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Personal Blog Subniches

Posted in Online by Bes on Apr 30, 2007

Personal blogs are everywhere. You probably run into personal blogs everyday where people talk about their daily lives. Majority of the personal blogs do not make any money, whereas a few personal blogs make more money than some offline jobs. Even though people are focusing more and more on writing about specific niches on the internet in order to make money, personal blogs are being overlooked unfairly as having any potential for growth.

In reality, personal blogs probably have the highest growth potential compared to almost any other blogging niche on the internet due to one simple fact: the personal blogging niche has not been categorized into smaller, more specialized personal blogging sub-niches, the way life is categorized into smaller thoughts and feelings everyday.

What are niches and subniches?

A niche is simply another word for specialization, or a specific category for something. For example, the newspaper industry is a category, and newspapers focusing on traffic in your city have a very specific niche, or specialization, in the broader, more general newspaper industry. Chris Garrett wrote an article on the concept of niches on Performancing back in 2005, which you may find interesting. You may also read a post by Anthony Baggett in which he talked about his site Antbag focusing on not focusing on a niche.

I am not sure if other people use the same word, but a “subniche” is a word I just came up with, while talking with Valerie, to express how someone can specialize within something that has already been assumed to be specialized in by other people.

By a subniche, I am simply referring to a subcategory within a broader category, which can be a niche. Many people consider a niche to be a very specific and a very targeted category of something. In my view, however, as the blogging world starts to mature further, we need to start focusing on targets within targets, and subcategories within categories. Thus, in my view, a subniche is a specific niche within a niche.

Personal blogging niche is the most crowded, yet one of the most underdeveloped blogging niches on the internet

The personal blogging arena is one of the most under-developed blogging niches on the internet. The personal blogging market has without much doubt become very crowded, but personal bloggers are not yet specializing in specific personal blogging subcategories. Sure, we can read all sorts of personal posts ranging from cats attacking their owners to bloggers using their keyboards to play baseball. However, most of such personal blog posts are random. They move from one topic to another, trying their best to be the perfect examples of a personal blog:

Since a personal life has a lot of random things happening every minute, why can personal blogs not focus on everything at the same time, all the time?

That very question is the reason there are too many general personal blogs on the internet today, since many people think that personal bloggers do not have to follow any rules or guidelines, and can simply post whatever they wish, whenever they wish and however they wish. That same question is also the reason personal blogs have yet to mature into more specific and specialized forms.

Many, if not most, personal blogs are too random

Majority of the personal blogs today are too general in their writing. Personal blogging is thought by many to have no clear focus because of the misunderstanding that personal blogs must treat personal lives as being too big and general. Personal bloggers have yet to stake claims in different types of personal blogs. If you look deep enough, you will realize that the personal blogging niche can be broken down into dozens, of not hundreds, of sub-topics or subniches that different personal bloggers can choose from to focus on.

Bes Z’s 7 Types of Personal Blogging Subniches

To give you an example of what I mean by personal blogging subniches, I present to you the following 7 subcategories of the main personal blogging niche that need to be developed and specialized further in my view. I came up with the different subniche names to help you remember what each subniche is all about.

  1. Personal Emotions Blogging

    Emotional blogging, or Emo blogging, usually revolves around emotions. Personal Emotional Bloggers talk about emotions they feel daily due to different things. This is a very specific niche where people talk about emotions they feel daily due to all sorts of random things. This can be divided further into smaller categories, where different emotions are categorized based on things that trigger such emotions.

  2. Personal Criticism Blogging

    This is the kind of personal blog where a blogger critically analyzes different things and probably criticizes things. Personal Criticism Bloggers may even be critical of their own actions, feelings and emotions, and will explain such criticisms in their criticizing posts. People in such a subniche may focus simply on criticizing things they run into in their daily lives, including their own selves.

  3. Personal Positive/Negative Blogging

    These kinds of personal blogs focus on the positive and negative things that are seen in daily lives. Personal Positive/Negative Bloggers do not need to criticize things, though they can talk specifically about things they like and things they do not like. Again, this is a very specific niche that needs to be specialized in.

  4. Personal Relationships blogging

    This can be a big separate category on its own. Many personal bloggers talk about relationships in their lives. Such relationships range from dating relationships to relationships with parents, and even business relationships. This subcategory of life, relationships with others, can be specialized in very easily by many personal bloggers who already post a lot about their analysis of the relationships they observe and the relationships they themselves run into daily. A Personal Relationships Blogger may even devote their entire blog to one specific relationship, like relationship with their child, a parent, a sibling, a spouse, or even a friendly relationship with a specific neighbor.

  5. Personal Moods blogging

    Many people go through mood swings every hour of the day, and my recent series on moody signs of moody people may have shed some more light on the topic for you. Personal Moods Bloggers can specialize on moody blogging, where they either blog about their mood swings, or they blog because of their mood swings. I think this can be one of the most random type of blogging types out there, as such bloggers can change the entire focus of their blogs based on their moods.

    While many personal blogs today talk about random things because of feeling the need to write such things on specific days, you should know that Personal Moods Blogs will be different than the usual types of blogs we see today, as Personal Mood Blogs depend solely on the mood swings and revolve around the mood swings and talk about mood swings as being influential, whereas today’s blogs simply post random stuff because of feeling different everyday. A Personal Moods Blogger specifically outlines the mood swings that cause different blog posts to be written.

  6. Personal Feelings Blogging

    Feelings blogs can usually revolved around 2 specific feelings: happy feelings and unhappy feelings. Personal bloggers can also specialize in confused feelings if they wish. Personal Feelings Bloggers can talk either about the things that made them happy unhappy, or confused, or the things that happened because of the bloggers feeling happy or unhappy, or even confused. The same way Personal Moods Bloggers rely on moods to run and revolve their blogs around and explain the moods behind their posts, Personal Feelings Bloggers run and revolve their blogs around feelings, and actually cite those feelings so that readers can know which happy, unhappy or even confusing feelings caused which actions or blog posts to be written, and why.

  7. General/Random Personal Blogging

    This is the type of personal blogs you see today. General or Random Personal Bloggers can blog about anything, as they try to cover the concept of personal blogs in general and in depth while at the same time covering everything in their lives that they can. Thus, many of the personal bloggers you see today could continue to blog about personal things, since that would become a specialty of its own.

Those are 7 of the many other Personal Blogging Subniches that can be developed further by personal bloggers. Since the very concept of a personal daily life is probably unique to almost every blogger, the possibilities are endless when it comes to creating a subniche within the main personal blogging category.

Life is full of different things. Personal blogs should also specialize in different personal things instead of not specializing in anything.

The fact that life itself is full of random things when analyzed with care makes many personal bloggers forget the fact that life is divided into smaller parts, and that personal blogs can also be divided into smaller parts with each part dealing with a specific part of life. There is a lot of potential for specialization and categorization within the main personal blogging niche.

The personal blogging niche is far from being crowded, because of the possibilities of having personal blogging subniches. In fact, I think the personal blogging niche has the highest growth potential than any other type of blogging niche, because it focuses on life. Life itself probably has no boundaries other than death, and many would argue that even death is not a sign of a limitation of life. Why, then, should personal blogs focus on life with only one perspective, the general perspective, when personal blogs can instead focus on life in depth by talking about specific and different things?

Wait! What about people who think personal blogging is not a niche at all?!

Of course, many people still say that personal blogs are not niches at all, that they are too general or boring to have any kind of a niche. For such people, the very concept of having subniches within the personal blogging niche may have sounded weird throughout this article. Many people take the fact that some prominent bloggers got their blogging ideas from their personal blogging, like Darren Rowse talking about getting an idea for a niche from his personal blog, to assume that personal blogs are not niches. Personal blogs are niches. Making money from niches is a completely different topic and issue to pursue, and should not be confused with the concept of what niches are, and how and why personal blogs are niches.

I am working on an article, to be published soon, that talks about the reasons why and how personal blogging is definitely a niche.

Thank you, and please let me know what you think!

Please let me know what you think of this article, and about the 7 different subniches I mentioned. Also, please let me know whether or not you agree that personal blogging is itself a niche. Thank you for reading. Smile

 

[View academic citations to cite this article]
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AMA citation:
Zain B. Personal Blog Subniches. The Reasoner. 2007. Available at: http://thereasoner.com/articles/online/personal-blog-subniches. Accessed July 4, 2009.
APA citation:
Zain, Bes. (2007). Personal Blog Subniches. Retrieved July 4, 2009, from The Reasoner Web site: http://thereasoner.com/articles/online/personal-blog-subniches
Chicago citation:
Zain, Bes. 2007. Personal Blog Subniches. The Reasoner. http://thereasoner.com/articles/online/personal-blog-subniches (accessed July 4, 2009).
Harvard citation:
Zain, B 2007, Personal Blog Subniches, The Reasoner. Retrieved July 4, 2009, from <http://thereasoner.com/articles/online/personal-blog-subniches>
MLA citation:
Zain, Bes. "Personal Blog Subniches." 30 Apr. 2007. The Reasoner. Accessed 4 Jul. 2009. <http://thereasoner.com/articles/online/personal-blog-subniches>
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Tags: blog, blogger, blogging, list, niche, Online, personal life, personal-blogging, subniches




11 Comments to “ Personal Blog Subniches .” Please leave a comment below, thank you.


  1. # 1
    inspirationbitNo Gravatar
    :
    ( April 30th, 2007 at 9:34 pm )

    I have a question to you: What’s the difference between “Personal Emotions Blogging” and “Personal Feelings Blogging”?

    Isn’t it true that an emotion is a very intense feeling?
    I’m just wondering why did you separate the two? Couldn’t it be a subniche with two sub-subniches? Smile

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  2. # 2
    BesNo Gravatar
    Find/Add me at these places: Flickr | MySpace | Twitter :
    ( May 1st, 2007 at 12:36 am )

    Good question. The feelings I was aiming for are the feelings we feel due to different things. “I don’t feel good” after eating something cold like ice cream can be a feeling, while crying after being yelled at by a boy/girlfriend in public can be an emotion due to feeling bad because of the embarrassment.

    Does that make sense, or am I being even more confusing? Maybe I’m being a Personal Confusion/Confusing Blogger, confusing myself because of being a confused individual due to a confusing comment explanation by me as a confusing answer to your question. 0_0

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  3. # 3
    AnthonyNo Gravatar
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    ( May 1st, 2007 at 12:47 am )

    Wow! I’ve never really thought about a personal blog being a niche in and of itself, much less having sub-niches. You’ve got me thinking!

    Thanks for the mention.

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  4. # 4
    inspirationbitNo Gravatar
    :
    ( May 1st, 2007 at 12:54 am )

    hmm… well if the first paragraph in your comment-reply was as clear as water, the second one was as clear as mud. Smile

    I think I see your point though… or did I? now I can’t really tell - I’m confused by the mighty Confusing Blogger Smile

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  5. # 5
    BesNo Gravatar
    Find/Add me at these places: Flickr | MySpace | Twitter :
    ( May 1st, 2007 at 1:43 am )

    Anthony, thanks for coming here and commenting. I really appreciate it. Smile

    I am glad that the post sort of inspired you into thinking about the topic. Your post was really interesting; many people these days drool because of the “big guys” preaching them to focus on a niche, and you actually talk about focusing on enjoying the whole experience instead of stressing out over a niche. That is a very good thing to focus on, in my view!

    Thanks again. Smile

    Vivien-inspirationbit, thanks for reply Vivien! Smile haha, that is interesting. I guess I should add that quality to the list of Personal Blog Subniches and call it the 8th Personal Blogging Subniche: Personal Confusion Blogging Grin.

    I hope you see my point. Smile Feelings vs. Emotions - feelings are what you decide on or usually perceive, whereas emotions can happen naturally, even if you do not want to have an emotion.

    Am I being really confusing? 0_0

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  6. # 6
    green teaNo Gravatar
    :
    ( May 1st, 2007 at 8:42 am )

    You bring up a great point here. I personally agree that personal blogs have a lot more potential, and are often under-rated.

    Good stuff. Thanks!

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  7. # 7
    BesNo Gravatar
    Find/Add me at these places: Flickr | MySpace | Twitter :
    ( May 1st, 2007 at 1:03 pm )

    Green Tea, thanks for your opinion on this. You use a really effective word to describe personal blogs: “under-rated.” That is what personal blogs are, compared to other types of blogs on the internet.

    Thanks for stopping by! I am hoping to see more comments from you around the site. Smile Thanks again.

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  8. # 8
    Joseph singletonNo Gravatar
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    ( March 5th, 2009 at 5:35 am )

    Great job you did here. You have categorized all types of personal blogs. For me a personal blog is still is a personal blog whether it is a mood type of blog or whatever. It could get more confusing with all the subniches.

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  9. # 9
    Julie AnnNo Gravatar
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    ( March 23rd, 2009 at 8:48 pm )

    Your personal blog really good and I am really interested reading personal blogs.

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  10. What others are saying about this article elsewhere

    1. Question: Do you prefer non-personal blogs over personal blogs? at The Reasoner says:
      July 14, 2007 at 3:10 pm

      [...] are given preference over business or non-personal attitudes. I also recently talked about how personal blogs can and should have subniches, something which has not yet been done effectively because many people still think personal [...]

      Reply
    2. Personal Blog Subniches « Blogs says:
      October 31, 2007 at 7:26 pm

      [...] read more | digg story [...]

      Reply

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