Over the past month or so I’ve been wanting to get back into blogging and trying to figure out what my personal blog should be focused on. What’s my niche? Why do people read my blog? What should I write about? It’s the type of questions that I believe every blogger asks at some point in the life of their blog.

Through the course of asking myself these questions, having a couple of conversations with a friend about a new joint-venture in blogging, and looking for some ideas to generate a little extra money on the side I decided to buy a copy of the book ProBlogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett. I’m glad I did.

The sub-title of the book is “Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income,” so I was expecting the it to be mostly a “I got rich blogging and here are the ways that you can get rich quickly, too” type of book, but getting rich quick was not really the main focus of the book. There are a few chapters on money-making blogging strategies, but the majority of the book is devoted to helping you figure out how to run an effective blog. In fact, throughout the book the authors stress that most successful/profitable blogs are the result of years of work.

The main takeaway that I got from the book was that the best blogs are ones that focus on a niche market. The more specific the niche the better. Beyond that, the book was filled with practical ideas on how to write content that people want to read and gave numerous specific examples on how to generate ideas for new blog posts.

Overall, I’m really glad I spent the time to read the book. I don’t know whether or not I’ll make even a dime from blogging, but it has given me some motivation to get back in the game, as you can probably tell from this new post.

If you’re new to blogging, a veteran blogger looking for ideas to get unstuck, or trying to figure out how you might make a little money writing in your spare time I highly recommend getting a copy of the book for yourself.

Check out the blog that inspired the book at ProBlogger.net.