The Power of Specializing Your Blog(s)
When I say specializing your blog, I mean taking your blog from no-topic to one topic. So many blogs have seen the light of day because of it, and so many blogs fall away because they don’t.
There are (at least) two kinds of blogs:
- Personal blogs
- Specialized blogs
If you are running a personal blog, odds are you aren’t all that interested in who reads and subscribes to it. Odds are you also don’t stick to any set topics or writing schedules: you write as you can and however you want to. Your blog has no six month plan, no goals, and you won’t be disappointed if it goes nowhere. Your number one reason for running your personal blog is you.
If you are running a specialized blog, you are more concerned with numbers. Odds are you are putting work into this blog that you won’t put into your personal blog, and you are probably reading some decent blogs about blogs to do so. You set goals, you have plans, and you (probably) want to make a buck or two.
This difference is seen pretty much across the board because people like knowing what they’re getting. It’s not that someone doesn’t want to read your personal gibberish (heck, we all do it) it’s just that they only have so much time in one day and they want to get what they need and move on. If you help them do that, then you’ve scored.
The Benefits for Your Specialized Blog
Not only will specializing allow you to reach specific people in a way that your personal blog can’t, your specialized blog(s) will let you:
- branch out to new and exciting areas of content creation,
- strengthen your authority on the topic you specialize in,
- improve your search engine ranking for your topic-centered site,
- attract more dedicated readers to your topic, and
- make your personal blog that much more personal.
I’ve really enjoyed separating my blogging interests into different areas of the web. Not everyone can handle blogging at multiple locations, though—it takes a certain kind of person. Right now I have a place to write about blogging, one for copy writing, one for WordPress, and one for marketing and design. That’s apart from my personal blog.
Not everyone can do that. And really, unless you are interested in expanding your writing and reaching multiple audiences (and building a portfolio in the process) you shouldn’t bother trying.
The Benefits for Your Personal Blog
As mentioned above, your personal blog can become much more personal when you aren’t “working” on it. Not only that, but you will be free to use your personal blog to build your personal brand. In this way you can link all of your other “work blogs” back, and (ironically enough) draw those interested in your “professional writings” into wanting to see some of you are like on a personal level.
Funny how this blog stuff works out, aye?
A Blog about Nothing | August 22nd, 2007 at 1:08 am #
I disagree. I believe so-called specialized blogs get very dry and very boring very quickly. Let me be clear, by specialized I mean targeted strictly to one niche. “Making money blogging” isn’t a specialized niche as far as I’m concerned, it’s a goal. Something like “The mating habits of bald-faced hornets” would be specialized, niche blog.
If you look at some of the biggest names in the blogging world they might have a main topic of interest (John Chow - Making money, Blackfive - Military Ops, etc) but they aren’t narrowly focused on one solitary thing.
Ryan Imel (Post Author) | August 22nd, 2007 at 1:13 am #
I think you’re going a little too far with what I said. To say that specializing a blog means to focus it that far in is a bit extreme. I would say that the topics you mentioned are what I meant by niches. Especially when compared to personal blogs, I believe the “topics of interest” you mentioned are very much niches.
I don’t think we disagree as much as you think we do.
A Blog about Nothing | August 22nd, 2007 at 1:35 am #
Gotcha, when I hear (or rather read) the word specialized it invokes visions of a one track, cast aside all other thoughts blogger.
Rhys | August 22nd, 2007 at 4:26 am #
I feel I must contribute as my main blog is what you would say is a personal blog.
There’s a quote from Scott Adams that basically says:
“Few people are experts in one topic, but we’re all pretty good at two topics”
That’s what my blog is. I talk about sport, I talk about technology (my two big passions), I talk about my life and I talk about blogging. I feel if I keep it to those “niches”, my blog has something for everybody.
Dan Schawbel | August 22nd, 2007 at 7:21 am #
As I say, it’s all about platform for purpose. If you are trying to stay in contact with your peers or family members, a personal blog is the way to go. If you want to start a business or be positioned as the subject matter expert on a topic, you should specialize your blog.
Dave Starr --- ROI Guy | October 19th, 2007 at 10:15 pm #
Absolutely agree on the specialization, Ryan. Even for those who say, “I will only write personally, and don’t want to monetize” could benefit from focus. Example: suppose you were a college student and wanted to get a blog going on just your personal thoughts, experiences, etc. Nothing at all wrong with that and there’s a target audience of hundreds of thousands of potential readers out there. But you would improve your blog a lot by having a regular and consistent themed series of posts about, say, actual classes, the process of selecting (changing) your major, research you were ding about grad school or job prospects, etc. A ‘targeted” blog, personalized or commercialized can be true to it’s author’s goals without being totally disjoint.