STEEM Guide: Choosing your Blog's Niche

in #steemit6 years ago

Recently I have had a few followers asking me about how to pick what they'll write about.

Choosing a topic can be daunting, as you don't know if you have what it takes to keep on writing about it over and over again, but choosing the slice of the market you'll "attack" is vital.

That is called picking one's niche... the niche that you will tackle and hopefully carve out a slice of the "market" to form your audience.

Throughout this STEEMIT guide I'm going to talk about how to pick your blog's niche in a way that promotes growth.

If that interests you, then read below.

Your Audience Comes First: Don't Be Selfish!

Most people are selfish when they think about choosing their niche.

They end up only considering themselves, their choices, their vocations, their skills and their passions.

This is a mistake if you want to maximize your growth rate.

What you need to do is treat your audience as the number one priority, and that means you need to think about what people want to read about.

Remember that it's not about what you want to say, it's about the things that you have to say that other people want to hear... or in this case read.

Some people have pointed out Steem related topics do well - well, that's simply because every person here is involved in the Steem blockchain, so they'll want to read about it.

Posts about your dog or your new pair of slippers aren't going to get the same traction, there aren't enough people who care about that.

Bear this in mind.

Write About What You Love: Writing About What You Know is Overrated!

There's also another thing to have in mind:

  • Writting About What You Know is Overrated.

Imagine you're working in "X" offline.

I doubt you'll want to come home to write about "X" all the time, even though your skill or maybe even vocation are there.

On the other hand, there's that thing you just LOVE but consider you do not know enough about - well, this is by far a better choice.

To work hard you need to work on something you're passionate about.

Remember the following:

  • You can research knowledge but you can't research enthusiasm.

You can always learn, you can't fake passion.

Consider this...

Find and Connect with Influencers on your Niche

Finally, you should always connect with Influencers of your niche.

If you chose, say, gold and silver as what you're going to talk about, maybe you should invest some time on getting to know the #steemsilvergold peeps.

On the other hand, if digital art is your thing, have a look at #slothicorn.

Not only that, but find someone that influences others in that niche and reach out to them.

If you don't see any community on the niche you're considering choosing, then choose that niche and start a community yourself.

On the other hand, avoid saturated niches - although this STILL doesn't apply to Steem in these early stages.

Keep Everything Niche Related:

Finally,

When you're choosing your niche, make sure that the niche is broad enough for you to vary your content enough not to get bored and to tackle new strategies and challenges while STILL being able to respect your brand's identity.

Don't choose a niche that's too small and doesn't give you room to maneuver.

Your posting will change with time, so make sure the niche gives you enough room to evolve as a content producer while still being able to do so INSIDE your initial niche.


I hope I've helped some of you consider what to blog about.

I also hope you see the value in treating your blog like your own personal brand, and being as serious about it as if you were on an "offline" business.

This is, of course, if you want it to succeed. If you're blogging out of passion and you don't care about growth or retention rates, then this guide probably isn't for you.

Cheers!


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Thanks for the write up.

While I agree that niche is an absolute necessity, I encourage experimentation when it comes to ones writing.

I think you become a better writer when you're open to working on and trying different things. If you stay in the same lane too long, you tend to get "stuck" in a box and might run the risk of holding yourself back. It's important we continue to expand our capabilities and experiment with different forms of self expression even after we've found what we're good at, if only for the purpose of not letting what we're good at get stale.

In any case, you've earned my upvote and my follow! Would love for you to stop by my latest post if you feel so inclined. Can't wait to hear what you think if you choose to do so! : )

Hello there,
Thank you very much for the comment.
If you're in it to self-improve your writing sure, if you're in it to create a brand for your blog and be recognized as an expert in your field, experimentation is better left at the start.
It depends on how you look at your blog.

I agree with that 100%, and I'm mostly in alignment with you when it comes to niche being king. I just think it's healthy to leave yourself some room for experimentation : )

Nice maxxie, maybe this is one of the problems that I have come across with my blog... not honing in on a niche or particular area of interest. When doing my original #introduceyourself post here on steemit I specifically stated how I was not going to choose a niche to formulate my posts around because I 'did not want to hinder my overall abilities and limit my abilities to one or just a few things...' may be however this was a mistake bc it seems as though bloggers with niches get a lot of attention, especially when you begin to network within that particular niche area and gain a following... I may begin to brainstorm more about this and see if any new ideas soon begin to spark my interest. Regards from conrad :-)

Glad to see this post made you think.
There's a marketing sentence I often refer to that states:

"He who wants to be everything for everyone ends up being nothing to no one."

ahhh wise words from a wise man. I shall ponder this thought and allow for time be on my side

stay cool Maxxie

Mmmmm...

I’m still as confused as fuck as what my “niche” would be, as I’m all over the fucking place with my posts - yet still managed a fair deal of success here. Lol.

Well, as they say, sometimes rules may be meant to be broken... 🤡

You arrived earlier... don't think too highly of yourself... :P

true that.

(was looking for some sort of "pedestal" GIF that'd be an appropriate response and couldn't quite find... although this kinda sums up how I feel about the situation in question sometimes... lol)

More great advice man. I started with a few niches, but have since grew into an eccentric blogger, I think once all the promotion for the steemsilverround is over, I'm going to reign it in and maybe try some ongoing series lasting 4-7 days daily.

Eccentric Blogger... heh!
I like that! Suits you well :D
Cheers

Thank you for your thoughtful article Max. Still trying to decide if I should stay on personal growth, business, or marketing, or a combination of all of them. I learn a lot of things building my agency, but I think I should really put the emphasis on that journey and that way I can write about them all.

What do you think?

I think that personal growth and marketing are both part of the self-improvement niche.

Maybe focus on that broader concept and make it your core?
I'm a Marketer myself, glad to meet another one on here.

Awesome Max! I think I'll try to shift it a bit towards on the perspective an entrepreneur has on life, mindset, business, and others. So I can amass and serve a more entrepreneurship oriented audience.

Let's connect my fellow marketer. Give me a hit on my personal fb profile
http://facebook.com/alinclaudiufaragau

Join my community and hit me up on a Direct Message. I dislike Suckerberg :P

Suckerberg allows me to earn a lot of money :D Kinda love him for that.
I joined the community btw, see you on there

Gonna take a break and look for you later. Cheers

I don't really believe in sticking to one niche. My brain just doesn't work that though I clearly fit into certain niches. But I also do the occasional piece on psychology. I think if you only write on what you think other people want to hear, it doesn't leave much room for your own personal evolvement. I do agree it's good to have a general direction with your blog topics though

I don't believe it halts my evolvement in any way. I guess each case is a case.

What I was getting at was only writing about what you think others want to hear. I'm assuming you write also on topics that you're interested about or have a good knowledge base on. For example I would not write about a cryptocurrency I wasn't knowledgeable on just because crypto articles generally do well... that's all I was saying and certainly wasn't implying it is inhibiting your personal growth

Ah yeah, that I agree...
No point in selling off and ending up making yourself look like a fool :D

How important is choosing a niche? I have already started to work towards a niche but I am also wondering if I should or should not write about my other interests (which are many). Do you think doing something like that will be detrimental to my blog's growth?

Depends... what we can't lose focus is "How did I get my followers?"

Your followers usually follow you because they like a certain type of content. If you stray too far, won't they lose interest since they gave you a follow to see more of what made them interested?

Cheers

Yes, that's correct. Getting followers is the toughest thing it seems. My follower count is increasing very slowly

Mine is slow too... it doesn't seem to grow exponentially.

Good advice, especially given that you took your niche and every message you do is original.
To choose your niche and stick to it in my opinion is one of the most basic rules for conducting a good blog. The second is to stick to constancy and create quality messages.
Thank you

Yeap!
And not forcing stuff up just for the sake of writting.
People know when your quality declines.
Cheers Franky.

Nice post...It can be daunting to figure out what to write about and to come up with an original tone to the writing....something to work on for sure.

Thanks. Glad you liked it Ruben.

Cheers!

I placed this in the #tips section in our community in @steemitfamilyph

A lot of people do start off selfish like me who only thought that this is my blog, that it was a virtual diary for rantings, bad poetry and crappy photos.

I was just contributing to the noise. I change my view when I worked on building my value proposition. It was to bring value to Steemit and creating communities.

Thank you very much Maverick... looking forward to having a SteemFamilyPH Embassy in the future.

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