Getting Stuck In A Niche
The most commented blog post here has been Finding Your Niche – I never thought it was a mind blowing post but I felt it was something needed to be covered. After recieving Darren Rowse newest blog post to my email this morning which was actually guest posted by Sherice Jacob entitled, “To have a Niche Focus with Your Blog or Not? Tips on Making the Decision.”
While Jacob had some good points this is what grabbed my attention:
There is a downside to niche blogging, and that is the issue of “boxing yourself in”. Do you have enough to say about the subject to actually warrant a full-scale blog? Or will you run out of steam within the first few months? Sketch out possible titles and topics for articles if you have to – just to see how much time and effort you can devote to this blog.
I have to disagree because this is truly utterly ridiculous in every sense of the word. A niche can expand and develop all without losing site of the origination. Since I work in marketing and advertising should I only focus on this? I’ve written post on social media marketing with presidents (over at LiveCrunch) and posted items about marketing mobile. It’s all centered around my “niche” but I also touch on personal situations as well all without losing site of why I even write.
The only way a person who has a ‘niche’ can be boxed in is if they are not comfortable in that particular category and can’t expand their knowledge on it. In which case you shouldn’t start from the get-go. To start a blog in a ‘niche’ you have to have some type of ‘passion’ for that niche – you might have 10-50 other blogs that are similar in your RSS reader to spark a post. This will show that your ready to post and not get “boxed-in”.
I have to agree with you. No matter what that niche may be. You could have a blog about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches if you had a passion for it. It would include all the different types of bread and jelly, and the different combination that were enjoyed the most, maybe even mixtures of different jelly’s.
While it might be a ridiculous topic, there will ALWAYS be someone who is trying to come up with the most delicious PB&J possible.
-Mike (After that PB&J)
Exactly Mike – people tend to write about niche’s that they should have no business writing about. Write what you know and the rest will follow.