A Blog on a Diet: Tight Niche Or Wide Niche?

Niche Blogging is fast becoming a widely used phrase on this site and others, but my single post devoted to it barely scratched the surface of what there is to learn about niche blogging. Lessons can be learnt by looking back at how blogging has changed.

Sequence of Blog Development

Phase 1: Blogging ‘gets going’. Many blogs start-up and are very successful due to lack of competition. These early blogs are on a broader topic than most, giving them the ability to continue for many years and dominate the blogosphere.

Phase 2: Those who arrived late on the scene of blogging learn the hard way that it’s very tough to compete with the A-Listers.

Phase 3: Niche Blogging develops where every new blog is on a more tightly focused topic than the last. This has the benefits of being great for SEO and for a time the information on the blogs is likely to be of a higher standard because the writer is less thinly stretched.

Phase 4: Social Voting sites appear to help find method in the madness of there being so many niche blogs. The pile is bigger, but being at the top of the pile is more beneficial than ever.

Theoretical Phase 5….

Blogging Issues

Blogging is different to other markets because the secondary way most blogs differentiate from each other is by the reader showing their unique personality through their writing. The primary way is the topic of the blog itself. It is also true that one of the most important factors in successful blogging is blogging frequently and consistently.

Putting this all together gives some interesting results:

In a very narrowly tightly focused niche, while for the first couple of months the content may be fantastic, after a while the blogger will be left with nothing left to blog about as well as a bad case of bloggers block. This results in a decrease in the quality, consistency and frequency of the blog content, which are the three most vital parts.

Diet of a Blog

This line of thinking is the main reason I chose to start this blog with the name “Blogging Fingers”, because it is broad and so most days I find myself with plenty of ideas and plans for what to write about, giving Blogging Fingers the best possible chance of survival.

Most bloggers have learnt that diversification is very important. The way I see it, this still applies with a blogs content. The topic is the diet of the blog. Being force-fed the same chocolate cake may be great for a while, but it will get stale.

Top Bloggers go on and on that building a successful blog doesn’t happen over night. I agree with that, but that means a blog needs to be on a broad enough topic for the author to:

• a) Not get bored of it. This sounds picky but readers can tell when your posts are not written with real enthusiasm.
• b) Have something stimulating to write every day.
• c) Be Timeless both ways round; meaning that a news blog is timeless because there is always news, but so is a history blog because what that blogger wrote a year ago about the battle of Waterloo isn’t out of date.

Conclusion

I could go on for some time writing about progress and development loops, but my overall message is to not start up 5 niche blogs because several A-Listers have recommended it, especially when there aren’t 5 topics in the world you’re passionate enough about to write about every day.

What are your experiences with Niche Blogging?

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