How to start a Blog.

First you will have to think of a subject to blog about....
An ideal choice is to blog about something you are passionate about. Something about which you cannot stop talking. It may be politics it, may be spirituality. It must be something you know a lot about.

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.
D. H. Lawrence (1885 - 1930)

You can write about your hobby, or about your career. To attract readers you should choose a best selling topic like sex, scandals, gossip, films, latest news. This topic should be something about which you can deliver content to your readers at daily/weekly/monthly intervals. Longer than that and your readers will lose intrest and move away. It is best to write about something you are doing daily. Then you will have something to write about at least once in three-four days.
If you are thinking about earning money from your blog then you have to consider the competition.

Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty.
Leo Rosten (1908 - )

Take a look at the competiton by going to www.google.com and typing your subject-line in the text box and hitting 'Search'. Google will search out all the websites with the same subject. See the number of sites which turn up in the results and consider whether you want to be a small fish in a big lake or by narrowing the search results you can turn into a big fish in a small pond. For example if you want to blog about your stamp-collecting hobby a quick search on Google shows more than four million websites on this subject. Looking for 'Olympic stamp collecting' turns up less than 250,000 websites and 'olympic stamp collecting greek' turns up some 90,000 sites. You will be much better off competing with 90,000 than with four million sites. This is the Age of Superspecialization and the more and more you know (about less and less) you will be appreciated by more and more people.
You have also to think about the demand for your subject if you want to monetize your site/blog. To research this head over to keyword research sites like http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ or www.wordtracker.com. The former is free while the latter offers a free trial. Type your subject line in the text box provided and press Enter to give you the number of searches conducted for that subject in the previous month. You can type in various subject-lines and compare the numbers.

The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.
Mikhail Gorbachev, June 8, 1990

A search for 'stamp-collecting' shows some 9,500 people have searched for it during the previous month while 'hiking' returns 45.000 searches. Hence it would be more lucrative to blog about hiking than stamp-collecting. If you want to monetize your blog it always helps to know the market. If you want to cater to a niche make sure that it is well populated otherwise you may die a quiet death due to lack of attention.
After choosing your subject you have to choose your blog host. If you are a novice it is best to start on a free host where you can try out your site and once you start attracting plenty visitors move over to paid hosting. Blogger.com is free and comes with plenty addons which makes it one of the ideal experimentation grounds for newbies. You can choose to stay on after turning pro as there are no time limits here. They have also introduced beta blogger with many improved functions ideal for a novice.
To summarize review the SUPPLY (sites turned up by Google Search) and the DEMAND (Number of searches for the topic in the last month)

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
Josh Billings (1818 - 1885)

and your PASSION for the subject and decide whether to blog or blog not! In the Age of Globalization it should not proove too difficult to find your niche.

Subscribe in a reader