The Google Keyword Tool is a free resource which will show you the approximate search volume for any keyword in the prior month. So, its now December, 2008, and I typed in college basketball to the Google key word search tool. This tool shows me that college basketball was searched 450,000 times in November. Is also gives me related terms, so I see that mens college basketball was searched 14,800 times in November.

So, this free tool can give you the search volume of any keyword on the web. It will also show you the related keyword searches as well. When you are thinking about a niche topic for your blog, this tool can be invaluable.

You want to pick a topic that is a niche topic and not too broad. But, you also want to pick a niche topic that has solid search volume as this shows you that there is demand for your topic. Also, this volume shows you that if you rank well for your respective topic, that traffic will come to your site.

You may be asking how much search volume is good for my blog topic. This is hard to answer. Lets say you want to write a blog about games. This topic is way to broad as there is over 100 million searches for it per month. Video games is too broad as well, with over 10 million searches. Arcade games, still seems to broad with over 1 million searches. However, interactive games has 200,000 monthly searches - so it is much more realistic that if you focus on a blog about interactive games, you get other sites to link to you using the anchor text, interactive games - that you'll have a better chance at quality traffic as compared to some other search terms.

For another example, say you wanted to start a blog about cholesterol. Cholesterol has over 1 million searches, however lowering cholesterol has 60,000 searches. So, if you focus your website, anchor text, and keyword density on lowering cholesterol, you will have a more realistic chance at getting traffic.

So, you want to have a niche topic, but you don't want to have a topic that is so niche - that there isn't any demand. Finding the right balance can be crucial to the success of your blog.