Tightly focused niches or versatility for blogging success?

As a Baby Boomer, with a lifetime of unusual experiences in some of the more hostile parts of the world, I have long thought of versatility as an absolutely necessary life and business, skill. Now my blogging versatility has been challenged by Holly Jahangiri  who has nominated me for the “Versatile Blogger” challenge. Thank you Holly. Holly is a master of versatility herself as a visit to her blog  It’s All A Matter Of Perspective, will so ably demonstrate.

Conventional blogging wisdom is that  widely focused blogs will attract larger numbers of visitors, but narrowly focused niche  blogs will attract more subscribers and for  commercial blogs, more sales. Holly in her “Versatile Post” mentions the “no-niche niche”.

Not sure if there is such an animal. Even a blog with completely random posts, will reflect the authors tastes, preferences and style and therefore draw visitors with certain tastes, preferences and similarities. The choice of authors for a multi author blog will be strongly influenced by the publishers ideas. Some more general blogs which lean towards no-niche generality are immensely successful, James Altucher’s Altucher Confidential with an Alexa rating of 15050 is a good example. Covering subjects as diverse as finances, book self publishing and dealing with crappy people, it is still far from being “no-niche”.

The choice of narrow focus or broad, depends on the authors reason for publishing the blog:

• Communication of useful information
• Education
• Persuasion
• Entertainment
• Call to Action
• Promote a cause
• Publishers Ego

Can some posts on a niche focused blog wander off into other areas outside the niche?  Many bloggers do this to a greater or lesser extent with the result that the blog becomes more interesting to a wider audience and may well attract more new visitors from the target and complimentary niches.   The rules of the Versatile Blogger Award are: 

• Thank the blogger who nominated you
• Add the Versatile Blogger logo to your post
• Nominate 15 other bloggers
• Inform them of the nomination
• Share 7 random things about yourself

7  Random things about myself:

2) I must be one of the very few people who has lost 3 properties in a lifetime to political upheaval.

4) I am an active member of Oxford Orators club in Toastmasters International.

5) I have been a citizen of 4 countries.

6) I have been close enough to a Rhino in thick bush to hear and smell it break wind – without actually seeing it.

7) When using my fingers to indicate numbers, I am unable to extend them in the normal sequence, I can only do it in the order of index, ring, baby and then the 3rd. – Perhaps this is as a result of calculators not having been invented before I finished my school education leading to the over use of fingers for calculations.

Nominating 15 worthy Versatile Bloggers is extremely difficult, but I will do my best. Some of my nominations are in focused niches, others more general, some will appeal more to women readers than men and some vice versa, with a bit of luck I have chosen bloggers to irritate both sides of the political spectrum and  those who identify with both the haves and have-nots. Some will be more successful than others, some experienced and others new to the art. There are single and multi author blogs in the mix. Above all I have tried to choose interesting bloggers who write stuff worth reading.

Here they are, in no particular order:

Any readers paying particular attention will note that this post has been categorised as Social Media not Internet Marketing which might have seemed more logical. The fact is that had it not been for my activity in social media, I would not have found the bloggers and blogs mentioned in this post. Despite its ability to take up hours of time, social media if we are disciplined about it can expose us to people, ideas and information that we would never find through the old media of TV, radio or print.

Wishing you success in all your endeavours.