{"id":33214,"date":"2014-10-27T02:19:13","date_gmt":"2014-10-26T15:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/problogger.com\/?p=33214"},"modified":"2016-09-20T10:38:30","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T00:38:30","slug":"3-ways-to-define-what-your-blog-is-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/problogger.com\/3-ways-to-define-what-your-blog-is-about\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Ways to Define What Your Blog Is About"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is your blog about?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a question all bloggers get asked from time to time. How do you answer it?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a question I know many ProBlogger readers wrestle with – particularly when starting their blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What is my niche? Do I even need a niche? How do I define my niche?<\/i><\/p>\n

Every time I run a Q&A webinar I get questions around whether bloggers need a niche. I thought I\u2019d put a few thoughts into a blog post and suggest three ways to define what your blog is about.<\/p>\n

1. Niche<\/h2>\n

Lets start with the most obvious one – choosing a \u2018niche\u2019 to blog about.<\/p>\n

Most bloggers I know would classify their blog in this way. I often do!<\/p>\n

ProBlogger<\/a> – at it’s most basic level is a blog about blogging (sad but true!).<\/p>\n

Digital Photography School<\/a> – it’s a blog about digital photography.<\/p>\n

Everything that happens on my blogs comes back to these core topics – they’re very much niche blogs.<\/p>\n

There are many other examples of great ‘niche’ blogs. For example Chris Hunter’s BikeEXIF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Demographic<\/h2>\n

Most ProBlogger readers fit fairly and squarely into a ‘niche’ but I know from experience that there’s quite a few of you squirming in your seat and resisting the urge to scroll to the comments section to tell me that your blog doesn’t fit into a niche.<\/p>\n

Perhaps thinking about ‘who’ your blog is for rather than the ‘topic’ it is about is a better approach for you.<\/p>\n

Over the last 10 years I’ve seen more and more bloggers developing blogs around a certain demographic of readers.<\/p>\n

Gala Darling<\/a> was one of the first I came across doing this on her blog (although there were others doing similarly.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

A quick look over Gala’s blog and you can see she’s talking about a range of topics – Style, Beauty, Travel, Self Love are 4 categories but over the years she’s talked about relationships, horoscopes and much more. While her blog doesn’t really fit neatly into a ‘niche’ Gala seems to have a clear understanding in her mind of who she is writing for.<\/p>\n

There are many examples of bloggers targeting particular demographics. Some are focused upon men or women, others are aimed at a generation, others are aimed at a lifestyle.<\/p>\n

3. A Fight<\/h2>\n

At a recent ProBlogger Event in Portland Oregon Jeff Goins<\/a> gave a talk that presented another way to think about what your blog is about that I know many attendees found really helpful.<\/p>\n

He suggested picking a ‘fight’.<\/p>\n

For a gentle shy guy like me, this at first sounded a little confronting – but as he spoke, I realised I’d already picked a fight in my blogging!<\/p>\n

By picking a fight Jeff was not suggesting you attack another person or choose something to blog about that is necessarily controversial – but rather to centre your blog around a struggle in some way that readers might identify with.<\/p>\n

While I’ve already mentioned above that ProBlogger is a ‘niche’ blog, I realised that as Jeff spoke that when I started ProBlogger it was definitely centred around a ‘fight’.<\/p>\n

When I started ProBlogger back in 2004, blogging was seen as a very ‘pure’ medium that was supposed to be used largely for self expression. To suggest that blogs could be used to make money was something that polarised people.<\/p>\n

Some argued blogs should never be used for commercial purposes and suggested that to do so would be to slimy\/scammy and others doubted that it was even possible to make money blogging.<\/p>\n

Starting ProBlogger was me putting a flag in the sand and saying that not only was it possible to make a living from blogging<\/a> (I was almost full time at that point) but that you could do it without selling out or entering into sleazy territory.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

That was my fight and it turns out that while it was a little controversial at the time, a lot of others who shared my belief and who got some kind of inspiration from that same fight. Others gathered around that flag in the sand and ProBlogger gained momentum.<\/p>\n

As I think about the three options of niche, demographic, and fight, I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong way to go about it. Each has its advantages and disadvantages but I do wonder if having a ‘fight’ might be a particularly powerful way to go.<\/p>\n

A fight galvanises people and is something that you and others can get passionate about. These things are good for a blog.<\/p>\n

Niches, Demographics and\/or Fights?<\/h2>\n

The above three options for classifying a blog are certainly not the only ones, and I wouldn’t want to argue that they’re mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n

In fact as I think about some of my favourite blogs, I see some that have niches, demographics, AND fights!<\/p>\n

A prime example of this would be Vanessa’s blog Style and Shenanigans<\/a> (Vanessa is my wife) who has a blog about ‘style’ (niche), which is written for women (demographic) and has a fight. Her fight is that you can retain a sense of style despite having three little boys running around your home destroying everything (as we do).<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

How Do You Define What Your Blog Is About?<\/h2>\n

Do you have a niche, a demographic or a fight? Or do you think about what your blog is about in some other way?<\/p>\n

I’d love to hear your take on this!<\/p>\n

PS: If you’re in the process of starting a blog check out our 5 step guide to starting a blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is your blog about? It\u2019s a question all bloggers get asked from time to time. How do you answer it? It\u2019s also a question I know many ProBlogger readers wrestle with – particularly when starting their blog. What is my niche? Do I even need a niche? How do …more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[769],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n3 Ways to Define What Your Blog Is About<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is your blog about? It\u2019s a question all bloggers get asked from time to time. How do you answer it? 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