If you’re a new writer, just entering the blogosphere, you’ll find an overwhelming amount of advice telling how to blog, how to monetize your site, what rules to follow for search engines, how to create passionate readers, and how to boost your traffic. One element that’s often missing is the all-important subject of what to blog about in the first place. Let me urge you to follow this simple flow chart to help answer that question:
I’m not suggesting that it is impossible to make a name for yourself in these fields, but I would suggest that it’s considerably more difficult to become popular, stand out from the crowd or capitalize on success. The fact of the matter is, if you can start up a local blog about the independent hip-hop scene in Seattle or the financial side of the restaurant business or the intersection of immigration and entrepreneurship, you’ve got a far better shot at becoming a leader in your field.
Many folks are shaking their heads reading this, saying, “but, Rand – those niches don’t have a developed readership yet – I doubt I could get more than a few hundred people reading a blog in that space, while DailyKos and Engadget have 20,000+ readers.” It’s true – arenas like technology, politics, and celebrity gossip do have a huge built-in audience. However, I’d argue that blogging is still a very, very young field and an emerging form of media consumption. While there may not be a massive market for blog readers in the field of traditional Spanish cooking today, my preference would be to take the leadership role and have a shot at becoming the Michael Arrington of sofritos and paella, instead of an also-ran Apple fanboy.
I’ve illustrated the primary problem with launching a blog in an over-saturated market below:
The bar-chart above isn’t precise, but the message is an obvious one. The top 10 (sometimes 20 or 30) bloggers in a particular space are exceptionally popular. Thousands of feed subscribers and a million or more page views each month are common for these giants of their respective industries. Following on their heels are a slew of sub-niche and second-tier bloggers. In a popular arena like gadgets or politics, these too can attract a significant following. I’d probably say that SEOmoz, in the grand scheme of web production and marketing blogs, fits squarely into this arena.
The last, tertiary group contains thousands of blogs, most with fewer than 50 daily readers. It’s not that these blogs are unimportant or a waste of time – far from it. If you have the passion and the desire to blog and are familar with the stiff competition you face to build an audience (or, better yet, aren’t concerned with an audience and simply blog because it’s what you love to do) then, by all means, don’t stop. However, if you want to break into the top ranks of your niche, I’ll use one, final example to help make up your mind.
Three Hundred and Ninety.
According to the latest count from Lee Odden’s Online Marketing Blog, that’s how many unique blogs cover the SEO/M sphere – and that’s just the ones he’s reviewed. There are dozens, and probably hundreds more. While I’d love to read all of these each day (actually, I’d probably only love to read a couple dozen), it’s simply not possible. There’s so much to read in the SEO world, so much coverage of every news event, so many people vying to land an interview, get a scoop, break a story or take a new angle that the struggle to get a new blog noticed borders on impossible.
I receive an average of 10 emails a week asking me to review a post made by a new blogger in the search marketing world. Of these, I write about less than 10% – not because I’m a heartless bastard (despite what Rebecca says), but because only 1 out of every 20 is worth writing about. Danny and the SEL crew probably receive 2-3X this amount (if not far more), and yet, since its launch last November, I’d guess that SEL has covered maybe 20 stories total that link to the tertiary level of search marketing blogs.
Saturated fields are tough competition, tough places to find stories and have dismally high abandonment rates. If you decide to enter a crowded media landscape, at least go in with your eyes open.
BTW – Let me know what you think of the graphics in SEOmoz posts. They take a little while to make, but I personally enjoy the visual stimulus.
