Are there really a couple of million of internet, and affiliate, marketers? Are there also the same number of SEO gurus? While my numbers may be slightly exaggerated, you’d be forgiven for thinking that was the case when it seems nearly every other blog about is dedicated to one or other of those topics.
Ever since disassociated was re-birthed as a “blogosphere” blog in June, I’ve spent stacks of time exploring this realm, but I’ve found myself wondering how bloggers go about choosing a topic, or niche, as is the preferred usage, to focus their writing on.
A few years ago I became interested in freelance article writing and went along to a course conducted by a local writer, June Duncan Owen.
She explained to the class that anyone who was interested in writing could become a writer, and with a little determination, sell their work to newspapers and magazines.
Of course the burning question was, how on Earth could someone with absolutely no writing experience, or portfolio of work, possibly get the attention of an editor when trying to pitch an article idea?
In the absence of a portfolio, we were told, you sell your authority, when speaking to an editor.
In this instance your “authority” is whatever you know about. For example an accountant could assert their years of experience dealing with small businesses, when proposing an article to an editor of a magazine aimed at small business owners.
A parent could assert their experience raising a family as their authority when pitching an idea to a parenting magazine. While both the accountant and parent may have an empty writing portfolio, they are by no means short of knowledge in their chosen field.
Having sold a number of articles relating to accounting and parenting, both these budding writers, now armed with a portfolio of published work, could then go about pitching ideas from outside their “niche” to whatever publications they desired.
I get the feeling it doesn’t work that way in the blogosphere though. We don’t have cynical editors waiting to trash our ideas, meaning we can go ahead and publish, or blog, whatever we want. And if an accountant wants to become a SEO guru overnight, what’s stopping them?
But is it really that simple? Writing articles and posting them on your blog may be, but how does the accountant last week, SEO expert this week, convince potential readers of their authority or credibility?
Because as I see it, they don’t have one editor to win over now, they now have many, in the form of readers looking for SEO advice they can rely on.
Search Engine Optimisation may seem sexier (well, possibly), more crowd pleasing, dare I say conducive to collecting PPC clicks, than a blog dispensing accounting advice, but long term what might be the better strategy for the blog aspiring accountant?
One or two prospective SEO experts may be able to “fake it till they make it”, but the accountant could well be better off focusing on what he or she already know, and still find it pays.
After all there must be plenty of people looking for tax deduction ideas…
Very concerning post here. I agree with your statements. Honestly, if there were more SEO experts in the field I would think that they would have a better percentage of getting traffic to their blog than some I have heard complain of.
However, it may be like the ‘graphic design’ field as far as a career. I know so many graphic designers who say that the field is so flooded with people at the moment it is hard to get a job.
Still in the blogosphere, I agree that selling yourself comes on a new playing field than in the real world.
I could definitely see the use myself for a blog that provided tax tips, especially Australian ones. That could be the downside of it too, that tax tips will be too country specific, so won’t have the wide appeal and universal relevance of SEO etc.
Might be worth a shot though.
Guilty as charged with running a blog that touches upon SEO ;)
To be honest, when I started out, I started blank - I didn’t really know where to begin and what to blog on, you’ll be able to understand if I told you that the biggest difficulty then was to find a relevant tagline!
If you look at some of my earlier posts, they’re a mixed bag - a news post, a corporate post and such. But after a few posts under my belt, it suddenly came upon me as to what I was comfortable writing about - blogging and SEO, and so my tagline was modified to what it is now. I was *very* particular that I didn’t want a make money online blog though!
Excellent post, it really addresses the concern with more people jumping into the bandwagon since the entry level requirement is low, but what I feel is, three months is a good indicator to separate the wheat from the chaff - if a blog is live for 3 months, you can be relatively sure that the blogger really does it out of interest and can go on with it.
lol, was this a post in itself?! Sorry about hijacking the comment thread ;)
@ Bunk - that’s it - there’d only be a certain number of readers trying to work out which particular to read!
@ Steve - I reckon a reasonably broad tax advice blog could do well in a place like Australia… as I say you’d have to diversify a bit. Small business and personal tax deductions and refund advice - I think there’d be a fair few readers.
@ Karthik - good point about the three month barrier. I guess with so many blogs on a certain topic (not just SEO) makes me wonder how they can all stand out and gain a readership.