I Don’t Really Care About Having a Niche/Being an Expert

Because blogging “rules” honestly suck.

If you look up any info on how to start a blog, you’ll be inundated with the idea that you should have a niche or be an expert in a certain area to be able to monopolize on specific traffic and eliminate the competition of other bloggers existing.

Well I’ll calling bull.

Which, I’m sure, all the blogging experts would agree is a bad idea.

If you don’t set limits to what you write about, then you write about wherever your current interests lie and allegedly there’s just no sustainable market for that type of blogging.

And to that I say – so what?

If your only objective is to make money from a blogging adventure in all the ways that people have made money before then sure. Follow all that limiting advice and oddly specific criteria that has been laid out on 10,000 other websites all vying for the same clicks from people interested in starting or growing a blog. (Which, to be honest, seems a little weird to me that people who blog about blogging – the most profitable topic to make money from – would all give the same advice.)

And sure, as always, there are times where I can see the rules of having a niche or being an expert would apply. If you’re an entomologist who wants to share the scientific work you’re doing in a certain region then hey, look at that – niche problem solved and also very applicable.

But what if, like me, you’re just someone who wants to write? You want to try a few different hats on for size and see what sticks? You want to put yourself out there, write things that maybe no one will ever read and things that will blow up and become viral? You’re supposed to limit yourself because some blogging website told you to?

Nah, that just doesn’t sit right for me and my rebellious, experimental heart.

At no other point in my life have I felt like the rules that govern other people are also the rules that govern me. (Sounds a little like I’m delusional, I know.) I’m a perpetual child who’s always learning the lesson I’m just like everyone else, I guess.

Go ahead and look down on me from your pedestal way up there. But while I’m down here, learning and growing and actually working to change the world, I’m not going to limit myself more than I’m already limited by being contained in a human a body in this dimension.

Do you think anyone who has ever accomplished ANYTHING lived their lives within limitations?

Cuz I sure don’t.

I’ve seen enough biopics and read enough books to know that the best adventures are written OUTSIDE of the rules we think govern us.

Outside of the conventions we are taught and the naysayers who preach to us that “this is just the way things work.”

I’m not saying they are wrong. But they are only right about what works, for now. They preach the limits that exist currently. The future hasn’t been written in stone and I’m not going to sit idly by and believe myself to be less worthy than someone who’s deemed more niche or more of an expert than me at writing or expression just because some blogging advice on the internet says so.

If you’re in the same boat, or you’re someone who has wanted to start a blog but all the advice you read says stuff about having a niche or being an expert, screw it. Start one anyway.

I recently asked my husband what my “niche” is because he claimed that I had one. He told me it was “Potpourri”. You know, a collection of all the things we like to make something smell good. Well, last I checked there’s always room for more potpourri scents in the world. So if you’re ready to start experimenting with your own flavors, flowers, and spices, I cordially invite you to join me out here. The water is fine!