Lately, I’ve received a few emails from people who want to start their own blogs. I’ve been thinking about one of the questions I received and today I discovered a great answer as I was watching a podcast with Marie Forleo. If you want to start a blog on a topic that seems to be well covered already, then her advice will benefit you.
Why Bother Starting A Blog On A Popular Topic That’s Covered By Many?
The question was this:
I want to start a blog focused on overcoming relationship problems. I was hoping you could give me some ideas on how to start. I’ve never blogged before and I’m a little lost. I also want to know what your opinion is on starting a blog focused on a topic that is covered widely. There are a ton of relationship blogs out there, some written by therapists who specialize in relationships. Is it even worth it?
I’ve personally created and sold websites focused on relationship advice in the past. I created those websites because I had a lot of experience with bad relationships and overcoming them, and I thought I had a lot of advice and tips to offer people. And it turns out I was right. I had a lot of interested readers on those sites, had good feedback with a few eBooks I wrote, and I genuinely enjoyed writing for those websites – until I didn’t.
Once I lost my passion for writing relationship advice, I ended up selling the websites. One of my websites got soaked into an extremely popular website, which is fine. My content is still out there and it’s still helping people, which is why I started it in the first place.
But I also struggled with the ‘why’ of blogging about relationships. Why bother? Why would people give a crap about what I have to say? Why should I write about something when I’m not a professional on that subject?
Some People Will Only Understand Something From You
For me, it was simply because I enjoyed it. I wanted to help people, I had a lot of experience to draw from, and so I created and maintained websites focused on the subject and ignored my doubts.
But Marie Forleo said something in today’s podcast that makes it clear why I had success.
I didn’t write down word for word what she said. However, it was essentially this:
It doesn’t matter how many people are out there pursuing the same thing you are. Sometimes people can only understand something from YOU.
I have a few personal examples of this. The one that immediately comes to mind is going vegan. I have come across a lot of vegans in my life. I remember having a vegan boss who was constantly talking in my ear about how gross dairy was. I was vegetarian at the time, and he would go on about how cow’s milk wasn’t for humans while I sat there and ate something with cheese or drank something with cream. For years, people like him never affected my opinion of dairy. Then I watched a documentary that basically said everything everyone else had ever said. I resonated with the guy who was doing the documentary. Something about the way he talked about the facts and delivered them convinced me to drop dairy from my diet – that day.
In short, you may be the one person that helps someone understand something or make a decision that benefits them. That’s a great reason to start a blog despite the niche being saturated.
Most People Don’t Just Seek Out One Source Of Information
Another point Marie Forleo made is that when someone is interested in something, they read more than one book, follow more than one blogger, and consistently look for new ways to learn and grow in their area of interest.
For instance, look at all the planner bloggers and vloggers out there. There are a TON of them. Many of them talk about how to plan, how to bullet journal, and how to create inserts for your planners. Some of them simply put stickers in a layout each week and talk while they do it. I watch a lot of them because I’m interested in planning and I want to get as much information as I can about it. I don’t just follow one person and call it a day.
Just because other people are blogging about the subject you want to blog about doesn’t mean people won’t come to see how you do things, how you talk about things, how you experience things, and how you approach issues in relation to the topic you are blogging about.
Remember, abundance is a real thing. There are plenty of people out there who are interested in the topic you want to blog about. Not everyone earns 100% of the views and readership out there. Some people are going to come to your blog to see what you have to say. And you may just change their lives in a positive way if you take the leap and start your blog.
