Chapter 8

Finding Your Niche

In This Chapter

Discovering blog genres

Finding out what makes appealing blog posts

Making connections with other bloggers

If you're blogging only for your friends and family, you probably have a captive audience that stays interested no matter what you choose to blog about on any given day. Most bloggers, however, define blogging success as attracting, keeping, and growing an audience of interested readers who can't wait for the next pearl of wisdom or touching story.

Creating this kind of blog is no small challenge: You're in competition with every other source of news, information, and entertainment in your audience members’ lives. One key to blogging success is finding a niche and exploiting it fully. This chapter provides you with ideas and suggestions for you to begin thinking about what blog niche is a fit for you. It also provides you with tips on finding others blogging in that subject area, what they're doing right, and how you can make the most of your personal niche.

Deciding What Belongs on Your Blog

You may find picking a niche and sticking with it tough to do. Fortunately, blogging gives you a lot of leeway in handling a subject, evolving your own style, and choosing what you blog about. The medium allows for a lot of experimentation, and your readers likely welcome new approaches and ideas while you go.

For your own peace of mind, however, you probably want to pick a broad theme and then explore within that theme. Do you like books? Why not blog about what you're reading and make recommendations? You can then take a natural leap to movies based on books, and then authors . . . and onward from there. Starting with a simple idea can give you a lot of room to grow.

Some subject areas have worked as popular and successful blog topics already. You can join existing blogging communities and start a blog about

• Your kids: Blogs are a great online tool that parents can use to document their parenting experience and their children's growth. The parent blogging community is on the rise in a big way for both moms and dads. Talk about a topic that has an infinite variety of discussions, products, problems, and cute photos!
• Your hobby or interest: Blogs are beautifully suited to help you make connections, so feel free to use yours to become part of a community of folks who share your passion for knitting, sport fishing, geocaching, carpentry, or whatever your interest is.
• Technology: Many of the original bloggers chose technology as their focus — a great decision. People have a huge interest in technology and technology issues today. After all, everyone uses technology throughout her day, and everyone experiences problems doing so!
• Politics: Because of its often polarizing and sometimes divisive nature, political commentary and criticism makes for great blog fodder. A number of popular political bloggers have even turned their online punditry into thriving careers in traditional media as commentators.
• Specialized news: Offer a service for your busy readers by aggregating all the news on a particular topic, including quick tidbits and links to sources. You can create this kind of blog for both serious and comic topics — from cranial surgery techniques to coverage of the latest teen sensation.
• A personal diary: If your life is full of crazy adventures, colorful figures, drama, passion, and ludicrous jokes, you can stick with the tried-and-true blog subject: You. With a unique voice and great writing, you can attract readers who can become friends.
• Deals and coupons: One of the most active online communities consists of deal-seekers. If you love deal matching and coupon finding, this may be your perfect blog niche.
• Do-It-Yourself and lifestyle: Do you look at trash and see treasure? Is organizing a hobby rather than a burden? The world of lifestyle, design, or DIY blogging may be a fit for you!

The following sections look at each of these topics in a little more detail.

Parent blogging

Generally speaking, parent blogging is memoir-style blogging, detailing the trials, tribulations, and general hysteria of raising children.

 Quite a few parenting blogs start before much parenting is going on — before or during pregnancy — and then proceed through infancy and upward. Don't let the fact that you're not quite a parent yet deter you from starting a parenting blog.

They're often hilarious, often heartbreaking, and so easy to identify with. If you don't have children, you certainly were one once. Frankly, kids are funny.

You can find many great examples of parenting blogs out there, including the blog Woulda Coulda Shoulda (www.wouldashoulda.com). Mir, a mother of two, writes Woulda Coulda Shoulda, shown in Figure 8-1. Her blog has earned her coverage in Parents Magazine, Redbook, and The Today Show; inclusion in an anthology; and gigs speaking about blogging at the BlogHer Conference (www.blogher.com).

Dads, don't think for a second that the parent blogging community is all about moms! The dad blogging community is one of the fastest growing in the blogosphere, with readers, fellow bloggers, and sponsors taking notice. Dads offer a wonderful and often unheard take on parenting, contributing to a seemingly female-dominated topic — what it means to be a parent. Check out the dads at How to Be a Dad (www.howtobeadad.com), DadCentric (www.dadcentric.com), and WhitHonea.com (www.whithonea.com) to get a taste of the vibrant dad blogging community.

Turning your offline hobby into a blog

You probably already have offline hobbies that consume time and energy, and about which you have great passion. You also probably have plenty to say on the topic, but too few people are genuinely interested in hearing you expound about your hobby.

Find your compatriots online by starting a blog about your hobby and hooking into a community of people who share your passion both for the activity and for news and discussion about your hobby. You can find many terrific hobby blogs out there about everything from scrapbooking to jewelry-making to collecting airline safety cards.

One popular area of hobby blogging is the world of knitting. Bloggers who knit share stories about frustrating patterns, exciting yarns, sales, and more. Thousands of people read knitting blogs because they can identify with what the blogger is describing, but also because they often find out something new from basic tips on how to add or drop stitches to access to original patterns.

One fun knitting blog is Yarn Harlot (www.yarnharlot.ca), written by a knitter living in Toronto named Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Yarn Harlot (shown in Figure 8-2) is the online diary of a devoted knitter and author; Stephanie has also written six books of knitting humor. Her hilarious blog covers everything from knitting techniques to home renovations, and it never fails to entertain.

Talking technology

With so many devices used daily, even the most technologically savvy person needs help from time to time. How often have you brought home a new cellphone, ripped open the box with great excitement, and then failed utterly to figure out how to get your contacts imported? How many times have you uploaded your family's photographs onto your home PC only to realize that you're not sure how to get them back out? We all have the occasional technology question. Technology bloggers have figured this out, writing blogs that explain how to resolve common problems as well as blogs that whet your appetite for new gadgets.

You can find a number of highly successful technology blogs around the web, including some that have been in existence for years and years. Some of these blogs are specialized to a particular kind of tool or software; some are just about conveying the latest and greatest across the field.

If you work in technology or just have a passion for it, you can start a blog about your enthusiasm. That's what Dennis Lloyd did when he founded iLounge (www.ilounge.com).

iLounge, shown in Figure 8-3, covers anything and everything about Apple's iPod and iPhone devices. Started in 2001, shortly after Dennis Lloyd first laid eyes on an iPod, iLounge has grown from a basic blog into a true community site featuring forums, photo galleries, and news posts.

Getting political with it

No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, you live in interesting political times. You'll never be short of topics, from the latest political scandal to the next national election.

Some of the most popular political bloggers have turned their online musings into full-fledged careers in the media, providing commentary for everything from talk shows to newspaper columns. Conversely, some traditional journalists have bowed out of newspapers and television to move to a blog.

This niche has room for many kinds of blogs, from those criticizing national policy to those covering local school board and city elections. If you have a craving to get involved in politics but don't want to run for office, a blog might be a great way to develop an effective voice. And if you're a politician, you can follow the example of Barack Obama, who used a blog as part of his campaign strategy while successfully running for the presidency of the United States. For some, the urge to sound off on politics has led to incredible blogging success while challenging the establishment. Take, for example, Truthdig (www.truthdig.com), which won four Webby Awards. (The Webbys are the web's equivalent of the Oscars.) Shown in Figure 8-4, Truthdig was started by journalist Robert Scheer and publisher Zuade Kaufman to be a source for political commentary and news that challenges the “wisdom of the day.”

Reporting news

The offline world is full of general news sources — the 200-page newspaper that struggles to appeal to all its readers or the broadcast news show that does local car chases and the weather well — and not much else. Specialized news sources are hard to come by.

Online, the situation is a little different. Quite a few news outlets have opted to offer news personalization features, letting you customize the news that you consume by topics. But many folks who have specialized interests still have to look through a lot of news sources to find truly pertinent stories.

If you're doing that kind of research for yourself, you can start a blog that shares your findings with others interested in the same topic. Are you an economist collecting stories about garbage production in North America? Or a marketing expert who keeps track of the latest guerilla marketing tactics in order to keep on your toes professionally? You can turn this research into a valuable blog for others who share your interest.

You can produce this format quite easily, as well, because posts are frequently just pointers to a news story or article on another website. The value for readers in a blog of this kind is that someone else (the blogger) has already done the work of finding the news, so sending them to another site is actually an important part of the service you're providing.

Quite a few bloggers have opted to develop blogs in a specialized news area and parlayed that success into a new revenue stream or sponsorship, so creating your own news blog might even prove to be a wise business move.

 Even if you don't put advertising on your specialized news blog, keeping a blog of this kind demonstrates that you're on top of your field.

One journalist who left traditional media behind to serve as a clearinghouse of news about the media in Los Angeles is Kevin Roderick. His blog, LA Observed (www.laobserved.com), shown in Figure 8-5, is a must-read for journalists in Southern California and across the United States. His blog has developed into an online empire with expanded content areas.

Revealing it all

If nothing in this chapter appeals to you so far, perhaps you're looking for the blog classic: journal or diary blogging. Part memoir and part confessional, online journals cover every topic that life can serve up.

Personal diaries can be real snooze-fests or tearjerkers nonpareil. Much depends, of course, on the quality of the writing. But much also depends on what happens in the life being documented. Life bloggers, as they're sometimes called, must deal with whatever comes up next for them, from weddings to being fired or hired to being diagnosed with cancer.

These blogs are usually easy to relate to and easy to read; they're also often humorous or heart wrenching, and sometimes both. They take courage to write, whether read by millions or only five.

For a heart-wrenching example of a personal diary blog, visit Penmachine (www.penmachine.com), a journal written about a Vancouver-based writer's life, including his struggles with colorectal cancer (see Figure 8-6). Derek Miller's writing is full of emotional and gritty detail as well as the mundane circumstances of a full life lived despite health problems. Derek passed away on May 4, 2011; his final post was written in anticipation of his death and is a final good-bye to friends and family.

Sharing a deal

For some, deal-seeking is a way of life, whereas for others it is very nearly an art form. Popular couponing and deal sites are some of the most blogs on the Internet, with readers returning multiple times per day to find the latest savings or to download valuable coupons before they run out.

Andrea Deckard of Savings Lifestyle (www.savingslifestyle.com) has created a site catering to a variety of deal-seeking readers. She covers topics ranging from coupons to deals to general money-saving tips. Andrea has even capitalized on local markets by including deals specific to just the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.

To make it easier for readers to stay up to date on this frequently updating topic, Savings Lifestyle (www.savingslifestyle.com) offers a free newsletter for the savvy shopping reader who never wants to miss a deal (see Figure 8-7).

Design, lifestyle, DIY – oh my!

With the meteoric rise in popularity of Pinterest (www.pinterest.com), it's no surprise that many blogs fit into a visually appealing niche. Bloggers focused on topics such as home design and decorating, lifestyle and organization, recipe creation, and DIY projects often have huge followings, not only on their sites but across social media channels as well.

One such site is Nesting Place (www.thenester.com), written by, of course, The Nester. This work of art provides the reader with insights into the life and thoughts of the author while sharing design tips along with incredible photographs (see Figure 8-8). Readers visiting Nesting Place return again and again, knowing that they'll find not only great content but also tips, giveaways, and fun features such as blogger link-ups where other bloggers may share links to similarly themed content on their own blogs.

Learning from the Pros

After you choose a topic, it's time to get to work on creating a highly readable blog. The following sections provide ideas for setting up a blog successfully by cultivating your own talents and observing what others are doing right.

Much of blogging success depends on the quality of your writing and your ability to make a connection with your readers. Work on developing a dialogue with your readers. Life bloggers often create this connection by revealing common, easily identifiable experiences. Businesses can choose to start a blog that gives typically silent members of a company (such as high-level executives or behind-the-scenes mechanics) a connection to customers.

 Many blogs are maintained by more than one person; sometimes, contributions by several different people can enliven and enrich the conversation, as well as decrease the workload for any single blogger.

I cover creating great content in Chapter 9, and in that chapter, you can find out how to keep track of what's working for other bloggers.

Lurking on other blogs

You can best figure out what will work on your blog by seeing what's working on other blogs. If you aren't a regular blog reader, find some blogs and start reading!

The old, old Internet term lurking describes web users who look at blogs, mailing lists, online discussions, and forums, but don't choose to participate in them. Lurking online doesn't have any negative connotations, though the word does sound kind of sinister.

In truth, lurking can help you find out about what kinds of communication and interaction are appropriate when you're new to a web community or when you're planning to start one yourself. The vast majority of web users are actually lurkers; most people don't do more than read or look at blogs.

Start your lurking career by finding a few blogs that you like, that you regard as competition, or that you find interesting for some reason. If you want to see a blog that has a very active, vocal audience, find one that has a lot of comments and make sure that you read them all. Many of the blogs mentioned in this chapter fall smack into this category, so why not start with them?

If you want to see how a blog evolves, find one that has been around awhile, and look back through the site's archives to see how it got started. Most of all, pay attention to what you find interesting about the blog.

 Here are some issues that you can figure out from lurking on a blog:

• Posts: Watch what the blogger (or bloggers) posts about, how often he or she posts, and what days and times attract readers. See whether you can understand what prompts a blogger to post.
• Interaction: Pay attention to the posts that get a lot of comments and responses, and try to understand what gets people talking.
• Resource use: Look for instances when the blogger chooses to include a link, a quote, or other resource, and what it adds to the conversation.
• Design: Keep an eye out for blog designs and styles that you might want to imitate on your own blog.
• Sidebar use: Look at the blog sidebars for cool technologies and tools that the blogger uses (and that you might be able use on your own blog).

 You want interaction with your blog readers, but some comments can cause problems because they're off topic or offensive. Use this opportunity to see how other bloggers handle bad comments. Pay attention to whether a blog comment policy is in place and how the blogger enforces that policy. When does the blogger choose to remove or edit comments? Do you agree with his or her choices? How do you want to handle problem comments on your own blog? I talk more about handling spam and bad comments in Chapter 10.

While you lurk, keep a list of notes and ideas for later reference, especially for items that you think are good ideas but that you aren't ready to implement quite yet. You can easily lose those first good ideas if you don't keep track of them somehow.

 What works for someone else might not work for you, and it doesn't have to. The blogosphere is still young, and you have plenty of room and time to try new ideas. Rules and standards that others have adopted give you a good starting point, but you don't have to use them if they don't work for you.

Participating by commenting

When you're comfortable, start participating in your favorite blogs by leaving comments. Comments can be written quickly, and they contribute to the blog by furthering conversation. After you have a blog of your own, you can use commenting on other blogs as a way to introduce new readers to your site.

Many blog comment forms give you the chance to leave a URL when you post a comment, linking to your site or most recent blog post. Commenting with a link to your blog is a bit like leaving a tiny, unobtrusive ad. When the blogger and his readers see your comment, they may click the link and visit your blog.

 Just as linking to your blog may bring you readers who liked your comment, it might also get you visitors who didn't like what you say! You invite disagreement any time you put your opinion out into the world, but don't let that stop you from doing it.

Some bloggers have made the mistake of abusing this little privilege, leaving off-topic comments simply for the purpose of getting a link back. Don't make this mistake. Be a genuine member of the blogosphere and leave comments only when you truly have something to say. You don't want to earn a reputation as a comment spammer!

 Leave comments that distinguish you as a thoughtful contributor to the topic. If you can answer a question posed by the blog post or provide information that seems to be missing, you really contribute value with your comment. But you can also just leave your own opinion, even if you completely disagree with what the blogger is saying.

Reaching Out to Other Bloggers

Don't forget that other bloggers may be your primary audience. These folks are online and already familiar with blogs, and you're likely to find other bloggers with whom you have much in common. Meeting with bloggers in person and communicating with them online are terrific ways to network and market your blog. A lot of bloggers list the blogs that they read right beside their blog posts in the sidebar called a blogroll, so you might be able to generate some additional readership if you create relationships with bloggers.

Meeting in person

Meeting bloggers in person is not only a great way to grow your online community but also provides you with a network of local coworkers. Most cities have an active community of bloggers that you can join:

• Consider joining the local branch of your Social Media Club. Often, the members of social media organizations are also bloggers.
• Be sure to include your e-mail address on your blog, and let people know that you want to connect with fellow bloggers. Look for similar information on the blogs that you read if you're interested in getting in touch with a blogger.
• Look for bloggers who identify their locations, and get to know them on their blogs by posting comments.
• Visit Meetup (www.meetup.com), and search for blogger get-togethers in your area. Many bloggers network with other nearby bloggers on a regular basis. You can even look up get-togethers when you're visiting a new place.
• Organize your own get-together and publicize it on your blog, Twitter, or on Meetup.

Using social networks

Social networking sites are designed to connect you with your current group of friends and extend those connections out to their friends. Each site that I mention in this section has a different mechanism for making that happen, and different types of community interaction occur. LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), for example, is a professional networking site designed to showcase your work background and interests so that you can make connections to others in your field.

You can make friends in social-networking online communities, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Facebook. Social networking sites usually give bloggers a way to link to blogs or even to notify others about new blog posts via profile pages. If you're looking for online connections in the blogging community, these communities are a great place to start.

 In fact, a lot of bloggers regard their blogs as a form of networking, and they're already looking to make these kinds of connections via social networking websites.

Facebook (www.facebook.com) is a wonderful tool for bloggers hoping to connect with other members of the blogging communities. Many bloggers participate in several Facebook groups based on various blogging-related topics from blog niche to blog promotion. After you've connected with a couple members of your blog community, ask them to invite you to join a couple of their favorite Facebook groups in order to meet additional bloggers and learn more about the craft.

Twitter (www.twitter.com) is another fabulous place to find and grow your blogging relationships. Search for hashtags related to your blog niche or even your home city to find the bloggers who are tweeting about the topics that matter to you. Because of the casual nature of this platform, you should feel free to tweet to people and introduce yourself, joining conversations when appropriate.

Google+ (www.plus.google.com) has been growing in popularity recently, providing bloggers with another opportunity to connect with and grow their blogger communities. Check out your friends’ circles to see whom you might want to add to your own. And don't forget to join the occasional Google Hang Out that fits with your blog niche!

Regardless of whether the connections in your social networks have blogs, you can use the site to let them know about your blog. With luck, you'll build up your audience and the participation on your blog by leveraging the goodwill of people you know and the people they know!