog. In the end, it could be the most valuable resource you have.

Make a Difference in Your Field

This is where your particular experience and expertise on your topic can really shine.

Depending on your niche, and your level of interest in this specifically, you could potentially transform the landscape of your entire industry if you wanted.

Look at Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko.

Brian has a passion for SEO. So he built a blog focused on that. Now, he’s completely changed the landscape of SEO and helped millions of bloggers transform the way they create content. I should know, I’m one of them.

Neil Patel is another such example.

Like Brian, Neil has a thing for SEO and content marketing. And he’s done a lot to move the needle on the subject. All while building a massive empire of businesses and tools.

But your impact doesn’t have to be that grand. You don’t have to change your industry as a whole.

For instance, the purpose of this blog, for me, is not to change the landscape of blogging or making money online.

My vision is simple: to have a positive impact on the financial lives of 100,000 households.

I don’t need to transform the blogging world to do that. Nor would I want to, honestly.

But we can both agree that touching the lives of 100,000 households certainly has an impact on, well, those households.

So that’s my focus. And that’s the beauty of blogging: you get to choose how far-reaching or how big of an impact you have.

It’s not easy, of course. But then again, nothing worth doing ever is.

Take a moment to consider the ways your blog could make a difference in your field, if you even have that goal. Once you commit to it, it becomes a powerful motivator.

Residual Benefits

The true power of blogging – and really video content largely fits here as well – comes from the residual traffic and earnings that can be achieved.

Do you know how cool it is to see an affiliate sale pop up and track it back to a blog post that you wrote 2 years ago and haven’t touched since?

If not, let me tell you: it’s pretty freakin’ awesome.

And it’s not just about earnings, either.

Search engines love blog content. They love ranking high-value, relevant content for users to discover.

When you create valuable content, you can generate traffic (and therefore readers, leads, and revenue) for literally years after you’ve created the content.

To put this in perspective, consider that studies have shown the lifespan of a blog post is around 2 years while the lifespan of a social media post is only “minutes” for a Tik Tok video, and around 15-20 minutes for a Twitter post.

Even if you place a big focus on Pinterest for traffic generation, Pinterest content lasts longer than most other content with a lifespan of 6 months to 1 year for each pin.

Considering you will probably use those Pinterest pins to point back to your blog post anyway, you can see how much more value can come from a single blog post than from, say, a series of Tik Tok videos.

It’s really quite impressive.

Again, high-value, relevant content is what readers – and therefore search engines – are looking for. If you can fulfill that need, you can also benefit from the extensive lifespan of blog content.

Time/Money/Location Freedom

This is typically the biggest reason anyone ever looks to earn money online, in any form.

Blogging is no different.

Since your blog lives entirely online, you’re free to maintain and build it from virtually anywhere in the world.

The one exception may be locally-specific blogs and websites. But if you’re focused on building a website for, say, a local coffee shop that you own, you’re probably tied to that location anyway.

Otherwise, blogging allows for a lot of freedom once you get going.

Obviously, you’re not going to launch a blog today and use it to start traveling the world tomorrow, but there’s potential for it in the future.

Even if traveling isn’t really your thing, the benefit of time and money freedom is still there.

If you’ve never made money while laying in bed curled up with the dog lying next to you, just know that it’s a pretty great experience.

And it’s one you won’t want to give up once you’ve felt it.

7 Reasons You Should NOT Start a Blog:

With all the benefits of a blog being what they are – and trust that the above is not an exhaustive list – that doesn’t mean there are no downsides to blogging.

And it certainly doesn’t mean that everyone is cut out for blogging.

So with that, here are a few reasons blogging may not be a good fit for you.

Again, this is not an exhaustive list, but rather just some things to think about moving forward:

You’re Looking for Quick Wins

Blogging is a long-term pursuit, there’s no doubt about that.

Ask anyone who’s ever built a blog that generates traffic and they’ll agree: It takes years to build a truly sustainable, powerful blog.

While you can generate some great wins in the short term, and it’s even possible to earn a full-time income within your first 1-2 years as a new blogger, this shouldn’t be the expectation.

If you truly want to be successful as a blogger, and you truly want to earn a living, build a community, and impact your industry, you have to step into it with the mindset that you’re here for the long haul.

It has been found that roughly 8% of bloggers earn enough to be able to support a family, and somewhere in the realm of 81% never even make $100 from blogging.

This is not a reason to give up on your blogging dreams.

In reality, it’s a reason to keep going.

Because an 8% success rate is actually quite high in the business world.

But the success or failure of your blog is more related to your efforts and your reason why for building it.

If you’re just looking to turn a quick profit, write a blog post here and there, and put in as little time as possible, blogging just may not be for you.

You’re Focused on You

When a reader comes to your blog, they’re typically looking to gain something for themselves.

Whatever they were searching for when they stumbled upon your blog, there’s a pretty good chance they were hoping to learn something new, find a guide on a specific topic, or gain insight or inspiration on something.

Very few people who land on your blog are looking to learn the intimate details of your life. Sorry, that’s just the truth.

While, yes, there are personal blogs that succeed, and there are bloggers that build massive followings by focusing on their own lives in their content, the vast majority of successful blogs are audience-focused.

There’s a reason for that.

Even if your blog does follow your personal life specifically, you should still be focused on the audience and what they can gain from it.

If your content is only about you, and offers nothing of value to your audience, they won’t have a reason to return.

Focus on providing value to your audience, and your audience will provide value to you.

You Don’t Want to Be a Marketer

Blogs don’t just blow up overnight by accident.

Okay, some do. Some go viral and take on a life of their own.

But most don’t. And if that’s what you’re aiming for, go for it. But understand that even viral-focused blogs and websites have to market themselves to gain new readers.

They have to do something to get the word out and get a little bit of traction to their posts.

There are well over 4 million blog posts published per day.

You have to do something to stand out.

If you want to become a successful blogger, you’re going to have to learn how to market your blog.

Marketing is just part of the job.

Yes, you could hire someone (or launch with a partner) who handles your marketing, but that also has a downside.

Now, you don’t have to be a professional marketer to start, you can – and will – learn as you go, but it’s still a pretty important part of the game.

Make it a priority to learn the basics of marketing as you begin building your blog, and continue to learn more as you work on it, or else your blog simply has almost no chance of ever being found.

You’re not committed to the process

On the surface, blogging may look pretty simple:

• Brainstorm ideas.
• Write in-depth articles on those ideas.
• ???
• Profit.

Easy, right?

Wrong.

If you decide to pursue blogging as a business – and plenty of people do it just as a hobby, and that’s okay too – you’re going to have to tackle it as a business.

Long hours. Tons of reading/research. A few (a lot) headaches. And LOTS of technology. This is all part of blogging.

If you’re not willing to invest in the whole thing, not to be a Debbie Downer, but you shouldn’t even start.

Just being honest.

Let’s face it, blogging is hard. Like, really hard.

But, at least in my opinion, it has a lot more pros than cons.

Refer back to the reasons you should start a blog from above.

If any of those excite you to a point that you would be willing to commit and stick to the process, then you should go for it.

Blogging Can be Lonely

It’s often said that entrepreneurship as a whole is a lonely pursuit, and blogging is no different.

While you could work with a partner, spouse, or friend that allows you to have someone right there with you as you both build a blog around a topic that you enjoy, and blogging does have the inherent benefit of building a community and surrounding yourself with people who enjoy the same things as you, the beginning stages of blogging are often quite lonely and isolated.

It’s just you (and your partner(s), if you have any).

While this can be disheartening, focus on the potential: Focus on the community you could build. And the connectedness you could achieve with your audience if you make it past that initial lonely stage.

If nothing else, consider the lonely portion of blogging as a trial-by-fire of sorts. You have to make it to the other side to receive the benefits.

Of course, if you’re more introverted – like I am – this “lonely” side of blogging may actually be a pro, not a con.

Everyone’s different in that regard but just remember: When it comes to blogging, there is always a potential to build a community that thrives off of your content. And if that’s what you’re hoping to build, focus on that vision as you navigate the initial lonely stages.

You’re looking for free stuff

Have you ever read an article, watched a video, or viewed a social media post where the individual mentions a company sending them a product or sponsoring the content?

You probably have.

And it sounds pretty cool to get free products and sponsorships from these companies, right?

Well, it is.

But it can’t be the reason for your blog.

These companies provide products to bloggers and content creators who provide value to their audience. They are looking for influencers, not tire-kickers looking for free stuff.

If you’re just looking for a handout, no one is going to give it to you.

You have to offer value to your audience before these companies will be willing to invest product in you.

Just remember, like anything in life, the rewards for building your blog come after you put the work in, not before.

Sponsored products and gifts from companies can be part of those rewards, but you still have to put in the work beforehand.

You don’t want to create content

Content – whether it’s video, images, or writing – is the lifeblood of any blog.

If you’re not willing to create content, your blog can’t grow.

It’s that simple.

Yes, you can hire content creators and outsource content, but that costs money.

And even when you do outsource, you’re still going to be spending some time maintaining the content, brainstorming ideas, etc.

Unless you hire someone for that too which, again, costs money.

So yes, you can make a blog that’s completely hands-off, but you’re going to be investing a ton of cash into that.

Truth is, most people simply won’t have the budget to be able to do that from the start.

That can be a future goal but go into blogging with the expectation that you’re going to be creating a lot of content.

If that doesn’t sound like fun, and you don’t have the resources to outsource, then maybe content creation just isn’t for you.

What Should I Do Before Launching My Blog?

Hopefully, by now you have decided whether or not blogging is actually right for you.

I’m not going to say I hope you choose to go for it because blogging simply isn’t for everyone.

If it’s not for you, better to find out now, so you can move on to what you’re really suited for.

But if you have decided to launch a blog, there are a few things you need to do before you get moving.

And I want to go over those things here.

Decide on a Niche

Chances are, as you were reading this article (and probably even before you found it), you had a topic or a subject in mind that you wanted to blog about.

This is good. This is the first step: deciding what to talk about.

When deciding on the topics or areas of interest your blog will cover, you want to ask yourself a few things:

1. What topics interest me?
2. What topics can I talk about all day, any day?
3. What topics am I an expert on or extremely knowledgeable about?
4. What topics am I willing to learn about in-depth, if I don’t already have the knowledge?

As you ask these questions, begin to make a list of different topics that come to mind.

If you’re having trouble brainstorming, here are some popular blogging niches that might help you get started:

• Health and Wellness
• Parenting
• Career/Professional advice
• Food/Recipes/Dining
• Personal Finance or Investing
• Lifestyle
• Travel
• Pets
• Self-Improvement/Personal Development
• Relationships/Marriage

The list goes on.

There is no shortage of potential blogging niches that you could explore.

Once you’ve drilled down on a few areas of interest, we can do some quick and easy keyword research on those topics to help gauge the demand and competition within those areas.

Basic Research

The first step in our research is to gather some relevant sites that we can spy on.

We will use these sites for keyword research in a minute.

For now, let’s assume I’m going to look into the Pets niche for a blog.

So what I want to do is head over to Google and search “pets blogs” or “blogs about pets” or something of that nature.

These are the top results.

In these results you should notice 2 things:

1. There are 2 actual pet blogs listed:
   • I and love and you
   • The Pet Blog Lady
2. The first few results in Google are actually lists of pet blogs.

Note: There are more pet blogs further down the results page we could look at as well.

Now I want to use these results to create a list of potential blogs to spy on.

So take the 2 blogs from above, and copy them into a word editor or note somewhere for safekeeping.

Now, we’re going to use those list posts of pet blogs to extend our research.

We don’t need a lot of websites to search through – 20 is more than enough – so I’m going to look at the list from FeedSpot, since I happen to know FeedSpot is a site that is meant to be something of a database for information like this.

So I’m going to take some entries from this post, and add them to our list:

While building this list from the FeedSpot post, I also clicked through to each of the blogs before adding them to my final list.

I did this just because sometimes blogs go down, and the post may not be updated. So this way I know the site is still live and worth looking into.

I’m also checking the site very quickly just to make sure they actually have a blog. You never know, so this extra 10 seconds of work helps me later down the line.

Pro-Tip: As I was building my list from FeedSpot, I noticed a lot of these pet blogs had fairly large Facebook followings. In the future, that may be a clue that FB would be a good place to market my pet blog. Always good to know 😉

Now that I have a list of potential blogs I can spy on, it’s time to turn over to our keyword research tool.

In order to do some simple research on your chosen niche, we’re going to use a tool called SEMRush.

SEMRush is one of the best keyword research and SEO tools available.

When it comes to research and content planning, I truly can’t explain how much time I save by using this tool.

Its uses go far deeper than what we’re doing today, so bear with me.

You can grab a free trial for SEMRush’s Pro plan to complete this basic keyword research. If you don’t feel you need the full value of the tool today, you can always cancel before the trial ends and come back when you’re ready to use the tool in the future.

Pro-Tip: Do as much research as you can before you start your SEMRush trial, so you can get the most value out of it. Build a nice-sized list of relevant sites to search, just as we did. 15-20 sites max.

We’re going to use SEMRush to spy on these pet blogs that we’ve just listed. We’re looking for keyword ideas that have a combination of low difficulty (meaning we can potentially rank in search engines for them), but decent search volume.

These low-competition, high-search volume keywords are basically the low-hanging fruit of blogging. These are the keywords that we, as new bloggers, should focus on to get our blog ranking in the search engines.

In this example, I’m going to be using a fresh SEMRush account, just so I can ensure that you see what I see as we navigate the keyword results.

To start, once you’re inside of SEMRush, navigate to the Organic Research tab.

Then, enter one of the sites we have listed into the search box and hit search.

Ensure you’re searching by the “Root Domain” at the top. This makes it so SEMRush starts from the homepage of the site, and searches out from there.

In the future, you can narrow your search by changing this to the “exact URL” to drill down your results, but for our purposes, we want to get data on the site as a whole, not a specific page.

Now, there’s a lot of data on this screen. As I said, SEMRush can do quite a bit.

The more you use the tool, the less foreign this will seem.

For now, we want to focus on organic keywords.

Organic keywords are those keywords where the site ranks naturally in search engines. For SEMRush, these keywords represent rankings in Google’s top 100 search results for that keyword.

To get a better look at these keywords, click on the “View all” button circled above.

You should end up with something like this:

Again, there’s a lot of information on this page. Much of it, we don’t even need. So I like to remove any information that’s not required, just to make it easier for me to read.

Luckily, this list of organic keywords is essentially just a massive spreadsheet. And like most spreadsheets, SEMRush makes it easy to filter down based on the information we’re actually looking for.

So here is what we’re looking for, and then I’ll show you how I like to filter it down:

1. We need the keyword itself, obviously.
2. The position is always useful to know.
3. Search volume is an important factor.
4. Keyword Difficulty is a crucial factor.
5. And, finally, the URL – or specific page – ranking for that keyword.

Now, each of these bits of information is listed under a specific column in SEMRush, and you can even hover over the name of each column to get a useful little tooltip that explains what that column shows.

For example, this is what the tooltip for the “Volume” column looks like:

Now that we know what information we’re looking for, we know what information we can get rid of. To do that, the “Manage columns” button allows you to select which pieces of information you want to show.

Here is how I like to set mine up, based on the information we need from above:

Now that your data is filtered down to what you actually need, you can begin scanning through to find keywords and blog post ideas that interest you.

For newer blogs, we’re going to focus mainly on keywords with lower difficulty because our site just doesn’t have the authority yet – in the eyes of the search engines – to rank for more competitive terms.

But we also don’t want to focus on keywords that no one is searching for, so we’re going to strike a balance between keyword difficulty and search volume.

For me, on a brand new blog, I like to look for keywords with a difficulty of around 30 or below in SEMRush.

There is no hard rule here, this just comes down to experience and preference.

I like to begin at 30-40 as a maximum difficulty and, as my site grows and develops authority, I’ll reach for more difficult keywords from there.

Again, our goal right now is to find enough low-competition keywords to justify starting a blog in this niche. If the niche is over-saturated, or too competitive, it may not be the best place to start.

My rule is simple: If I can find 20 low-competition keywords with some initial spying like we’re doing here, then I can find thousands more later with more research.

That means I should have no shortage of content ideas and keywords to target.

So now it’s time to drill down through our results. Read through the keyword results from the blog you’re looking at, taking note of any keywords with a Difficulty of less than 30, and some amount of search volume.

Look for 100 or more search volume. Although that doesn’t sound like much, remember that – on average – a page ranking at #1 on Google will also rank for as much as 1,000 other similar keywords.

That means targeting 1 keyword can turn into targeting 1,000 keywords, without even trying.

And that is why we don’t focus as much on search volume. Focus more on creating content that ranks well for your keyword, and the traffic will take care of itself (basically).

As you’re searching, pay attention to similar keywords. For instance, within the first ~10 or so keywords in our SEMRush example, I’ve found these 3 keywords:

• Xanthan gum dogs
• Dogs xanthan gum
• Is xanthan gum safe for dogs

Each of these keywords are pretty similar, right? They’re all basically the same keyword, just different variations.

For our initial research, we would not want to count these keywords as all unique.

Although we could create multiple pieces of content targeting the keyword, we’re looking to make sure there’s enough room in the market for us to grow and take a chunk out of the search results. So we don’t want to fill our list with a bunch of variations on the same keyword.

As I’m building my initial list of 20 keyword ideas, I would count this as 1 keyword.

So I’m just going to add 1 variation to my initial list:

Note: SEMRush does offer the ability to easily build keyword lists within the tool, and it’s super useful. But for the sake of this post, I’m just creating a quick list along with the websites I found earlier.

Another thing I want to keep an eye out for is branded keywords for the site I’m researching, or keywords that include the name of that particular site.

Although branded keywords can be valuable in the future for comparison or review posts, I also don’t want my site to be reliant on the names of other brands in order to rank in search results.

So I tend to leave out most branded keywords like this from my initial research list.

Again, we can always use them in the future.

From here I’m just scrolling through the keyword results on each of the blogs we listed before.

I typically don’t go through every keyword from each site. Honestly, I usually get bored a few pages into the results, so I’ll move on to the next site.

But I continue to do this with each blog on my list until I get a keyword list of 20 or more low-competition, decent search volume keywords.

If I can’t come up with a good keyword list, the niche is probably too saturated and I should move on.

As you’re building your list, you want to consider the intent of the search term as well.

For instance, in my pet blog research, I occasionally came across some variation of the keyword “dog park with water.”

This keyword is fairly straightforward, the problem is that it’s a location-based keyword.

The person who searches this term is looking for dog parks in their area. Unless you’re building a blog around a local area, you probably won’t have much luck with this keyword.

If you did want to focus on a specific location and you found a keyword like, say, “dog park with water in Chicago” and your blog was focused in Chicago, you could get some use out of that keyword.

So you always want to consider the intent behind a keyword. What – specifically – was the user looking for when they searched this term? Are they looking for local suggestions? Are they searching for a specific brand? Can I create content that fulfills this intent, rather than just targeting the term itself?

These are questions you want to ask yourself.

Note: These are also important questions when it comes to actually creating the content around that term, but that’s a discussion for another day.

After a little research, I ended up with the following initial keyword list for our pet blog:

And I didn’t even have to work through my entire list. I only went through the first 3 or 4 sites to come up with these keywords.

That’s excellent. That means I have plenty more research I could do with our existing list, and it also tells me I should have no problems coming up with tons of keyword and content ideas.

Additionally, in my building of this initial list, I found plenty of low-competition branded keywords that I skipped over. So I can go back and add those keywords to my list.

Sweet. It looks like I’ve more than validated this niche, and I can move forward with my pet blog idea.

What’s Next?

By this point, you’ve validated your potential blog idea.

You have an initial list of keyword ideas, some potential competitors to continue to spy on for more ideas, and – hopefully – a passion and interest for your chosen topic.

Really, the only thing left to do is go out and create your blog.

From here you can continue to get the most out of your SEMRush trial by doing more research and gathering more ideas.

You can start to think of names for your blog.

You can begin to research themes and think of site layouts for your blog (hint: use other sites for inspiration, it’s the easiest way).

What you do next is kind of up to you.

As long as you’ve validated your idea, and chosen a topic that you’re passionate about discussing, you’re free to move forward as you see fit.

So, What’s Your Decision?

So there you have it.

By this point, you have an idea of reasons you should start a blog, as well as a list of reasons you shouldn’t start one. With any luck, this will help you decide if blogging is the right path for you.

Additionally, you have a few basic steps to start with before moving forward with your ideas.

Don’t discount the power of this initial research. It could save you a lot of time from jumping into a niche that’s just too crowded.

So now I turn it over to you: Is blogging something you still want to pursue? Did any of the Should or Should Not’s strike you in any particular way? Were you able to find and research a niche that you could break into?

I want to know your thoughts. Leave a comment below and let’s talk about it!