Subscribe Feed (RSS)Should Blogs Focus on a Particular Niche?
June 7th, 2007 by Joshua Dorkin | Filed under Blogging.I was reading a few posts over at Digitalpoint Webmaster forums and came across a post asking if a niche was necessary for a blog. The person asking this question had asked the same question only a few weeks ago, but seemed to be unconvinced.
If You’re Blogging for Money, You Must Have a Niche.
If You’re Blogging for Fun, Do What You Want!
I, like other serious bloggers, use feed readers to keep up with all of the blogs that I subscribe to and read. In order to speed my way through the list of around 100 blogs (reduced from several hundred – it was simply too much), I categorize them by topic. Some of the categories I use include: real estate investing, seo, blogging, technology, politics, and entrepreneurship.
I don’t have the time to play around on unprofessional, unfocused blogs. I want to find informative articles or newsworthy posts and I want to do so quickly and easily. If I go to Problogger or DoshDosh, I know I’m going to read about blogging; if I go to AsktheVC, I’ll read about venture capital; at the Instigator Blog, I’ll read about startup company advice. You want your blog to be predictable so people can come to rely on it as a source of information about whatever niche you cover.
But . . . TimeforBlogging isn’t Completely Focused
This site does cover a variety of topics, but I actually do it for fun, not for money. I am too busy with my other sites to truly focus on this one . . . it serves more as a diary of my experiences, infused wit some helpful tips for others. If I wanted to truly monetize this blog, I’d operate it in a completely different manner than I currently do. I would keep it focused to either blogging, entrepreneurship, my personal politics, or something else.
What do you think? Is it absolutely necessary for a blogger to focus on a niche to be successful?
Personally, I don’t think so. I’ve noticed quite a few “professional” bloggers who claim a certain niche in their tagline, however, they post about whatever random thing comes up…and some do quite well.
Maybe you need to stay more focused to become successful, and once you build a strong audience, you can take a few more liberties. That would make sense.
I’m a little confused over your post, Josh. I’m not trying to put you on the spot, but if you “don’t have time to play around with unprofessional, unfocused blogs”……..and you’re “too busy to truly focus on this one”, do you expect people to read it?
Like I said, I’m not trying to put you on the spot, but I’m a little confused…
Of course you can take liberties. The post was written in response to someone who asked about making a blog about everything from video games to movies to his hobbies . . . maybe I should have mentioned that.
Outside the past week, where I managed to post only a few posts, this blog has been kept to date. As for expecting people to read it . . . I do. The blog is informative and helpful to people who are interested in blogging, forums, ecommerce, and entrepreneurship. If you write a good blog, people will come.
This blog is written primarily for me, though. If I were writing it for others, I would use a completely different style, tone, and would focus it more. The content would be on one topic instead of the few that I mentioned.
As for putting me on the spot . . . go for it. I have no issues with that whatsoever. If people find it interesting and helpful, then they will read it. If not, then they won’t. It doesn’t affect me either way.
People so read it because they do find it interesting.
Like a laser to the point of writing the same article just slightly differently makes you think that nausea is right around the corner. LOL
But seriously, the other alternative is to have a loosely focused blog on a vertical and then do microblogs that target the specific niches of that vertical. The main one can bring you fame and glory and occasionally funnel traffic and link love to the other sites, but it also allows the other sites to gain the benefit of tightly targeted advertising and sponsorship opportunities.
I think it’s more about the person behind the blog than the blog. Some people like to go to a certain blog and expect to see a certain sort of post. Others just like the way the person writes. They enjoy reading the posts and hearing the stories and keep coming back.
Tom
Hey Josh, well although I can relate to your post, I feel a little like Anthony, but I can see both your points,
After reading your post I went to my own blog and started analysing the topics and content, and I guess people come to my blog because “I” write the posts, and there’s usually that same “vibe” from post to post, so people kinda know what to expect from my blog, even though it’s SmartWealthyRich, i’m not focusing only on “making money” and not only on “self-improvement”, I guess you could say my blog is about entrepreneurship (I like the sound of that anyway), it’s up to my readers to tell me if they like, and I guess they do, cause my feed reader count keeps on increasing every day, and more and more blogs are linking to me, thought I could be more focused that’s fore sure, but it’s all about the conversations and the interactivity between the blog owner and the readers
my 2 cents
A blog does not need a niche to be well monetized. A niche just makes it a lot easier to market and rank. Some writers have the ability to be entertaining no matter what subject they tackle. If you are able to appeal to a wide audiance you can still be very succesful with out a niche. Honestly, most people are not that entertaining and would be better suited to being an expert on one subject.
I write about many different things with one thing in common: Me! People who read my blog are interested in who I am and what I do.
Even if you don’t write about yourself, a blog written by one author (rather than a group) may be thought of as “Author’s blog about XYZ” by the visitors.
So I think the niche is the author. You just need to get your name out there.
Ben – I’m with you! I actually do think that you can be a niche yourself. Where it breaks down is when people try to create a video game blog and start writing about tv shows and the like.
I’m actually fairly surprised that there is so much disagreement on this topic. It’s very interesting.
I have seen SO many bloggers out there that have no real reason for their blog other than to talk about their lives, kids, husbands, jobs, etc. I don’t really think that really counts as a niche either. Some of these blogs are very entertaining, and even hilarious, but I feel that if I am going to spend the time reading something… I’d rather it be something that I can take information from to better myself and grow in whatever niche it is that I am reading about.
[...] Should Blogs Focus on a Particular Niche? – Josh asks ‘Is it absolutely necessary for a blogger to focus on a niche to be successful?’. [...]
People forget that a niche doesn’t just refer to a specific subject (like personal finance or SEO), but also specific demographics as well. So, let’s say you are a white suburbia stay-at-home mom in her early 20s that blogs about her life as a stay-at-home mom: I don’t think your niche is homemaking necessarily, but rather your niche includes other women that share most, if not all, of the same demographics. So, I guess what I am saying is that if your niche isn’t a subject, in my opinion it should be aimed at a very specific demographic.
i don’t quite agree since different people got different way of doing things. i’m a bit more like you when reading blog, i will go to the “niche” blog to read. but I know a lot of my friends just go to certain blog because they like that person, and wonder what he do next in “whatever” things.
My blog isn’t focused at all. I have too many interests and decided a while back that I simply didn’t want to have multiple blogs.
My compromise is this: I offer separate category feeds with easy to find links for subscribing. So if someone is interested in what I have to say about Macintosh computing, for example, he can subscribe to just that category. Ditto for blogging and flying and writing and — well, you get the idea.
I don’t blog for a living — and don’t ever expect to reach that level — but I do earn enough from blogging (primarily via AdSense) to cover all my monthly hosting fees. That’s okay with me.
all blogs who what success must find a niche, unless u want be one of the many
[...] – Should Blogs Focus on a Particular Niche? [...]
I've seen most blogs focusing on a few topics but not being too diverse. At the same time, some people like to engage in random rambling and these can be great if your consumers are allowed to comment on just anything. After all that is why twitter is successful. I think though for business relationships, sticking to one topic will allow better targeting of specific users.