Fashion, technology, lifestyle, spirituality- these are examples of different blogging niches for writing a blog. The most prevalent trend is the blog has a specific niche and a blogger writes primarily about it. Bloggers are not willing to break this tradition because their readers are also getting used to reading articles on that particular theme in the blog.
What if we say that your blog requires a specific niche is a half-truth? Though it is advisable in some cases, here we are going to mention that in some cases, the blog does not require it all or it is not as necessary as we think. Read this post to know that you can grow your blog or website without a particular niche as well.
Let’s start with the goal of your blog or website. Whether your blog should have a particular niche or not depends on what you want to achieve from it. Let’s understand this in detail.
Goal of Your Blog
Mostly, blogs are written for selling or marketing purposes. In other words, the majority of blogs are not written to inform people in the best possible way, but to promote things or services. It is fair to mention that 99% of online blogs are just traction channels for a product. But here, we do not mean that these blogs have good writing or useful content. Though bloggers have written them in a professional way, the main intention of writing such blogs is to promote something.
For example, the objective behind writing the Sumo blog is to sell Sumo, and the motive of the Spire blog is to increase the sales of Spire devices.
On the other hand, blogs written in Discovery, Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Last Psychiatrist, and inc.com are informative and their first intention is to create highly informative content in an interesting way.
Here, monetization is a secondary objective. These online magazines earn revenue through ads, subscriptions, and other means, but they have put the writing in the first place. What if we say that you can make money from your blog directly and indirectly even if it is non-niched?
It is true that if you want to start a blog for promoting a product or service, then you need to define its niche and follow it as far as possible. Yes, a manufacturing unit’s blog cannot discuss the spiritual discourse! But, what about a personal blog? Say, you are writing for yourself, then certainly you should not define a niche for your blog. It can be a smart move that opens up new horizons for your blog.
Let’s go through three major problems of a blog that has a particular niche.
Three Roadblocks niche bloggging
1. Content fatigue is obvious
This is the biggest and foremost problem of a blog with a particular niche. It narrows the scope of your blog and restricts your ways of creating good content. Remember, only in-depth and useful content can create a long-lasting impression on the reader’s mind. It is also possible that when you go for a specific niche, you will run out of interesting topics or themes quickly.
Let’s take an example of a blog on pet care services. You can find and write on various topics related to these services for a year or two. After a couple of years, you will see that you keep on getting stuck. You have already written the importance and benefits of pet care as well as types of pet care services. Now, no big topics are remained to discuss. Here, you will experience any of the following situations.
- Compromise on quality of topics for the sake of publishing blogs on a regular basis.
- Repetition becomes a norm
- Build artificial complexity and try to arise curiosity around the topic
- Blog and brand get separated frequently, and you need to bind them
There is no exaggeration in mentioning that as and when your blog with a niche gets popular, its quality declines due to the content fatigue or exhaustion of interesting topics. We can say that this is a common fate for such blogs. The Sumo blog, the Buffer blog, and other such blogs have suffered a lot because of a specific niche. It’s like you start with a lifestyle blog and switch to motivation and spirituality.
On the other hand, if you do not bind your blog in a particular niche, you can focus on any topic you like or feel that they are useful for your readers. The Internet has a huge collection of such topics, and you can start writing on any one of them right away. It is possible to express your thoughts more freely and come up with highly informative posts by keeping your blog free from the niche. You can maintain the posting schedule with ease and there is no need to split the value of your posts.
For example, you can write one detailed blog on ‘How to Make the Most of SEO’ rather than giving ‘SEO Benefits and Usage Guidelines’ in five parts. After writing this detailed post, you can switch to the other subject you like, if your blog has no niche. Hope you get the point.
However, some exceptions are there. One such exception is Backlinko. It has done an excellent job so far as a niche blog. The reason? Well, the blog is not published frequently. Brian Dean, the writer, has chosen content quality instead of frequency. Similarly, if you want to deliver high-quality blogs for a particular niche, you should forget the schedule and focus on quality. Alternatively, you can choose a niche that has a steady flow of new topics. The event management niche can be your example.
Related Reading- How to Choose a Profitable Blog Niche?
It is better to remember that by niching your blog down, you are narrowing the scope of topics that lead to content fatigue and repetition. As a result, you may get bored.
2. You find it boring
The same theme, the same topic, and the same writing style can make you bored easily. Though for a few months you find the niche-based topics interesting, you will certainly get bored with them and even quit them after some time.
For many aspiring bloggers, a niched-down blog causes a problem. The reason? Well, they want to write in a creative way and such topics with pre-defined writing styles prevent them. It is more frustrating for bloggers to leave writing on these topics suddenly. Therefore, narrowly focused blogs are not advisable for new bloggers.
3. Options are available
Suppose you are writing blogs on a particular product. What if the competitor of this product opts for the same method? In other words, it is possible that a narrowly-focused blog is rewritten by the competitors to get traffic, and maybe some other bloggers come up with more interesting ways for the same topic as yours.
In such a situation, your replacement is available in the market and the company that has hired you as a freelancer or a regular blogger may consider it. If you run your individual blog and stick to the same topic every time, chances are fair that your readers switch to other similar blogs.
If you want to keep your blog fresh and unique every time, you need to make sure that it covers various aspects of the central theme. For example, if your blog’s central theme is technology, you can take emerging technologies, technological updates, and even interesting facts of science.
Having said this, it is fair to mention that you need to deal with a few challenges as well when your blog has no niche. These challenges include difficult marketing and monetizing, and tougher to get established in the online world.
Here I mention a few tips to write blogs effectively without any niche.
How to write Niche-free Blogs?
Go for experiment
For any niche-free blogs, the sky is the limit! You can literally write whatever you want in your blog, and you should write by keeping this aspect in mind! Discover interesting topics and sub-niches while experimenting with your blog. Try even new subjects that are cover by only a few bloggers. You can come up with blogs as a solution to your readers’ questions and requirements as well.
Topics like college life, group dinners, and wildlife photography are fairly interesting and attract a certain group of people. You can write something crispy on such topics. Write on some serious issues like psychological health after 50 and how to get rid of dementia. No one knows that which blog will work wonders, so you need to keep on experimenting.
Related Reading- How to Make Blogging Fun?
Maintain Quality
While writing a niche-free blog, you need to make a promise to yourself and readers that you will always give something interesting and useful at the same time. Remember, while writing such blogs, you are not only a blogger but also a writer who uses all their creativity to make the blog more appealing and informative for the readers. You have to maintain quality in every blog and try to give something valuable as a takeaway every time.
You know that apparently, your blog has no competition; therefore, you can certainly establish your blog as an authority for various topics.
Utilize SEO and Social Media wisely
Finally, you need to focus on SEO and social media. As you cannot pitch effectively for a non-niched blog, the email marketing campaign is not for you.
On social media, you can post your blogs or articles with good titles and captions. Proper keyword research and compelling images can enable you to make the most of SEO and social media. However, there is no need to write on trending topics on social media or keyword-focused articles to keep the content SEO-focused. You can use creativity in making your article shareable.
And yes, do not listen to naysayers. Once you opt for a niche-free blog, you can use your creativity at every phase. Once imagination, writing style, and creativity meet in your blog, it will amaze and attract a lot of people for sure.
Best of luck and happy blogging!
Also Read Does Blogging Help SEO? Blog SEO Tips