narrow focus? good or bad?

[duncan]

Hello.

I'm a fairly new blogger, so hopefully those of you who've made similar decisions before can help me out.

Basically I'm wondering whether I should narrow my focus or not.
my blog is www.cruelgeography.com

I started off not really sure where my blog was going to go, but going by the write what you know theory, It's developed in 2 different areas.

Mainly, Toronto FC, MLS and Canadian soccer, and then also Darlington, and lower league/non league english stuff.

The Toronto/canada stuff gets more readers and is definitely going to be my main focus, but I'm debating whether I should keep going with the english stuff as well, or split it up.

Is a single narrow focus a good thing, ie would the english stuff be disssuading people who come for the toronto stuff to come back? Or does it not have much effect? will people from either side keep coming back anyway, and either ignore the other stuff or actually find it slightly interesting.

If any of you have made similar decisions, how did it play out?

Hopefully all that makes sense, cheers for your time and advice.

[Ian]

Everybody, I think, finds their own niche in the end. This is probably something for the guys that write more specialised sites than mine, but the football market is so over-saturated now that any new site is going to need some sort of hook (whether that is being related to a specific club, a specific aspect of the game or whatever) if it is going to continue in the long run. As somebody that has covered the very specific and the very general, I can say with a degree of certainty that there is nothing too specialised for there to be an audience for.

[footballhobo]

I was thinking of starting a thread on this very subject - do you need a niche? It's easy to attract a certain audience if they know what they're getting when they come to your site, otherwise it's quite hard to be heard above a sea of sameyness. The likes of the non-league blogs, EFW, Les Rosbifs, the72, etc know their target audience and only deal with a certain subject.

I know that I don't bother reading much in the way of Premier League previews/weekend reviews on blog sites, for instance, because chances are I've already seen the game and possibly read one or two match reports through the traditional media. Someone would really have to stand out in their analysis, style or content to make me spend much time on their site on any sort of regular basis.

If you do a deal of general reportage, it probably helps to have some sort of 'theme' to some of your posts, whether it's regularly doing Best XIs, or something like Ghostgoal's "My favourite..." series. Not only does it help to give you something to write about, it can develop a following.

God knows what my niche is going to be, but I guess that's for me to find out.

[unprofessionalfoul]

I think niches help when you're trying to find your voice, but I find that the voice and opinion, regardless of the topic under discussion, is what always brings me back to a site time and time again.

[9men]

Whilst my focus is on Dagenham, I have written about other matters in the past such as England, the Football League etc.

Whilst my "core" regular following is reliant on producing interesting Daggers stuff, the odd piece on other matters does bring in a batch of new visitors. For example my last piece about England brought in far more hits than any other single article, but the interest wasn't sustained.

So I think it is best to strike a balance.

[lanternerouge]

I certainly enjoy your blog a lot Duncan. It's a platitude but as long as you are enjoying it, then I don't think a focus is that important - you write well (we were delighted to have a guest contribution from you recently). Few of us are in this to make money and I think the Toronto/Darlo twin themes make for a quirky combination.

[duncan]

Thanks for the replies, and for the kind words lanternerouge.

I swing back and forth on this issue, and it generally depends on how seriously I'm taking things. Most of the time, i'm very comfortable with the mix that I have, mainly because, f**k it, it's my blog, and it's what I'm interested in, and hey this isn't ever going to be a big thing so no worries. Also in my more ridiculous day dreamy moments, I imagine a small but devoted following of Darlo in Toronto and vice versa due to exposure of one to the other through my blog.

Like people have said, I guess a niche will make itself obvious eventually, or not i suppose. either way, way too soon for me to worry too much about it.

[mirkobolesan]

I used to worry that my blog was too broad, or not focused enough. Then I remembered I only really do the blog for a laugh and that I'm really writing for myself rather than other people.

In an ideal world your blog should probably be focused on one subject, it means that readers come back to read the stuff that brought them to the blog in the first place. However, if you feel like you can't write about stuff you'd like to - -- well, that's not particularly fun is it?

[lesrosbifs]

just want to say I never entered into this blog lark with any idea of a target audience or anything like that. It all began on a whim when I met an English lad in Spain who played there. I couldn't find anything about him so decided to dig really deep. One thing led to another...

So yeah, it may be a niche. But I only wanted to document an interest I had. No idea of my audience, target audience, etc!

[the72]

When I started The Seventy Two, it was purely because I genuinely find the Championship, League One and League Two more interesting than the Premier League. I didn't realise The Two Unfortunates already existed but we do very different things and tend to co-habit extremely well!

You definitely get traffic from being a niche site and it helps to focus your blog posts. Personally I think if you don't pick a particular area of football to cover then you run the risk of ending up with a hotch-potch site of random stuff which won't get people to come back again and again. The only way of doing this well is obviously to make sure your content is so good that the fun of it is wondering what on earth will crop up next (e.g. In Bed With Maradona).

There are downsides to having a niche site. I sometimes very cynically wonder whether people FF my twitter account just as a way of saying they don't ignore the Football League as opposed to the Premier League/La Liga/ Champions League etc - but don't actually read the site.

It also means that some people just aren't interested (some of Twitter's big hitters would never read a post about Oldham Athletic, for example, no matter how interesting or well-written it was).

The biggest downside to start with has in fact become my favourite thing about blogging. I've had ideas to write things before that haven't been suitable for The 72 and it used to frustrate me that I had to try to write something about League One instead if I hadn't covered it for a while and certainly if I hadn't seen a game recently.

Nowadays, though, if I want to write about something else, I just send it to another blog. Like a lot of you, I've had stuff on loads of different sites (EFW, Les Rosbifs, Equaliser, IBWM being the four that spring to mind most).

And I've been extremely fortunate to feature some superb guest posts (especially recently) on League One and League Two - from fans of Oldham, Peterborough, Northampton etc - to make sure they're covered too.

I love niche sites. My overall view of football blogging is for every niche to be covered eventually - so if you want to read something about Brazil you go to Snap Kaka and Pop, for example. If you want info on an English player abroad, you go to Les Rosbifs. If you want to read a detailed post about a club's finances, you go to Swiss Ramble. It all meshes together very nicely in my opinion.

Anyway, sorry for rambling on!

[dolphinhotel]

Agree with everything above. I don't think it's so much how many different things you cover that's important. Rather, it's how well you actually do it. I'd still read Les Rosbifs if he was writing about Leicester City or The72 on Jamie Cureton's problems in South Korea. What stops me reading blogs is when people write badly about things they don't know anything about.

[ghostgoal]

interesting debate.

i think i agree with steve aka mirkobolesan on the whole - all of us started writing about football because we enjoy it at the end of the day. it would be a shame if anyone felt they couldnt give an opinion about something on their own blog just because it didnt fit the theme - it's your blog.

but david (72) is right - the great thing about twitter and indeed a forum like this is that we all get to know each other and can post on each other's sites if needs be.

ultimately duncan, with blogging how it is now i think you probably can have your cake and eat it.

adam

[Ian]

I have no focus whatsoever, either literally or metaphorically.

[ryanhubbard]

Although I have a blog, It tends to get neglected. I have my "Los Revolucionarios" blog which is solely for my art project, but if I have something to write about I find it will be read by more people if it is posted on one of the bigger sites (IBWM and The72 spring to mind).

I find that this works best for me as I tend not to write all of the time, and what I do write about can be covered by one of the big sites.

However if you're writing quite a lot, I think a blog is a necessity. The Canadian side seems to be your niche, and there are numerous sites that could cover your lower league writing urges.

If you're really adventurous, maybe two separate blogs could be the way forward.