Choosing the right topic is one of the most important things when it comes to blogging. This is one lesson I learned the hard way …

I started the hidden rock {dot} com as a music blog, music being such a big part of my life.

I started it a year ago (gasp!), I know … I didn’t give it my best shot, I know I didn’t try hard enough, and so I quickly lost interest. Let me tell you, it’s a lot easier to enjoy music than to write about it.

I now blame this on my poor reasoning; I used to think how hard can writing about music be? Apparently harder than I thought.

Last week in one bold, swift move I deleted all of my failed past and I’m starting over. This time I’m writing about the things I spend the most of my time with. My new topics are: blogging, web design, blog marketing, seo, and of course WordPress.

I know, that’s more than one topic, but I thought I’d try with a few closely related ones to see where they lead. It’s basically blogging & other related stuff.

So is this my new start? I hope so, but I know I’m not out of the water yet. I think I’ve made a wise decision to start over and I know I’ve chosen the right topic this time. After all, I’m a blogger and a website manager — I live, breathe and dream this stuff every single day. It’s all I think about (yeah, and that’s what I used to think about music).

Well, I guess I will just have to wait and see …

How to learn from my mistake

Please learn from my mistake and if you’re starting a new blog or website, choose your topic wisely.

Ask yourself:

• Is this really what you want to be blogging about?
  
  Try writing a few test posts to see how they turn out. If you feel like, man I could do this forever — then go for it! If you think, this was really exhausting — then maybe you should go with something else.
• Do you have enough to write about?
  
  This might sound like a silly question, but try writing down 10 possible ideas for articles. Now try 50. Are you out of ideas?
• Is your topic popular and something that others will want to read about?
  
  If you’re writing your blog just for yourself, then I guess you don’t need to answer this question. But then you might as well be writing in your diary. I think everyone wants their blog to be popular, and this is one question that you have to be honest about.

Now I may have made this sound a lot harder than it really is, so don’t be afraid to start a blog because you might not have an answer to something. Just think of it as an experiment, you can keep improving on

Here are a couple articles about that you might want to check out if you’re choosing a blogging topic and starting your own blog:

• How to Choose a Niche Topic for Your Blog — Problogger
• How to Choose the Right Blog Niche: A Simple Three-Step Method — Dosh Dosh

And if you have absolutely no idea what to write about, check out:
No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog by Margaret Mason.

It’s a quick read and a great way to get ideas.

And by the way, I don’t think I’d recommend Blogging for Dummies …

I haven’t read it, so I can’t say if it’s good or bad, but you don’t want to start your blogging career thinking you’re a dummy when it comes to blogging do you?

In case you read the darn thing, let me know if it’s any good, maybe I’ll change my mind 🙂