Chris Yeh has put together his theory behind blogging. It’s clever. It makes sense when you read it. In short: the more you talk about, the less focused you are, the less readership your site will enjoy. In other words, if you don’t write for a niche you won’t be “successful.”
If you know my site you may say I’m scattered. I write about business, college, technology, websites, productivity, and personal stuff. If you started visiting my site today you’d figure I had no focus and simply talked about whatever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to.
Which is fine.
All these blog experts say “keep focused” and “write for a niche.” These people go start blog networks or niche blogs… about blogging. Well, not many blog networks are successful (as a whole, the separate entities like Engadget and BoingBoing are) and, blogs about blogging only appeal to, you’ve got it, bloggers. It’s these same people that say I’m doing too much with my own website.
Haha, I agree!
But wait a second, are you sure I’m not focused and writing for a niche?
I’m writing for the people who enjoy business, college, technology… get the point? Imagine my readership as a conversion of venn diagrams. Lifehacker has maybe two circles that define their readers: geeks and people interested in productivity. That means they have a huge pool of readers.
Me? I have a bunch of circles overlap. Thus, my writing finds a much more focused, much more niche-like audience than most people.
Sure, it starts to limit the number of people that fit within the overlaps. But, don’t tell me I’m not writing for the right audience. Don’t tell me I’m covering too much. I’m writing for the people that enjoy everything I write about. These are the people I can chat with. These are the folks I can easily befriend. These are the people I want to connect with through writing.
By the same token, I can’t go over to Lifehacker and enjoy everything they write. I can’t go to Problogger and call any of those people like-minded friends. But, the readers at Devin Reams dot com? Wow. They’re the best group of people on the internet I could ever find.
With that all said, I want to get to know you all better. As always, you can contact me ([email protected] or devinhatesaim) and leave your comments. But, I’d love it if you completed my quick feedback survey. I want to make sure I know who you are and why you’re here. Thanks in advance!
Writing for a “niche” is also bad because you’re only focused on one particular group, how about the people that are not interested on that subject?
Right, I guess thats the point is that my readership is either a) very focused on every topic I write about or b) sometimes uninterested in what I blog about.
Success means different things to different people. Like you, I’m content to write about the things that interest me, and to let the chips fall as they may.
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I definitely agree, Chris. That’s why I’m so content with how I blog. Like you, things seem to fall pretty well.
Dear Mr. Reams,
I consider myself a very good friend of Mr. Dork.
Mr. Dork claims you to be a good friend of his, therefore, you, are a good friend of mine. Pleased to meet you Mr. Reams.
My name is Ms. Jones, I am a blogger like yourself.
(Six Gun Suzie is my stage name…no, not a stripper stage name, just a stage name)
Mr. Reams, I advise you to be confident with your blogging style, you own it, it does not own you.
If you enjoy what you are doing, continue, if you don’t, change it up, but change it up to what you like.
If you are blogging only for the masses, for everybody to read and enjoy for which you garner no enjoyement, you will fail.
We blog readers are able to sniff out a blog-faker-maker and move on.
Keep on keeping it real, forget any lofty thoughts of being a blog-hogger of all blog readers and continue to enjoy your blogging endeavors on your own terms. You will find you have succeeded and the masses will simply gravitate to the best blog in blog heaven!
xoxoxo
Susan
My blog, one I use for both personal and professional reasons, tends to fall into three areas: technology, community marketing & customer service. As all of these items can fall into the same bucket (longer explanation), I wouldn’t say limit it to a specific niche. Seth Godin & Guy Kawasaki do a great job on a wide variety of topics, even if the general category would fall under business.
Personal stuff on a blog…
Like it or not, this is probably one of those things that let’s readers know what you’re all about. I would just try to limit how many of the posts are personal if the general theme is around business topics.
Devin, I definitely had a tough time figure out what your blog was about. It definitely doesn’t seem like a blog about business. It seems like a personal blog written by a person with a variety of interests, one of the major ones being business.
Hmm. Reading back on my writing, it sounds negative. It isn’t mean to be that way. If it works for you and you’re having a good time interacting with the people that read your blog, then keep doing what you’re doing!
Hi Devin, I left the same comment on Noah’s blog, just in case you’ve not seen it, here it is:
I definitely agree with Shivani and Sri, the College niche is definitely one great area to focus on. What
All awesome input guys. I appreciate everyone stopping and leaving their comments! :)
Susan: It’s nice to make your acquaintance. I think I’ve always lived by your philosophy–I just want to make sure I reach the right people!
Damon: Good points, I think I’ll consider that as I continue blogging.
Lila: Thanks, I appreciate your candid, honest, opinion.
Jason: As I said at Okdork, awesome comments. You mention a lot of paths and I’m definitely going to consider them all. Unfortunately I didn’t get any video at the bar… next year, though. ;)
Thanks again, folks..
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