Is it the Atkins Diet – loaded with protein and fat; or is it the Jenny Craig diet –processed and prepared for you; or is it the Weight Watchers diet—counting points and tracking; or is it the New Year’s diet—gung ho for a short while and then loses its momentum?
Blogging, just like dieting, takes dedication, diligence, planning, and follow-through. It takes an open mind to change habits and give a new perspective on the same old thing. It takes time, a lot of time, to build an audience and keep them coming back for more. It can be frustrating and a huge let down if you watch the numbers daily. Just like weight loss, it is not all about the scale and blogging can’t be all about the numbers either.
- Atkins Diet – A blog full of protein and low carbs can leave you craving something sweet. Is your content full of facts and no personality? Does it leave the reader craving something more?
- Jenny Craig – Restricted and only their processed and boxed food. Is your blog strictly about your own niche? Does it leave your audience with just specific lists of someone else’s ideas or do you interject your own personality and choices into your posts?
- Weight Watchers – Lots of Counting and Tracking. Do you spend a huge amount of time counting and tracking your stats? Does your writing shoot more for the numbers than the quality of your content.
- New Year’s Diet – Does your blog and your content start out with a bang and then lose momentum, leaving you scrambling for motivation? Build your blog, with your unique writing style and quality content will win the readership and grow your blog more successfully than going all out and losing its stamina too soon.
A blog needs nurturing and self-care just like a plan to lose weight. Sticking within your niche can be just like some diets. Restrictive! Yes, write content geared toward your niche, your passion but explore other “niches” to truly make your blog grow.
A healthy diet is a balanced diet. Choices from all the different food groups, stepping out of your comfort zone, building relationships-including a few with some not-so-like-minded people who push you to view things differently and determining what you like, what you don’t, what works and what doesn’t, for you.
A healthy blog is a balanced blog
Choices from all the different niches, stepping out of your comfort zone of expertise, building relationships with bloggers who know about things you never experienced, taking that lesser known niche and putting it into your own perspective and own style will give your readers a treat, a new experience, a whole new way of looking at things and spice it up a little.
Do you judge a blog by its niche or its platform? Choosing a passionate topic for your writing is a key element to blogging. That said, exploring, following, and learning from a different niche can change your blogging lifestyle. It’s like eating from all the food groups. Filling up on the fruit and vegetables, but allowing for the meat and potatoes once in awhile.
Make your blog a special treat for your readers
Make it the icing on the cake once in awhile. Step outside your niche for a couple of days and come back to your balanced diet of your own niche. It will give you a new perspective and a new motivation for your blog. It will give you an open mind and give your readers something other than the same old topics that they can read from any other blog in your niche.
Diets, just like blogs, come in many forms . Let your blog be the one that gives them their cake and they can eat it too.
A well balanced blog, with a little cake thrown in as a treat, will reward you. You will reach an audience that may not have come to your regular meal plan but certainly will come for dessert! In the end, the numbers will reward you.
A guest post by Julie Hubert. Read more from Julie at Big Girl Bombshell and We’re Not in Oz Any More. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.
Image by Mr. Kris.
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{ 16 comments }
What a great analogy! It’s a lot of fun to see your imagination work while still providing very valuable content to your readers.
Thanks!
Ana
It definitely is all about balance! I loved the analogy and can certainly think on some blogs that are on a diet.
Love that analogy! It’s tough to find creative posts about blogging these days, so I’m thankful that Lisa from 2createawebsite tweeted this out!
this is a great analogy that will get people thinking about their blog. People get so focused on the numbers and linkbait that they forget why they started blogging and what they loved about it when they started. I tell clients to create a blog that they would want to read and that is is exceptional that people want to share it. Grow with the blog and along the way they will develop relationships with people.
Getting out of your comfort zone is great advice as so many tend to form a wall around them to only read industry blogs and forget their own interests. Balance is also key as you have to write great stuff but regurgitating the same stuff over and over is not going to give readers a full idea of who are and why you are blogging.
Perfect way to get people thinking about their blog.
@SuzanneVara
Very interesting and refreshing post. I like the part where you stressed that although you write about topics which many bloggers also write about, you can make your posts stand out by adding your own unique personality to them. Adding your own experiences related to the topic would also endear you to your visitors.
I also like the idea of providing readers with a relatively different post from time to time.
This is very good technique that you’ve explained. I’ve read so many blogs but your blog is absolutely different. It’s most necessary to analyze visitors or tracking, everything.
What a nutritious post
I think it’s true that you should vary a lot. Having potatoes every day keeps everyone where. Varying with content, while adding a few gallons of your “remarkable” personality will turn everything juicy and tasty.
That’s a good analogy linking the blog contents with quality of diet. I think everyone likes a fresh and well balanced diet for blogs to read and digest.
I have one fat blog
This was entertaining to read because I suck at being on a diet. Let’s just hope blogging goes better
Great post and great analogies! Make fun of, offend, bring value, be consistent, make laugh but never, ever bore your readers. That, along with having a “balanced” blog just as you said is the secret to a successful blog. Thanks again.
Thank you all for your wonderful comments on my guest post. This was a fun post to write and it does get to the heart of blogging! I love writing analogies.
this is the second post that using dieting(food) as analogy, you read the other one at blogussion.. like the other one I also enjoy reading this post because it make me understand the content easily.
in everything we do, balance always what we need to strive for. be moderate in everything could make us balance thing more easily.
great post.
You have brought put some really nice points her and I feel blog should be unique and helpful for a specific community.
I really like your diet metaphor. It’s perfect and it really helps put blog approaches in perspective.
I agree, it takes a combination of efforts to make a successful blog really work. You need to really apply a few different approaches to your blog to get a different type of audience. Your blog needs to have some sort of personality.
Great analogy! It got me thinking about my blog. For sure, I would want my blog to be a healthy blog so i think there should be a combination of all the mentioned diets.