Should You Specialize or Generalize Your Blog?

Conventional wisdom in the blogosphere says to pick a theme for your blog and stick with it. For bloggers with more than one interest, this usually means operating multiple blogs. Proponents of this theory say that too many topics will confuse your readers.

As usual, I hold the contrarian view on this topic. I think you’re better off with one blog that encapsulates all of your passions than you are with five separate ones. Here’s why:

Keeps it Interesting

To be honest, I get bored reading blogs that publish on the same topics over and over. I like to be surprised with information that I wasn’t necessarily looking for, but needed to know. When a blog gets too predictable, I tend to tune it out.

People think that my approach confuses a blog’s readership, but I find the opposite to be true. In my experience, if I have one thing in common with a person, I tend to have a lot in common with that person.

I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve received from readers who wrote to tell me how much they have in common with me. For example, they might share my love for passive income, bulk vending, guitar, and blogging. It might seem like such a coincidence to have this much in common with one person, but people of the same personality types tend to be attracted to the same activities.

If I had five different blogs, these people would never realize how much they had in common with me, and might even become disinterested.

Presents Your Full Brand

The internet has ushered in so many changes. One of my favorites is the move from company branding to individual branding.

Ten years ago, your professional identity was most likely associated with the company you worked for. When you handed out a business card, you probably gave out a card with your employer’s logo.

In today’s world, your professional identity is increasingly becoming your individual brand. As independent contracting becomes more the norm and people change careers at a faster and faster rate, the smart thing to do is to build a brand for yourself.

For example, my brand is Genius Types. When I make a business connection, I hand the person a card with a Genius Types logo and my blog address. No matter what type of business I am conducting (film, internet, vending, etc.), I send them to one place: GeniusTypes.com.

If I had to carry around five different business cards in my pocket, my brand would be diluted. I want people to see the full scope of my skills, interests, and capabilities when they look me up. If they are only seeing a fifth of my portfolio, they are not getting a clear picture of who I am.

Plus, I could be missing out on an unexpected connection. Someone might find out about me because of my interest in bulk vending, but after seeing my website, they might also learn that I’m an independent film producer. That connection could lead to an opportunity that I would have missed if my interests were spread out.

Long-Tail Marketing

Long-tail is one of the great new buzz words floating around cyberspace. It refers to the reason companies like Amazon.com and NetFlix have achieved such great success on the internet.

These companies are not making their treasure by offering the most popular books and DVD’s on the market. They get the overwhelming majority of their sales from obscure titles that no one else has. These companies are not successful because they specialize, they’re successful because they generalize.

Fortunately for us, blogs are naturally optimized for long-tail marketing because they give us the ability to constantly add new content while archiving the old. This means that every time you write about a new topic, you are opening the door to search-engine hits on that topic to add to your current arsenal of search engine keywords.

If you’re only writing about one topic, you aren’t taking advantage of this strength. If you keep hashing the same keywords over and over, you might own that keyword, but that’s all you’ll own.

I’d rather have a thousand different entry points and keywords to my site that one really strong one.

Synergy

Something happens when all of your energy is focused on one blog instead of diluted on several. The most obvious difference is that you’ll be able to post at a higher frequency.

Frequency is one of the most important factors in building an audience. You’ll be able to attract more readers to a blog that posts once a day than you will with five blogs combined that post once a week.

Plus, a certain synergy exists when all of your different writing is showcased together. The different articles are like different pieces of a puzzle that come together to reveal who you are. It’s the interaction of the articles that paints the whole picture.

Have Enough Consistency to Keep People Interested

As with most things, balance is the key. You need to be consistent enough to keep people interested. It’s probably not a good idea to write about a completely different topic every time without revisiting an old topic. The best strategy is to pick a handful of general topics and rotate your writing within each of these topics. For example, I don’t write about passive income every day, but I do about once a week.