The relation between a weblog and it’s weblogpostings

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Many years ago, long before blogging, we already found out that there are basically two kind of websites which are popular:

1. websites that focus on a specific market or niche
2. websites that give an overview of websites

the most popular niches – Back then we could go to e.g. the nedstat catalogue and make an index of the most popular niches, where (ofcourse) the top 3 was: 1. sex; 2. topmodels; 3. humor.

the most money - Ofcourse the most money is in sex and as a consequence creating a couple of websites with associate programs to the bigger sex sites was and is still the easiest way of making money on the Internet. Even smarter is and was creating humor sites with implicit links to websites with sex associate programs.

The same goes for weblogs. There are thousands of weblogs who regularly post nude content together with humoristic pictures and while clicking through creates money for the adult webmaster. Somehow whole crowds like to hunt for sexual content on the Internet and somehow they are the same group who likes childish humor.

weblogs and niches - The niche market is appropriate for weblogs and for weblogs who are looking for a way to generate income. We see a wide array of weblogs which can easily be placed in little baskets: business related weblogs, political weblogs, blog related weblogs, seo related weblogs, gadget related weblogs and so on. And just like in the 90′s they can be grouped by topic and,as in the 90s, about the same distribution (give and take some new topics) rolls out although the number of visitors has risen due to the growth of the Internet.

More Internet users means smaller niches are now an option - Weblogs which concentrate on niche markets are popular. Weblogs who just post anything they (like me)  will be stuck at the 100.000 Technorati frontier (give and take some exceptions). But because of the growth of the Internet, as opposed to the 90′s, smaller niches now are also becoming more viable options for weblogmasters since the distribution of pageviews has grown in numbers.

users want informatial posts - On regular websites some pages are more popular than other pages. These are the pages where users can find what they need. If a user needs to have train information he types in the railway site’s url and clicks the time information tool. For weblogs, the same is of importance, although the pages have been replaced by blogpostings. Meaning: if a weblog is high in the pageview statistics of the niche market (e.g. “weapons”) they expect to find information on the UZI on this weblog or website. So one or more informational blogs on topics in the niche are of importance. But even if you write a personal blog, users want information on you, and not the funny cartoon of the week. Users in general want tips, tricks and any other item in the informational hierarchical tree. They want “top 10 lists” that they can actively use in their lives. But to summarize: they expect to find this information on your blog.

users want news posts - Just like a user would go to a general news site or newspaper to find out more about a current disaster he would go to the niche blog to find out the latest news on topic X which also means he is dissapointed that the latest news  or trends is/are not yet covered yet. So if the weapons blog doesn’t cover the auction of 007′s gun they might go to other blogs in the niche who do cover the news. On a personal blog users would like to find about the progress on your job or when your son made his first steps. In the personal blog -you- are the niche.

users want to belong -  There is a reason why users go to the i-love-cats site and post their pictures and share stories about their Scotty, Timmy and Tommy. This is because they chose this niche as something they see as part of their lives. A weblog operating in whatever niche should be surrounded by this feeling and write blogpostings in such a way that the reader “gets” this feeling of belonging to the same in-group. It could well be done by using some specific (technical) vocabular that is used in the in-group or even telling personal quotes. Another good way is by actively “opening” the discussion which can follow in the comments.

There are several other “things” users want from your blogpostings catalogue, which you could gather from any inspirational “how to write…” lesson, book or blog (go search!). They were used as an illustration. However, important is the relation between the weblog and the weblogposting. Any weblog operates in a niche, even if it’s a personal one (you are the niche) or a linklog (users who are like you are the niche) you should have this in mind when writing your blogposting.

And please note, once you have “the content” matched to either information, emotional, belonging or any other type, only then the format in which you put in on your weblog becomes important. This could be in a “10 points why”, “question, quote, action” or any other format you think is best to bring the message across, where you can choose between the “I want to have it high in the search-engines/bookmarking sites” or “in this way users understand my message about the issue the best”.