Not Having a Niche - The New Niche?
When you’re thinking about starting a blog and you’re reading all the information you can about the best way to start a blog, what’s the number one thing you’ll read? That you must have a niche to be successful. Whether it’s about a blog about blogging, making money, design, or anything else, it must have one centralized niche as the main focal point or the odds will be against you to succeed. It seems that over the last few months, the tide may be turning on the idea of having one single niche. Here lately, I’ve noticed that more blogs are talking about not having a centralized niche. One of the blogs I came across the other day which discusses the pros and cons of this topic is The Abundance Highway.
Why Random Jabber?
I can’t tell you how many times I was asked “why Random Jabber?” when I first started this blog. The reason I chose “Random Jabber” as the name is because I felt it best displayed what I was going to try to do with this blog. Having one single niche never entered my mind when I was trying to get the ball rolling with this blog last year. I’ve always said that I don’t think there is any way for me to have a centralized niche. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not for me. I could keep it going for a while, but I think ultimately, it would fade out because of lack of topic ideas. Sometimes I feel like I’m out of topics to write about on this blog, let alone if I only had one topic that I were writing about. That’s not to say it isn’t possible to have only one niche. A lot of blogs do it well: Pro Blog Design and David Airey come to mind.
Pros of Not Having a Niche
1. You have a huge audience
Although I don’t have one centralized niche, I do try to stay consistent with my topics. I enjoy discussing things like blogging, web and logo design, ExpressionEngine and a few other things, so even though I don’t stick to one in particular, you usually know what you’re going to get from me in that you won’t find any posts about what I had to eat last night. I leave the blog wide open though to talk about anything and with that, I feel like I have a big audience discuss things with.
2. More people finding your site from search engines
This really all depends on your topic, but generally speaking, if you have a “no niche” blog, you have more potential for visitors to find your site through search engines. With a single niche, there may not be many people searching for your site topic. With a “no niche” blog, if people aren’t searching for one topic, you’ll likely to get some traffic on one of your other topics.
3. Less chance of your blog dying
Maybe you have a blog covering topics in an extremely popular niche. What happens if that niche ever becomes extremely unpopular? I think you know where I’m going with this.
4. You get the benefit of multiple blogs wrapped into one
If you’re like me, you’ve got tons of ideas bouncing around in your head at all times. If I had the time, I could easily have 10 blogs about different topics. Even if you don’t have a 9-5 (like I do), or an addiction to golf (like I do), anyone with a blog will tell you that it’s extremely difficult to keep one alive, let alone something like 10. So, with a “no niche” blog, you have the benefit of discussing everything you’re interested in without feeling like you have to constantly update multiple sites.
What do you think?
There are many ways you could approach running a blog and a lot of the points I made above could really be pros or cons depending on how you look at it. I prefer to look at them as pros, but everyones circumstances are different. A lot of it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with your blog.
What do think? Do you have anything to add to my list?
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Comments
Rob O. Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond! I always read that it’s more difficult to monetize a blog without a clear niche, but I don’t really understand why that’s the case. Without a clear niche, you’ve essentially got a larger audience of readers as well as a larger audience of advertisers. It may be slightly more difficult to grow a blog without a niche as your readers may not know what to expect if you’re jumping around from topic to topic, but I think after a while, your readers will get the idea of your posting style and you’ll start to see some regular readers. It’s definitely easier at the start though to go with a clearly defined niche.
Yes, Boing Boing is a great example! I actually meant to link to it in my post, but it looks like I forgot. Whoops!
Posted on Tue Apr 22, 2008
I agree with what Rob said. While it is true that you will not lack topics to blog, if you keep blogging about random thoughts you will not get many regular readers. There are exceptions for this. Like, if you are a celebrity or a well known blogger you could still write about anything and people might follow.
Another point is about search engine traffic. As you said you might get traffic for many keywords. But in the long run, if you keep your blog to some specific theme, you will end up with more traffic.
Finally I believe that it is up to the blogger to decide. If this is your personal/hobby blog, keep it niche less. But if your aim is make money through blogging, then definitely focus on a “theme” if not a specific niche.
Regards,
Neo
Posted on Sat Apr 26, 2008
Software Guy (Neo): It’s a good thing I’m a celebrity then! Just kidding. I get what you’re saying, but I think I’m looking at a “nicheless” blog a different way. I guess when I say “nicheless,” I mean a blog kind of like what I’ve got set up here at Random Jabber. I don’t technically have a niche in that I’m only talking about one single topic at all times, but I also am not talking about every random thing under the sun. I definitely agree with you that a blog talking about nothing but random topics probably won’t make it long. But then again, I think as long as your random topics are somewhat connected at a certain level. I mean, if you like to talk about business, technology, the web, and making money, you can connect those in one way or another as you talk about each one and the visitors that enjoy the business topics, will likely also enjoy the other topics. But, if you start throwing topics in talking about the weather or food which don’t really relate to the other topics at all, then you might run into some problems.
Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to having some more conversations with you in the future.
Posted on Sat Apr 26, 2008
For me my blog is about everything; my life, my showcases related to my school, and my future work.
For randomjabber, i think you don’t intend to earn via this so it seems not very necessary to focus on a very specific niche as Rob said.
You have been doing a great job, Deron. I have been one of your subscribers so far 
Posted on Sun Apr 27, 2008
I agree that there are limits to what your readers will likely edure, but for us, our blog ranges from software & technology interests, our travels, photos of friends & family, and yes, even an occasional post about the weather!
One thing I do try hard to avoid is just being an echo chamber for other blogs. If an article I’m posted came from another site, I try my best to put a personal stamp or spin on it so I’m not just being a copycat. And I since I tend to post infrequently, when a new blog does go live, I’d like it to be something of value. It’s partly for this reason that I kinda veer away from memes and other filler stuff.
Posted on Sun Apr 27, 2008
ijajaja: You’re right, I don’t intend to make millions off of Random Jabber, although it would be nice to make something from it. Of course, if I’m ever to really make some money, I need to start blogging more. I’ve just been really busy as of late.
Rob O.: I hear ya. I’ve done a few memes and thigns along those lines over the course of this blog’s life, but I will most likely not be doing any more. When I first started, all I heard was how it was a great way to build traffic, so when the chance came my way, I usually took it. It really does nothing for the blog or your readers. I do the same (or try to) in regards to putting your own spin on an article that comes from another blog. It’s always good to do that I think.
Posted on Fri May 2, 2008
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My name is Deron Sizemore and I am a web designer, web publisher, blogger and serial internet entrepreneur living in Lexington, Kentucky.
Much of whether you do (or can) develop a niche is driven by your blogging goals. If you’re striving to create a blog presence as a means of earning income, then there may be some greater incentives to develop a clearly-defined niche.
My personal blog is definitely niche-less, but then I can easily afford to ramble on about any number of topics since my goal has nothing to do with monetization.
Alternatively, you can work towards establishing a brand - creating a strong identity for your blog - without necessarily having a definitive niche. Not sure what I mean? Think Boing Boing!
Posted on Tue Apr 15, 2008