I’ve read many articles about blogging. Many state that you need to “pick a niche” and create a blog around that niche.
Curiosity got the best of me, so I went to Technorati, and took a look at the top ten blogs.
What did I find? Well, most of them have a huge niche, and one doesn’t appear to have a niche at all.
For example, Boing Boing, is “A Directory of Wonderful Things”. Today on the first page, are posts about bullets, Klassic Komix Klub, 1869 MIT entrance exam, Chimps, drawings from preschoolers, and alcohol. Definitely not a niche blog.
Engadget, and Gizmodo are basically about “gadgets”, and contain lots of photos.
Techcrunch is a blog, obviously about technology.
The remaining six are about politics, art, and social networking.
If you are choosing too small of a niche, you could become paralyzed, trying to figure out what to write about.
This blog, is what I would consider a “big” niche blog. I write about blogging, what I’ve learned, plugins, stats, niches, etc……. With blogging forever changing, I doubt I will run out of things to write about, as I am learning new things every day.
My second blog, Observation Mountain.com, is not what I would consider a niche blog. I’m blogging about issues that fit under one big umbrella, called life.
Is a niche blog more apt to be more successful? Or, if your topics fit under an “umbrella”, (like Boing Boing), can you make it to the top? Apparently so. Boing Boing is currently rated number 2 with Technorati.
So, what do you think, Niche, or no niche?
Tell me what works for you.
Hi. I'm Barbara Swafford and I'd like to welcome you to Blogging Without A Blog. Grab a seat, share your thoughts and join in the conversation. 
Years ago, we had just moved to a large city. My husband, not being used to freeways, was driving on one, just as he always did on the country roads. As he was enjoying the scenery, he heard a siren and then noticed flashing lights in his rear view mirror. Being the courteous driver that he is, he pulled over to the side of the road. The police car, pulled in behind him.
My husband was confused. He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong.
When the officer came to his window, he said, “I’m not sure why you have pulled me over, Officer, I know I wasn’t speeding”.
“No”, said the officer, “you were “petting traffic”".
Confused, my husband said, “Petting traffic, what’s that?”
The officer replied, “You were going too slow, and holding up traffic”
“Didn’t you notice the line of cars behind you?”
My husband had to admit, he hadn’t noticed.
The officer gave my husband a warning, and went on his way…
Although this was the first and last time I heard the term “petting traffic”, the story reminds me of how traffic comes to our blogs. Some days it’s coming in, over the speed limit, and we see large spikes in our traffic
Other days, it’s like we are “petting traffic”, and we see deep valleys in our stats.
Isn’t traffic fickle?
What this tells me, is that content is ‘king’, (or maybe, for us female bloggers, we should start saying, content is “queen”
)What do you think, girls?
By writing good content, we won’t be “petting” traffic. By using keyword density, we could increase the speed of our traffic. By learning SEO (search engine optimization), we may “break the speed limit”. Add all of that to leaving comments on other blogs, and we could break the speed of sound.
To blog (write) is easy. To find topics to blog about, can be harder. But to optimize your content and get noticed…now, takes some homework.
Are you ready for a speeding ticket?