Blogger In Need of Advice

I've been blogging on Tumblr for a few months, but the downtime made me want to move to a new platform. After I switched over to Blogger, I realized that my blog didn't actually have a specific purpose. I just used Tumblr to share things I was interested in and post about any topic that popped into my head. While this may have been what I wanted to post, it probably wasn't what my readers were interested in. For example, if one day I posted a tech review and got a follower, he wouldn't be interested in the dog training tip I posted the next day. I don't see how this could be marketable.

What should I do? I'm not sure how I could pick a specific topic. I would probably choose a tech blog, but it's so hard to compete with the other blogs out there, especially when you aren't known well enough to get free review products.

I'm interested in photography, but I'm an amateur and I don't really think I'd be able to build a community around that. I want to get some type of feedback from my viewers.

I could make a blog about dog training, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with that because I'm studying to become a professional dog trainer. If people can learn what they want to learn by reading my blog, how could I make money in real life?

I'd like to keep my blog under my current domain which is mynamehere.com. What advice/tips can you offer?

Thanks in advance!

asked Dec 09 '10 at 07:39

JosephD
191●7●9●15

3 Answers:

oldest newest most voted

Blogging in todays world has shifted somewhat.

There are the usual free blogging platforms that tailor for personal use, but most blogging web applications (I will call them applications) are more of a CMS (Content management system). Use your blogging platform of choice (I personally use WordPress for myself and clients), but find yourself a niche market.

For example, your own personal blog you could write about a tech review and dog training but as you realise, this is an unbalanced approach.

The solution is to use the niche market approach, have a few blogs designed specifically for each need... if someone wants to know about dog training, then make one blog 100% dedicated to it, the entire audience will be from people wanting that info.

The same goes for a tech review blog.

You could then add a 3rd blog - a personal one where you can post 'today I wrote about training a dog to jump through hoops - see the complete posting here'.

Niche marketing methods are more readable to people searching for specific topics.

answered Dec 10 '10 at 10:53

Deadpan110
41●1

I actually just set up wordpress. Your idea of separate blogs sounds great, but I'm not sure what I'd do with my current posts or my domain. I decided not to import my Tumblr posts, and just start from scratch. Right now I only have two posts (and a few scheduled to post on different days), but one is tech related, and the other is dog related. I guess I could use it as the personal blog you talked about, but then should I remove my current posts? How could I get traffic to all of my blogs? I find it exhaustive just trying to get traffic to one blog, I can't imagine getting traffic to multiple blogs.

On a side note, could posts about gaming go on a tech site? I'm not sure the same people interested in tweaking their system, would be interested in a post about an awesome Call Of Duty score.

Thanks for your help! I really appreciate it!

(Dec 11 '10 at 02:59) JosephD

There are no strict rules to however you decide to blog and even using niche techniques should not be considered a golden rule (although people swear by using it).

Simply deleting old blogs and creating new ones should be thought about though because search engines already scour your existing content so personally, I would leave anything currently online in place and use it to link the new content that you have written on the separate blogs.

The words 'build it and they will come' does not hold true for sites that are trying to establish themselves, linking existing content to new blogs will get the search engines to your content faster and importantly, if you have great content, the more chance people will find it.

This is where niche blogging comes into its own, people looking for dog training howtos will most likely find sites dedicated to that, the same for tech related blogs as search engines will show results with a preference towards dedicated sites rather that a site about everything but containing a couple of relevant posts.

I would think that 'My awesome COD score' would be more of a personal thing and your regular blog would handle it.

Do not treat all the above as rules to follow but just a rough guideline, simply have fun - provide links back and forth to all your blogs and create great content... you may even see more traffic starting to flow!

(Dec 11 '10 at 09:01) Deadpan110

Thanks for the tips. I really appreciate it. Now I just have to figure out what I want to name my tech site. Domain generator sites, here I come!

(Dec 11 '10 at 09:35) JosephD

Well i've never blogged or even used a social network but as someone who reads blogs constantly, I can tell you that I don't mind reading about things that don't normally interest me as long as it's written well and tells me something about the writer. Also note that chris blogs about a large variety of things and is still much liked. I wouldn't care about popularity either, I think it's better to have a smaller readership so you can interact with your fans more through commenting and responding to emails.

answered Dec 10 '10 at 02:14

zman
3.5k●15●26●82

Thanks for your reply! I've decided to use my domain that's under my name, as a blog where I post anything that interestes me, and if I want to pick something more specific later on, I'll do it on a separate blog. I figure since it's my own name, the readers would want to get to know me as a person, rather than read about 1 particular interest of mine. I'm not concerned about becoming really popular, I just want it to be popular enough that I can get at least a comment on every other post. Blogging is boring when no one responds.

(Dec 10 '10 at 05:31) JosephD

0	Wordpress is a good choice. It's nice and easy to use like Blogger, but can be used to free blog like Tumblr. Try it out. I use it for my domain. answered Dec 10 '10 at 03:00 fruitpunch36 406●18●20●28

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