Figuring out Your Odd Little Blog

Maybe we have some things in common.

Maybe you started out blogging with a carefree, hobbyist approach in your spare time. Maybe a few years or months down the line, you decided to get serious about it. You get the happy feelings when hit “Publish”, because you just wrote something awesome and you know your readers are gonna love it. You love writing and having other people read your writing.

This relationship is getting serious and you want to take it to the next level.

So, you start taking steps toward making this into your lucrative hobby, or a main source of income. You’re excited about writing and sharing your passion with the world.

Inevitably, doubt might start to creep in. This is actually something you will have to battle more in the future too, so get used to it. You will have the good as well as the bad.

One of the biggest issues I ran into was how I didn’t think I would get anywhere without a popular niche. I talked about this in my post: The Freelance Writer/Blogger and the Oddball Niche, starring me. The comments after the post turned out to be extremely helpful.

I’ve since decided not to start a new blog just to focus on one niche. AGB has been around for a while now, (the original database from a previous domain in August 2009, and I bought this one in November of that year) and it actually does have a running theme, even way back then when I wasn’t trying to.

My interests mixed together into a unique theme that happened naturally, and that’s how it should be.

Okay, I’m going to sort this out a little better! If you’re confused or doubtful, here are somethings you can do:

~ Write a description of your blog, a short version and a longer version. You can use the long one for your about page and the short version for a little bio on other websites. I recently had to write a good short version for Passion Fruit Ads:

An art & literary blog by a budding author/freelance copywriter/blogger/mom who also loves anything weird, pretty and/or tasty. You’ll find heart and substance as well as materialistic and humorous fun.

This description fits my blog and sounds interesting to moms, writers, artists AND people who also like weird, pretty things and food. The heart, substance, materialism and humor are things that tie it all together and basically describe my voice and overall theme as a blogger.

Even if your description seems very broad, you will still find your audience with people who can relate to you.

~ Find your voice instead of trying to nail down a niche. Ultimately, your writing style is what sets you apart. The style of graphics you include, the way you use sentence fragments or run-on sentences (not entirely bad if you’re blogging), etc, should all reflect your natural personality. Basically, be yourself as much as possible.

~ Be patient. If you’ve decided not to have a niche blog and you want to be successful (have your cake and eat it too), you will need to be extra patient. It takes time to build up a strong legion of readers no matter what kind of blog you have, but if you’re blazing your own trail, it will take even longer.

You also still have to write awesome/interesting/helpful posts, so make sure you do that. Write/post stuff you would want to read or look at.