How Do I Know Which Kind of Blog to Create?
Jan 19
Today I’d like to take a minute and talk about different types of blogs. I feel like I’ve done it before, but it keeps coming up so I’m gonna do it again 
When people think of a blog they usually think of a site like this one. It is posted to regularly, on the same topic/niche and goes on and on and on. This definitely IS one type of blog, but there are others. Let’s see if we can get clear on what they are and how they may fit into your internet marketing strategy.
Micro Niche Sites
These are the smallest of the “blogs” and I wouldnt’ really consider this a blog per se other than the fact that it can be done on wordpress.org software.
A micro niche site can be as small as one page. When I say page I mean 1 post on the site (I’m not speaking literally of the “page” term in your dashboard. For this instance a page is considered a unique url, and each post has a unique url). These sites are generally very small with at most 5 pages.
A micro niche site generally targets one specific product and one specific keyword.
Here’s an example:
Fairy costumes (this is not my site but an excellent example of a micro niche site)
Because these sites are so small and target only one keyword/product the key to making money with them is doing lots and LOTS of them ~ like hundreds (not tens).
Niche Sites:
These are a little bigger than micro niche sites generally ranging from 5 to 15 pages. I would not really consider this type of site a blog either. It does not get updated and really the only thing that makes it a “blog” is that it’s built on wordpress.org software. These sites can target a one or a couple keywords, and products and are particularly good for adsense.
Here’s an example
Memory foam beds You can see each post targets information about 1 keyword. This site needs more links built and is not currently ranking very well ~ but still brings in some adsense money once in a while.
Again, because these are small sites targeting one keyword or product you need to do a bunch of these. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend on your keyword research there will always be some sites that just don’t get traction. You will probably end up making 80% of your money from 20% of your sites. If you only have 10 sites that’s not going to amount to much. This is a “rinse and repeat” strategy.
Niche Blogs:
These are kind of what we’re working on now. These are more like blogs because they have more posts, cover different topics and for a while have updated content. These blogs can have anywhere from 30 to 100 posts on them. How do you know how many it should have? Well it depends on how many keywords you can find, and how long you want to work on any given site.
Here’s an example of a niche site. It is about easy chicken recipes (I have YET to be able to really make much money off recipe sites ~ although there are people who say they do quite well with them ~ I’m not one of them) so all the posts relate somehow to easy chicken recipes.
Easy Chicken Recipes This site brings in about 50 to 100 pageviews a day. I make some amazon sales from it. It doesn’t have adsense because the clicks are only worth about a penny eash so it’s not really worth it. I had it on there for a while but people weren’t clicking and the clicks were worth so little it didn’t make sense to keep it.
While you have more pages, and more chances to get people to your site these niche blogs do have an endpoint, and are not meant to go on forever. This is another strategy where you will create multiple blogs and your success will depend on your ability to keep buildng and promoting these niche sites.
What if I don’t want to build a bunch of sites? Then what, is there something for me?
Authority Blogs
These are the big daddy one project per person type blogs. An authority blog takes time, love and commitment. I am more and more moving toward the authority blog strategy. This blog is an example of an authority blog. What do you need to excel with an authority blog?
1. Commitment
2. Passion for your topic
3. Commitment
4. Patience
5. Commitment
Are you getting my groove here? While I love authority blogging it is by NO means a quick and easy way to make money. I have been writing this blog since 2007. It has only been in the last 5 months that this site has gotten more than 50 page views a day. Did I give up this blog ~ many times. Did I neglect this blog? Many times. Did I always keep coming back because it’s what I love to do? yep.
Authority blogs give you the most leeway when it comes to monetization as well. You can monetize with just about anything and it will depend on your topic what you want to use. You can use affiliate products, adsense, your own products/services, sell ads, paid sponsors. The sky is the limit.
The key though with an authority blog is to create a community. You become a resource a place people can count on for information or whatever it is they are looking for. There are amazing authority blogs in any and every niche, so PLEASE don’t think as a beginner it’s a good idea to jump into an internet marketing blog. It’s difficult to earn the trust of your readers and I would go as far as to say it’s nearly impossible if you aren’t having some success yourself. So think about what it is you love in life and start a blog about that!!
Here’s some examples of fantastic authority blogs, directly from my feed reader.
No time for flash cards a resource of activities for young children that promote play, discovery and learning
Digital Photography School ~ you may be more familiar with Dan Rowse from ProBlogger but he also runs an amazing digital photography blog. Keep in mind Darren has a lot of people to help run his stuff now ~ I would not recommend trying to do two authority blogs at once.
Primal living (health and food) This blog is a great resource for those who are eating a paleo/primal diet. Tons of great information on this topic. (notice how he doesn’t take on ALL of health and nutrition ~ but one topic within this niche)
Zen Habits ~ Simple Productivity This is a great inspirational blog to read. I really enjoy it.
Nourishing Gourmet ~ another fantastic food blog that I regularly read.
As you can see you can create an authority blog about just about any topic! So please, if you’re thinking about doing this, stop thinking about doing it about internet marketing.
How do I choose? How do I know?
Here’s where it gets a bit tricky and confusing. Any blog/topic/niche could probably work in any one of these type of sites. This is especially true when you get to the last 3. How do you know if what you’re going to do should be a niche site, a niche blog or an authority blog?
I run into this question all the time in my own work. I start a micro niche site but then there’s so many keywords I’d like to target that it turns into a niche site. Then I start thinking well, hell if I’ve gone this far already I oughta just make it a niche blog, then I’m like, well I could just keep working on this over time and it could become an authority site.
It can completely work in the opposite direction as well. You create this kick ass list of keywords you plan to target for the next project. You’ve got plans for a niche blog and a list of 60 keywords to prove it. You get 5 posts in and are just not feeling it anymore. That’s ok.
While you may go into a project with one idea in mind it’s best to be flexible and keep your options open. You may find while you love a topic right this moment (or think you do) when it comes to writing about it and being involved in it every day you really don’t.
This happened to me with one of my sites a few years back. I was way into healthy natural pregnancy and started The Natural Pregnancy Project. I had huge plans to make it a global community for women to connect, learn and provide support for one another when it came to issues of pregnancy and childbirth. Well, a few months into the project I realized I just couldn’t sustain the focus it was going to take. So it is still there, and it still gets traffic and I still get questions from women, but I’m not actively working on it. (and I feel bad because it’s a much needed site and I just can’t do it)
There is going to be a natural evolution, not only within yourself, but within your business as you build sites, and get a feel for how it all works. You will learn what you do like and what you don’t like. You’ll find yourself actually taking action on the things you like to do. Feel free to rethink your strategy to incorporate more and more of the things you do like.
Please do not think the things you start doing today are the only things you can do. This is a beginning, and it is going to change as you learn and grow. If you want proof of this all you have to do is go deep into the archives (which aren’t very easy to find because they’re so bad) of this site! You will see I knew nothing back then and it shows. But I kept taking action, I got off track, I reevaluated and realigned my path and just kept taking action.
Don’t get stuck in the idea I’m doing this niche blog ~ it can’t be anything else, because it sure can turn into a niche site or even a micro niche site ~ hell it could turn into a kick ass authority site if that’s what you want it to be. This is your business, your life and your choices. It can be anything you want it to be.
Ok ~ I’m 1766 words into this post and I think it’s time to quit. I am really passionate about this subject (can you tell?) so if you have questions or something isn’t clear just ask in the comments and we’ll flush it out together
Keep taking action!
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Other Posts That Might Help:
Ahhh…fairy costumes. You’ve been listening to Brian Johnson? I learned a lot from him – although I did notice his fairy costume website isn’t even in the top 20 anymore.
Randal@cheap gaming computers´s last blog ..Best Gaming Computer
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Niche sites did extremely well until the mayday disaster. Now it takes a lot more content, a lot more time, and ton more links. This is fine with me since many people will simply give up; leaving more room for those of us who refuse to give up!
Kristi@green fairy costume´s last blog ..Fairy Wings Costume
Hi Jackie, Thanks again. Great post. I love your Chicken Recipes blog. I really have to get my act together here. I have too many blogs and I do too little with them. I’ll have to choose. I’ll add some to UAW, actually I did a few already I’ll add the others as well.
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As per your response to Chad, you’re welcome to guest post for me anytime after my move.
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I think it’s time for threaded comments.
Sorry, when I hit submit I thought it would be confusing. I didn’t mean to imply that micro/niche/authority were all the same, types of blogs, I simply meant that they were all in fact blogs…using blog software and such.
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Oh Chad ~ don’t get too excited. It’s not that big of a deal. More competition is usually ok with me when I’m doing an authority blog because eventually the blog will have its own authority to fall back on, and it’s a long term thing. Smaller the blog the smaller I like the competition for my keywords.
For my authority blog I would go more for building community/relationships instead of so much on building links (they end up being a byproduct of relationship building). I do more guest posting, forum stuff, community stuff ~ instead of just straight out link building.
It’s not all that different ~ you just have to keep in mind the PURPOSE of your site, and then work on it accordingly.
But we’ll get there all in good time.
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That is what I can’t wait to find out
What different tactics, keyword measures and promotional techniques!
Because the terms float around the internet and people seem to think because those terms are out there their blog must be one of them (and only one ~ and it has to be the one they thought it was going to be when they started lol). Nothing was mentioned here that I haven’t been emailed a question about at least twice.
And I don’t think they are the same. I use different tactics, different measures to decide on keywords, and different promotional techniques for each.
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Please don’t curse me, but I feel the need to interject a little here. The newbie coach in me has his eyes bulging out a little. lol
Although you’re right, on the outside, all the way around, I think you’re making things much more complicated then they need to be.
If it’s made with blogging software, it’s a blog, no matter the size; micro niche, niche, authority…all blogs. HTML static sites, are sites. Perhaps I’m missing something, but where is the need to break it down so much?
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“There is going to be a natural evolution, not only within yourself, but within your business as you build sites, and get a feel for how it all works. You will learn what you do like and what you don’t like. You’ll find yourself actually taking action on the things you like to do.”
Oh boy, this is so true… a couple of years ago when I had no idea what I was doing I set up a blog about WordPress and internet marketing – in Polish, my native language. It was my first website built using WordPress, I even translated Yaro’s Blog For Profit Blueprint and offered it as a free download to build a list. I abandoned the site fairly quickly (although I do plan to go back to it in the future; it ranks suprisingly well, and the list keeps getting bigger, too!). There were so many things I wanted to learn – keyword research, niche sites, Adsense, Clickbank, Ezinearticles, Squidoo, Hubpages, etc…. Dozens of WordPress sites and hundreds of pages later, I find myself setting up a site on the same subject – only now it’s in English. I learned TONS of stuff of in the processs, but now I really want to focus on what I love to do…
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Hey JennyLee!
Congrats to you! Nope it’s never too late to pick it up and bring it back to life.
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Jackie,
This post was very encouraging to me. I am also guilty of failing to post on my youth soccer blog, which I now realize is an authority blog. I am passionate about it, you’ve given me permission to catch up and move forward.
Thanks for your generous advice!
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Believe me Chad ~ you’re not the only one.
Next we’re going to work on getting traffic which is the next step before monetization.
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Great post Jackie and great way to sum up the different types of blogs. I have a sneaky feeling I may have been an inspiration for this post, as you know from me I started with the idea of doing 20-30 post for my site on the potty seats but realized that is may be a bunch of work for not much money and I am now heading to just a niche site.
I am loving the way you are setting this whole thing up, first we went over how to set up wordpress, plugin and themes, now we are onto content creation series which has been fantastic…so the question is when do we get onto setting up adsense, banners, etc to monetize the site
, can you tell I am getting excited!
I can only imagine the commitment to an authority blog! So glad you stuck to this one, hard to believe up until 5 months ago that you only had around 50 views a day.
Jackie thanks for going over and explaining each of these in detail.. Helps alot!
Great choice of topic. I have a blog that I started really just to link to another site but because it potentially can sell things I now feel “committed” to keep going with it. Your post made me see that I can just add a few more posts to make it seem complete and then drop it.
I’ve taken on too many projects for this year – I did plan carefully but a little too ambitiously! Bet that sounds familiar to some of your other readers!
I’m pulling back and concentrating more on the site that makes money. I figure it is easier to continue growing a site that is already fairly established.
Oh well – I guess plans need to be flexible!
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Sounds like it could be a plan Ingrid. Make sure you build links to the sites so they will get traffic. Once you’re ranking for the targeted keywords then it’s safe to move on to something else.
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Hi Jackie
Very informative post.
I have about 3 blogs which I started, however only have a few post on each of them. I want to take out the dates from the posts already there and use them as niche or mini niche sites instead of something bigger. I am not ready for the bigger stuff as yet. What do you think?
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Doug ~ congrats on getting your article approved. Big step! I think you’re talking about the easy link cloaker? Am I right? if so… it only works on your blog.
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Maya ~ sure you can start at blogger. Some of my favorite blogs are blogger blogs. That’s where I started as well.
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Thanks Jackie for the information. I’m kind of intimidated about starting a blog but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Is it ok to start with the free one at blogger.com?
Hi Jackie,
I finally got an article published at ezine articles! then I saw that I had the wrong url on the resource so it”s being resubmitted but heck it’s progress.
I wrote a blog for blogging, something I know next to nothing about but it seems there is plenty to write about, I have a few keywords and a few Clickbank products I have two more blogging articles in the hopper so this could go on for a time.
Thank you for your encouragement and kind heart.
( I used the Easy Hyperlinks software on the word blogging but it’s not lite up so I don’t know how to do a anchor text link in a post)
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Thanks Jackie for good old fashioned horse sense and common sense. Two commodities you have in abundance!
Mike
Thanks Jackie for sharing on blog creation. I am following Christmas Blueprint to start-off my Squidoo Lens and link to blog.
I had learned all this from you Jackie. Keep go good work and I hope to make something out of it… sure some money
Thank you Jackie
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Glad I could help.
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Thanks Jackie!
I needed to hear this today.
~Julie
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