This is part 1 of a 2 part article about successful blog topics not related directly to a business product or service. Link for part 2 at bottom of this article.

One problem I have with bloggers evangelizing blogs as the savior of the common man is that they don’t define well enough WHAT leads to blogging success.  Trust me, unless you’ve already made your mark on the world in whatever niche you’re on top of nobody wants to read what you had for breakfast, what movie you just saw, or how many times your kid just burped.

Now, if your name is Lance Armstrong you can write about that stuff and fans will eat it up. In short, if you don’t already have thousands of fans – don’t blog about your daily life. Nobody really cares. That’s not being mean – that’s 100% reality. In fact, besides Lance Armstrong I’d be hard-pressed to name even 1 more person so important that I cared what they were eating.

If you’re chasing blogging success – what WORKS?

Obviously product and services based blogs can work. They can be wildly successful. If you were blogging about new tech products that were coming out and could choose a niche that wasn’t completely saturated already you could do well.

If you were blogging about some service that you offer and that you were good at, in the top 50% of all service providers for – you could maybe make that successful. For instance, if you were blogging about your ability to customize WordPress and make customized blogs for top bloggers that would probably be something a LOT of people would be interested in. I’ve considered it for Aim for Awesome too. If you look at Shoemoney.com you’ll see why. That’s a nice custom blog. I’d pay for that quality.

What WORKS if you’re not blogging about products or services?

Here are some topics that, if you wreck your fingers typing 500 words a day for the next year,  you might find some success with:

1. Politics. I couldn’t care two fuzzy birds about politics, but there are people – my brother for instance, to which it means the world. There are people that will hate other members of their family over politics. There are people that will go to war against their family because of politics. It’s emotionally charged and it’s easy to ramp up readers’ fury or praise over something you’re writing about. A great topic if you know what you’re talking about. An excellent topic if you don’t.

2. Controversy. I did an experiment at another blog I have a couple months back. Basically I posted about photographers having no worth anymore because the world has changed a lot. There are still way too many average to good photographers chasing “the dream” all photographers have – take photos and make a good living. I trashed the whole field of photography everyway I knew how. The results were incredible. It was easily the most viral set of posts I’ve ever published. I had threats and lots of emotion about it. Controversy sells – if you enjoy that kind of thing (I didn’t) you can gain a massive following of people waiting for the next outrageous thing you say.

3. Sports. Sports followers have a gene that makes them impervious to any other responsibilities that might be going on the same time “the game” is on. Capitalize on this by catering your blog to some sport that people are most rabid about. Football, basketball and hockey seem to be the main ones in the USA – though golf too has a fanatical following.

4. Religion. I knew a guy that wrote the dry material for his Buddhism blog nearly every day for a year. It was straight from the texts – and it was lifeless, boring, ridiculous really. Guess what? He had a huge following after just that one year. If there’s one thing people can be more fanatical about than sports or politics – it’s religion. For some, their entire lives are built around it. If yours is too – seriously consider a blog about whatever religion you believe in.

5. Location, location, location. If you live in Hawaii do you think that might make an excellent blog topic? This blog shows up in the USA very high for people searching on Oahu Hawaii in Google. There are a couple reasons for that… number one is – nobody is really blogging about it except the guy at gohawaii.about.com. The second reason for that is because I listed myself in Google Business as living in Hawaii where my business is based.

If you live somewhere that’s considered a tourist attraction – or for some reason is famous – you can gain a large following in a short time by posting everyday about something to do there.

6. Superstars. There are some that dedicate their blogs to some person they admire or that are famous for some reason. If you blogged about Oprah full-time you might have a VERY successful blog in a year. Other possibilities: Obama, Jack Nicholson, Eminem, etc. There are thousands of possibilities. Anyone you are a diehard fan of?

7. Losing Weight. If you have experienced weight loss and can relate your story well you can build that into a very successful blog. I have many people arrive here reading the couple weight loss articles I wrote where I lost over 30 lbs without hardly trying at all. Losing weight is something most of the population of the USA, UK, and much of Europe are struggling with. There’s a LOT of room in this niche to run with something about weight loss.

See part 2 with eight more successful niche areas to blog about.  >

Related posts:

1. Successful Non-Business Blog Topics, Part 2
2. Why Creating a Successful Online Business is Like Reaching Nirvana
3. Building Your Blog and STUCK?
4. Seth Godin’s Un-Monetized Blog?
5. Guest Post Writer – Hawaii Topics Needed
6. Auuuggh! Lost Another Paragraph? Blog Comment? Email?
7. Need Help Incorporating Your New Business?