When starting a blog, the hardest question is generally, ‘What do I want to write about?’ You will have to write about the same general idea for the life of your blog. The longer your blog is up, usually means the more traffic you will receive. If you can’t provide content for at least a year and you plan to make big money on your blog you may want to rethink this.

Before some of the more experienced bloggers start jumping to conclusions, I am not saying blogs can’t have less than twenty posts and continue to make money for a long time. They can easily do that, if they are doing affiliate monetizing. If this is going to be a blog like this one, something you wish to sell paid plugs, 125×125 ads, banners, links, and several other advertisement options, you will need to have content and plenty of it.

To find a niche that is best for what you plan on doing, you must first determine what your plans for the blog are. I will stick with a blog where you wish to sell advertisements for this post. There are plenty of options out there. The most crowded niche by far is dealing with making money online or making money blogging, my niche. These are very competitive, which also leads to some pluses and minuses.

A less covered niche that has a large audience is basically a hidden gem. Good luck trying to find one. Even if there is not a powerhouse blog in that niche, it may be a topic covered extensively in normal websites. This would take away from the potential audience, and affiliate sales would be harder to complete.

A site on NFL football may be practically empty in the blogging field. There are a few reasons for this. It’s a very popular topic, but when people want to know about it there are so many places that contain more up to date content and usually better quality than you can provide. ESPN, NFL.com, even Yahoo and MSN have updates for them. Then you have the television updates which are even more popular than the websites.

You will rarely find a blogger willing to share their extensive list of niches so choosing your niche can be pretty difficult. Not only do you have to find something you feel like you know enough about or are willing to do the research on, but you also have to make sure this topic has profitability potential. There are a few ways to determine this. You can go with what AdSense and AdWords charges per click. These will basically set the standard for what to expect. The higher the price you get from these, generally the more profitable the niche can be.

In the end, go with what you want to write about. I enjoy reading about how to make money blogging, and I enjoy writing about it. Blogging can become a nightmare if you don’t enjoy your topic. There will be some way to monetize your blog, it’s just a matter of how much potential it has. For your very first blog, pick something you enjoy writing about. Publish daily, and you will start to see an increase in profits, readers, and how much fun you’re having.