Escaping Niches
Photo by ^riza^.
I had one of those days today where a few things coalesce to make you think about a particular topic. First was listening to John Gruber (DaringFireball.net) and Merlin Mann’s (43folders) SxSW talk on blogging. There are a lot of good tips buried in the talk if you don’t mind the two personalities, particularly on focusing on an obsession, adding value and differentiating your content. Most interestingly for me, they discussed the concept of an ‘ideal reader’ (which I’ve previously talked about as a ‘target audience’, but I like their term better!) This ideal reader is the person you would most want to enjoy your work. It could be another blogger you highly respect and admire, a friend, or another version of yourself. The key is that you’re crafting your work based around who you would most like to read it.
This idea was recalled again when I read a great post at Leo Babauta’s Write to Done blog about shattering the myth of blog niches. In it Leo argues that if you want a really big audience it can be a viable strategy to tackle a very broad niche because you’re maximizing the audience available to you. He cites his own blog ZenHabits.net as an example of this strategy working very effectively.
This got me thinking about some advice that bloggers and other web publishers will often hear: to focus on an extremely specific topic and become the ‘guru’ on that topic. The logic is that since there is so much competition in broader niches you must specialize to stand-out. This is a good strategy and has worked for many people, but setting your sights on a larger niche is not necessarily foolhardy.
The audio talk and blog post at Write to Done got me thinking about some of the bigger blogs that I read and trying to identify what they were actually about. Tim Ferris’s blog jumps all over the place, from road-testing supercars to extreme weight loss to travel tips to nutritional science. The range of topics is so broad that no one person could be interested in all of them.
One blog I’ve been enjoying a lot lately (and am quite late to the party on) is Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneurs-Journey.com. This is another example of a blog that jumps all over the place, from setting up an e-mail list to deep and meaningful lessons on being at peace with the now.
These are just a couple of examples from my own reading list, but you might be able to think of your own: extremely popular blogs/websites that you enjoy even though they do not have a ‘niche’ at all.
There’s a good argument to be made that these writers are high-profile and because of that, some people will read whatever they write simply because they wrote it. I don’t doubt this is part of it, but other cases make me doubt that this is the sole reason for their success. Jason Kottke was one of the earliest ‘A-list bloggers’ despite having always posted about a huge array of topics from the very beginning. As far as I’m aware he was not a high-profile figure before creating the project. Coming back full circle, John Gruber of DaringFireball (who featured in the SxSW talk I mentioned) has consistently written about a very broad variety of topics and was not a big name before starting the blog.
The logical question to follow all this with is: why does it work? It seems common sensical that writing about all your very specific passions would lead few people to find a fit with your blog or website (or magazine column, for that matter), yet the evidence suggests otherwise. This is where the notion of the ‘ideal reader’ comes into play. There are going to be other people out there who have kind of the same perspective on things that you do. You’re not carbon copies of each-other, and some things you write about are going to bore the pants off them, but overall you’re sort of into the same things and get excited about the same kinds of ideas. Your ‘ideal reader’ is sort of like a friend or a business partner: someone who is different to you but shares your general vision for how things are, should or could be.
If you have trouble with envisioning an abstract ‘ideal reader’, Merlin Mann says that he thinks about a specific person when he writes. This person is someone he would love to enjoy his writing, like Jeffrey Zeldman, for example. The thought process being that if you write/create stuff that someone really awesome would like then you’re doing something good (and chances are other people that are like Zeldman will like it too).
The idea that when you start publishing online you have to “find a little niche and dominate it” and “don’t try writing about certain things because there’s too much competition” is seeming more and more like a creativity killer to me. This doesn’t mean you can’t focus on a tiny niche if it’s your passion, but I think there are a lot of people right now saying to themselves “I really want to write about technology because I love it, but I will never get noticed and I can’t monetize so I’m going to write about netbooks instead” (insert your broad niche and little niche of choice) who end up writing about netbooks and then realizing after a few months that they’re bored with netbooks, running out of ideas on new things to say and it’s showing in the content. As a result, they have no readers and despite that perfect-fit affiliate program are not monetizing anything.
I very firmly believe that you could start a technology blog, a self-improvement blog, a make money online blog today and grow it skywards if you live and breathe the things you’re writing about. Furthermore, if you live and breathe the things you’re writing about and produce content with value to your ideal reader, you can succeed with a blog about technology, self-improvement, making money online and four other topics. If you’re clever about the way you communicate your obsession you will produce great content. The internet is also big enough now that there will be thousands (millions?) of ‘ideal readers’ who care about technology, self-improvement and making money online and will not shy away from a good blog or website on all those topics. If the content is consistently good your project will grow exponentially. Allowing yourself to talk about all the little (and big) things you are obsessed by will help guarantee you have an abundance of ideas and inspiration. Those two things mean you will write great stuff. If you do so while keeping an ‘ideal reader’ in mind you’ll continue to attract new people who enjoy what you do.
Great post! I’ve always been too quick to fall into a fear about blogs being too eclectic, and thus losing potential readers who are only interest in 10-15% of the subjects I post about. This has re-motivated me to blog about my passions, regardless of whether they entirely fit with the ‘main topic’ of a blog.
You’ve explained the advantages of relatively wide ranging blog topics, would you also extend this to mixing personal and professional posts within a blog?
@ Robin: I think a lot of professional blogs miss that ‘human’ element. If you think about the professional figures who have the biggest profile online, they present themselves as everyday people too. They don’t just talk about work, don’t just maintain a professional veneer and as such are a lot more interesting and relatable. I think it’s ideal to mix the two unless your personal posts are going to damage your brand in the eyes of some people. Though some argue you will get more kudos overall for being authentic. There’s not really a ‘right’ answer in this case, but I think it’s important to keep that ‘everyday person’ part of your personal brand.
Excellent Article.
No one wants to read robots but people are interested in what other people actually say. I’ll think about this next time I make a post on my blog.
Thanks!
I am becoming better at this myself. I am finding I can “branch out” in my topic without losing readers, and spark more interest in them too. More discussion, etc.
On another note: Please post more frequently Skellie! I need your wisdom.
The quote “live and breathe the things you’re writing about” says it all… I’m making sure that whatever I write complements my offline life - in work, and fun. :)
That should help escape niches right?
Thought-provoking post! I must admit that I like to keep my blog on topic as I think of it as a resource and repository of knowledge on a particular subject. However I suppose the concept of categorising and tagging means that readers can simply ignore the bits they are not interested in and go straight to the bits they are, so perhaps I am taking an old world view of blogging and unnecessarily restricting myself. Something to ponder…
I’m so glad you are posting again! I am trying the targeted audience approach, but would love to expand that into something bigger. I haven’t figured that part out yet. I haven’t figured out the first part either, though, really. :) I think you’re right; best not limit your blog to only one of your interests if possible!
I’ve been thinking about this lately, and was very happy to read your thoughts on it. What I found in my own reading patterns (using Google Reader), is that I don’t unsubscribe from blogs that have a mix of more and less interesting posts: I just skip over the uninteresting posts and stay tuned for the others (instead, I’ve found my subconscious criterion for keeping or dropping feeds has been writing quality).
In addition, if one would really be worried about alienating the readership, one can of course create separate feeds for different categories of interest, as seen here, for example. That does make it slightly harder to get people to subscribe though, because now they have to think and make a second decision :)
I hadn’t been over here lately - nice redesign of the site!
(a bit off-topic, on the redesign: ) on second thought, I think it would be nice to somehow bring back the big photo-buttons that highlighted your popular posts. Those were cool!
Love the new theme! I agree that if you only have one site that it makes sense to to have it too specific to a niche. If you want to expand to more than one site then I think it worth targeting niches and search engine traffic…that is if it is your goal to make money!
Thanks so much for the new content, you rock Skellie! You need to write a book :)
I’ve always wondered how far a niche can be explored. How much gob is can extensively cover a certain topic over the course of a blog?
At some point it WILL get tired and saturated with everyone talking about it, no matter how cute an angle you’re bringing the house down. It WILL be completely covered and discussed, to the extent that everybody knows it and nobody wants to talk about it anymore.
Lessons are interesting as long that there’s a personal experience behind the story/post/session/lecture. These personal experiences can then be the most powerful niche, and the most natural. It’s the niche that got blogging its driven impact: Human voice. Human experience. Human life.
[...] should catch up with the archives as there is a great wealth of information on this blog. “Escaping Niches” is all about writing what you find interesting, not conforming to a single, narrow subject [...]
When I first started blogging, I worried that I couldn’t manage to contain myself in a niche. I tried, I really tried;but as an evolving, curious individual, I just couldn’t do it. Later, I realized that what keeps me excited about blogging is that I can take it anywhere I want to be. Sure, I’m a mom, a writer, a youth leader, but that’s not all that I am. And the readers who stay with me, who share their experiences and teach me so much, they’re multifaceted as well.
Skellie, this couldn’t have come at a better time for me, since I am struggling with these very questions, myself!
Besides, I love smashing conventional wisdom right in the teeth, and it looks like you’ve done that here. Thanks for such a thought-provoking post!
It’s true that we will be out of topic soon enough if narrow the topic too specific, we might be able to have an ideal reader like they, but the term seems very cool to have some people sharing our vision and understanding why we write those posts.
I guess, by doing so our blog will become more personal and reflect our personality, =).
Man, you’re so right. Niche blogs makes sense conceptually for those trying to just make money fast. Target a high traffic niche will low competition…get traffic, makes sales. But what happens when that keyword get overcrowded? Is your business over now? What the hell? Business cannot be about that.
Then I realized that all my favorite blogs cover much a larger knowledge base and used keywords like “blogging”. LOL. Sorry, but I’m convinced that SEO is important but NOT the wave of the future. Community is the wave of the future, and building a community takes hard work.
My blog is about “building a business and a life that matters…” I talk about the economy, sales, real estate and investing…and how to succeed in business. By no means a tight little niche. My traffic is not high, but my community is growing stronger by the day. Do you want high traffic or a strong business? I argue that one does not necessarily follow the other.
sorry for the long comment :P
Web content has proved very hard to make money off of, and so I suppose that the ‘niche’ suggestion - if you can write well consistently on a fairly narrow topic - is a way to make better money out of your online efforts, as the ads you show are more likely to match the reader’s interest.
But as you’ve hinted, what makes blogging exciting and enjoyable to read is the personal side of it - being able to see a little into someone else’s life and relate. The most interesting comments I’ve got on my blog are to the posts where I talk about my struggles and challenges. For me, blogging has never been a serious money making venture, and so I write about whatever interests me that week, and have quite enjoyed myself.
I look forward to your need installment, Skellie!
[...] Especially this recent a-niche-isn’t-required post… there’s hope for me [...]
Everybody says we should have niches. Success Circuit is not quite in a niche, people think it is Make Money Online but it is about motivation, inspiration and determination. I struggle showing this. So I am glad I read this, we do not have to be niches.
I think it’s not that much about niche.Unique content and writing about what u like is most important and sooner or later will bring u visitors.And visitors=money.
[...] I think that’s okay. I was reading Skellie’s blog a few days ago and his focus was on escaping niches. I thought it was a great post and worth a read and is something that I think my own site has done [...]