Summer Sorensen

Dearest Reader,

I’m working through a bit of a challenge in my posting topics, and I wanted to ask your opinion.

This has historically been a variety blog. I write about whatever topics come to mind. Christian discipleship topics are what most often fill the pages; I delight to write about what I am learning as I study God’s word, read and listen to biblical exposition and live out my faith. With my primary goal of bringing glory to the one true, triune God of scripture, those topics are near to my heart and mind.

My challenge, however, is this: I have two conflicting principles I am trying to reconcile.

1) The conventional wisdom for blogging is that one should focus on a niche and write consistently on that topic. The reasoning is that by doing so, you not only have the potential to be regarded as an expert and thought leader on that topic – which can lead to other business opportunities – but that it is the surest way to grow your blog readership because generalist blogs are a thing of the past. People seek out niche content.

I agree with that and see the wisdom in that philosophy.

However …

To not niche down

2) I love variety too much. I even wrote about it. In addition to Christian discipleship/biblical topics, I also dabble in productivity, lifehacks, health, fitness, recreation, travel, humor, and miscellaneous matters of culture and politics.

I’ll be honest – I don’t like the idea of picking just one genre.

Recently, I recorded a video on social media soliciting the opinions of my friends and followers regarding this challenge about what type of posts they like to read from me. I got a mixed bag of feedback.

I thought it appropriate to open up the question directly to my beloved readers (maybe I should have done that first!). I share most of my posts on social media, which does open it up to more people. The majority of my readership comes from subscribers, search engines, and some who happen to find my posts in their WordPress feed.

So, what do you think? To niche down or not?

Which type of topics do you most enjoy, of those I mentioned above? I’d greatly appreciate your feedback. If you are reading this, it means that you are one of the “founding readers” of this blog. I want to hear what interests you and what type of posts you’d like to see more of. (Even if they include sentences that end with a preposition.)

Yes, I’d like to grow the readership of this blog beyond a handful of family, friends and random social media people. The search engines make that possible, but it is a slow journey to significant traction. Yet, I’d also like to write for the people who have supported me since the beginning – YOU.

I’d love your candid feedback not only on the post topics you like but on the quandary of whether to niche down or keep the variety. Your opinion is important to me!

As always, thank you so much for reading. I really appreciate it!

p.s. This post was originally written on 2/3/2020 and is being updated on 10/13/2023. Not only have I still not decided how/if to niche down, I am persisting in keeping this a variety blog. It seems like the right move for me, despite the odds. Time will tell!