The secret of successful blogging

"Real niche" blogging

When you decide to start blogging, one of your biggest challenges will be whether to use your blog to promote your business or profession, make money from the blog or simply share thoughts on a subject that you love.

It may be worth noting that whereas anyone can start a blog, not everyone can write content that everyone (or anyone, for that matter) wants to read.  The most important part of any blog is what you say, how you say it and who you say it to.  Writing honestly and openly about subjects you are an authority on and have a passion for is what will get people who are interested in that subject matter coming back to your blog again and again.

Niche blogging is about focusing on a subject, concentrating on building a following and writing quality and relevant content for advertisers and other bloggers to get attracted to your content.  Personally I would break down niche blogging into three different categories (there could be more) including:

• Niche business blogs -  These are determined by the present business of the blogger and are also used to supplement the business,
• Niche website blogs -  In my opinion these are low quality blogs with little to offer their readership apart from referring services, even though they do generate a lot of income for these, 
• "Real niche" blogs - These type of blogs are determined by your skill or interests. Business blogs can also fall into this category, but "real niche" blogs are normally independent from any other site or service. They can be run as a business within themselves or they can just be personal blogs uses to share thoughts on subjects of high interest and knowledge to the blog owner. 

"Real niche" blogging establishes you as an expert on a specific subject and people will be more likely to visit your blog for the specific information you can provide meaning that with time you will see the traffic to your blog increase steadily based on how much work you are willing to put into promoting your blog. Your "real niche" blog will begin to build followers who will be like-minded people eager to share their thoughts, opinions and ask you questions based on your area of expertise or authority.  "Real niche" blogs are a medium that can be used to bring people with similar interests together to discuss their favorite topic and interact with you and your readers.   Take the online shopping niche for example.  If you write blog posts reviewing online shopping, the pros & cons, the opportunities and the deals on offer, chances are you will develop a good following of people looking to find free coupons, discounts and other deals online. People want to feel part of a community, and by "real niche" blogging, you are helping them achieve this and they will keep coming back for new updates or questions on the topics of your specific skill or knowledge. 

As your "real niche" blog develops you will find that you do not spend as much time writing for your blog as you might have initially thought. You soon realize that most of your blogging time is taken up by reading and responding to comments from your followers and posting comments on other more popular blogs. This is in fact one of the secrets to blogging success and it will help you to:

• develop new blog post ideas, 
• learn new techniques to enhance your blog,
• improve your writing skills,  
• get your blog noticed within the community you are building, 
• connect with and build relationships with other bloggers and,
• improve your blog traffic.

While its possible to rank well in search engines with general blogs, it's much easier to get a higher ranking when you have a focused topic you blog about regularly.  Search engines tend to focus their indexing more on blogs that have authoritative, focused and quality content on a regular basis.  In my opinion niche blogging will always be better than general blogging, especially if you want to establish yourself as a credible expert in the community and potentially create a source of revenue from your blog.

The first step in your quest for a "real niche" blog is to figure out your purpose, establish your message and if you plan to take your blog to the top of the list, find an untapped niche. Choose an interesting topic you are passionate about and put a few authoritative twists on it. Once you find your niche and dedicate your time to dominating it, you will end up with a highly successful blog.

Want to blog effectively and successfully? Build yourself a "real niche" blog.