You find that you're coming across more blogs everyday on the internet, and you've decided to create your own. You even know precisely what you'll write about. But wait there! It's not which platform, hosting service, or color scheme you choose for your blog that determines how successful it will be, even if it is a pretty shade of pink. Your topic of choice is the most important decision of all, and one that will affect every other aspect of your blog; and you had already made your mind up?.. Perhaps you should read on first!

A web log, or "blog" is an easy to use and maintain website, where the "blogger" publishes thoughts, articles, photographs, videos, and ideas whilst interacting with people sharing the same interests. The recent success of blogs can be attributed largely to their accessibility and ease of use, distinguished by services such as Blogger.com who proudly adorn the "Push-button publishing" slogan, indicative of their service where blogs can be constructed in a matter of minutes, for free, by anyone.

The booming world of blogging has well and truly covered every topic imaginable. So why do some blogs succeed where others fail?

The appealing aspect of blogs is that you can write anything you like. Politics, gardening, computing, your pet cat and dog if you must. You could even become a film critic. Many people use their blogs as journals or diaries to share their experiences and thoughts. No matter what the topic is however, the key to a successful blog is focus.

It may seem like a good idea to broaden your topic of choice as wide as possible, meaning you'll have plenty to write about. However, this isn't the case. Imagine you're searching the internet for the best car engine oil to use in your pride and joy. The average Joe is aware that the internet is so vast, he or she can be very specific when entering a search query.

Lets imagine two blogs, "All about cars" and "Engine Oil Reviews". A search for "car engine oil" would list "Engine Oil Reviews" much higher in the results page. Why? Due to the topical, focused nature of the "Engine Oil Reviews" blog, the keywords entered in the query will appear much more frequently in that blog, increasing what is known as "Keyword Density".

But surely there are more searches conducted for "cars" rather than "engine oil reviews" on the internet? While this is undoubtedly true, the search term is so vague that trying to cover all the related topics in a blog would be virtually impossible. This means that even if the blog "All about Cars" attracts the same, or even a greater volume of traffic than "engine oil reviews", it is unlikely that the visitors will be able to find what they are looking for.

Focusing on one topic has many advantages. Not only does this allow you to specialise and dig deep into your topic, your traffic will be highly targeted and relevant, eventually leading to a greater following and recurring traffic.

There are many ways to make money with blogs, but what effects will these steps have on how much revenue you generate?

Contextual advertising continues to dominate in the world of blogging as the number one way to generate revenue. These are advertising systems that scan your website and display relevant advertisements automatically. If we entertain the examples of blogs we mentioned earlier, the focused topic employed by "Engine oil Reviews" again comes into play. For a website that focuses on one topic, it is much more likely that the automated advertising system is going to select adverts which are highly relevant. A blog such as "All About Cars" however will receive adverts across a very broad topic, which in turn will decrease the relevance of the adverts displayed.

Why are relevant adverts important? The number one factor in conjunction with traffic in determining revenue generated from adverts is known as the "click through rate". As major advertisers continue to shift towards CPC (cost-per-click) and CPL (cost-per-lead) schemes away from the CPM (cost-per-thousand, where M denotes the latin numeral for one-thousand) , the importance of a high click through rate becomes even more relevant. In these schemes, payment from the advertiser is received upon the following of his link, rather than it's display. The "click through rate" is a measure of what percentage of visitors to your website or blog click on an advertisers link.

Consequently, in a blog such as "Engine oil Reviews", the adverts will be much more relevant to the traffic attracted, increasing the click through rate dramatically. The same principles apply to selling products or services through affiliate programs from your blog, so remember to keep your blog focused, right from the start.

Good luck!