The One Iron Law of Blogging

Posted: 25 Jun 2012 06:15 AM PDT

When it comes down to it, if you want to build a popular blog, there are very few “rules” to follow.

Really, there is only one rule.

That’s the “Iron Law of Blogging”, and it can’t be broken, otherwise you’ll end up with a deserted collection of information that you meekly call a “blog”.

Today, you’re going to find out what that rule is, and how you can abide by it… while still adding you.

The Iron Law

This "iron law" is cold, hard, and unforgiving – ignore it, and you will fail.

So what is it?

I think this quote from Marc Andreesen, a venture capitalist and founder of Netscape states it well:

Market matters most; neither a stellar team nor fantastic product will redeem a bad market. Markets that don't exist don't care how smart you are.

Or, in other words…

Your blog's success is completely dependent on people actually wanting to read what you write about.

If there just isn’t enough people in your market, that’s the end of the line right there: it doesn’t matter how good of a writer you are, and it doesn’t matter how amazing your content is.

Henneke Duistermaat calls this the Sin Of Originality in his guest post on Jon Morrow’s blog, and I think it’s an apt title for what I hold as the “Iron Law”.

He continues with this great metaphor:

You write, and write, and write, and nobody pays you any attention, not because your writing is bad, necessarily, but because there is a lack of demand. Yes, your content is great, but there just aren't that many people interested in reading about it.

Essentially, you've created the world's greatest asparagus restaurant. Maybe you have one or two regulars who are asparagus freaks, but the rest of the world would rather go get some pizza. So, your restaurant (or blog) is empty.

The truth: the originality and creativity that you can bring to a topic will only serve to aid you if the audience is ALREADY THERE.

Just take a look at a blogger like Mars Dorian.

He uses comics and amazingly done illustrations to discuss business and life advice from a really unique perspective.

The thing is, as original as his blog content is, he’s still in a market that people want to read about.

If he had started a blog about extreme ironing (before you even ask, yes, that’s real), he could have somehow made his comics twice as good and it still wouldn’t matter: there wouldn’t be a large enough people interested in his topic to get on board and appreciate his creativity.

When to “Niche it Down”

The thing that gets most people tripped up is that lots of marketers tell them to “niche it down” in order to succeed.

The thing that many people miss here is that this subset that you’ve chosen needs to have two things:

It needs to be apart of a much more popular broad genre
It needs to be suitable to run a blog about

Let’s take a look at an example…

I run a blog called Sophistefunk, which is about electronic music.

Even though that’s a specific niche, it’s part of a much larger niche in “music”.

Additionally, I knew the audience was there for this sub-niche of mine.

How?

There were already a few competitors.

You may think competition is a bad thing, but competition actually helps you solve your biggest blog (and business!) problem: finding out if people want your offer.

Restaurants are one of the toughest ‘brick-and-mortar’ businesses to get into, but at least we all know that restaurants in general are needed; people like to go out and eat.

However, before we can just go out and start any ol’ restaurant, we have to make sure the demand is there for the creativity we’re about to add: we know restaurants are popular, but that doesn’t mean that an asparagus restaurant is going to do well.

For bloggers, this begs the question: how can you tell?

For starters, I recommend you read this post by Jon Morrow on the 21 Warning Signs that You Chose the Wrong Blog Topic.

He recommends checking for things like the following:

Other blogs! (specifically, other popular blogs in your niche. If there isn’t any, that is a bad sign…)
Books written about your topic, search for them on Amazon
Advertisers (are there things to sell for your topic?)
Are there any large publications (magazines, newsletters, etc.) on the topic?

If you find a “wide open field”, you may be on the road less traveled… but it may be less traveled for a reason.

The other thing you need to consider is does your topic make for a good blog?

Not every audience building endeavor (or online business in general) has focus around a blog (although blogs benefit nearly all businesses)

The internet is a great place to create audiences in other ways, like the top YouTubers have done.

Blogs are great because they can serve as a “litmus test” before developing a full product.

What you need to consider though, is would people be interested in reading about whatever your topic is in blog form.

Plenty of people enjoying hang-gliding, but do you know any hang-gliding blogs specifically?

Probably not, but you might know a few “adventure” type blogs, which include stories of hang-gliding trips in exotic locals.

The point in all that rambling: make sure you don’t get too laser focused, and that you don’t pick a topic that will have a limited reach.

Take a look at the topics that are already doing well (more “competition” means more people that can link to you!) and try to find a way to insert you into your unique selling proposition.

Feel free to put your spin on things, but don’t ruin your chances by trying to break the iron law of blogging.

Over To You…

So, now that you’ve made it to the end, I’ve got 3 things for you to do…

Tell me what the “broad” topic of your blog is.
Tell me about your unique spin on that topic: how are you going to own it by standing out?
Since you took the time to read my content, you also might enjoy my very awesome and very free e-Book on conversion psychology.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the comments!

Gregory Ciotti is the founder of Sparring Mind and a regular DailyBlogTips columnist. Download his free e-Book on ‘conversion psychology’.

Original Post: The One Iron Law of Blogging

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