As soon as I decided that blogging was going to be more than just a “way to keep relatives informed,” everyone wanted to know my niche. What do I blog about? Well, just about everything that I like. But that isn’t a very good niche. I resisted for a long time narrowing down my blog to a particular niche.
When you blog about your life, it is very difficult to narrow it down to a quick one sentence tag line or elevator pitch. And I’m going to go against what all the “experts” say. I’m telling you that you don’t need to pick your niche…..right away! I have been blogging since before there was the word, blog. I created websites in Microsoft FrontPage and I always wrote about whatever I wanted and put up lots of pictures of my kids. In 2007, I realized I had readers that weren’t related to me and that was when I made the switch to being a blogger for business.
That is when the trouble began. I went to conferences and everyone wanted to know what I blogged about. My answer was different for each person because it depended on what I had written about that day. I read over and over that I needed to have a niche, I needed to know what I wanted to do with my blog, I needed to have a goal and a plan. I didn’t have any of those. I just continued to write.
The more I blogged, the more I realized I enjoyed blogging about technology and social media. I wrote about those subjects more and more and less about what my kids were doing. I continued to write and now four years later, I finally figured out my niche.
Did I just waste four years writing about something that wasn’t my niche? Not at all. I spent four years experimenting and improving my writing. Now, I have an elevator pitch, a niche and I’m working on a formal mission statement, goals and a plan.
Clues to Your Niche
Here are a few things to pay attention to that may help you find your niche.
- What do you like writing about the most?
- Look at the types of blogs you choose to read on a daily basis?
- Look at your tags on your blog. Which ones are used the most?
My point here being, if you enjoy blogging and you have no idea what your niche is, don’t worry about it. Keep writing and it will come, even if it takes four years!
Image from Microsoft Image Gallery.
Michele my scope wasn’t quite as wide as yours, but I did blog about everything and anything to do with my work or hobbies. Over the years it has naturally drawn in and is becoming naturally narrower as I find more interest in particular subjects.
The key is to never stop writing, keep reading for inspiration and keep helping others with what you write.
I’m kinda like you. I went from everything to a few main topics with a bit of everything sprinkled in. But my advice to newer bloggers is to pick a niche they can grow with. I’m about to take my own advice with a niche blog launching next month. The challenge will be keeping my current blog, where I’ve built decent ranks, from collapsing.
Great article Michele. When we step in the blogging ring, we look to learn as much as possible and what i learned was pick a niche and write related content. being a mom of four, i picked mom blogging. but over the past year i realize i pretty much blog to empty my head. mt topics range from my teens, to marriage to weightloss, techy, social media, etc. then i realized though i’m a mom and love interacting with other moms, i’m not just a mom. i recently let go of the “niche thing” for now, removed the baby from my header and changed my tag line. one day it will all change again, but for now, i’m just emptying my head.
My blog intially started out focusing on my weight loss surgery, but now I blog about what’s going on, The Kid, my successes, my frustrations. Everything. I don’t know what I am, but I know its working for me.
I would add that you should consider your niche as the thing you’re most passionate about.
And the way you figured that one out? The thing that makes you madder than anything in the whole wide word.
For me, hearing someone say, “I’ve never been good at math” makes so mad I want to jump across the table at a dinner party and rip the person’s arms off whenever I heard them say it.Voila! Perfect niche.