As a reader, how many topics do you tolerate?

[ChickenFreak]

So I have zero interest in making money from my blog. Zero. There are no ads, there will be no ads.

I _do_ have an interest in attracting a community of regular readers. Occasional drop-ins are fine and dandy, but the regular readers are what I care about. So, yeah, I need to attract some traffic, so that some of that traffic will transform into readers.

I have a lot of interests. The blog already covers three or four of them, although it does have a dominating primary topic. (Edited to add: OK, three or four regular interests, and several others that get an occasional post.) I'm considering adding another interest, and maybe another one after that. Alternatively, I could just add another blog for those interests.

So what I'm wondering is, as a reader, how many topics can you tolerate in a blog before you stop reading it? If you assume that there are some posts that have interest for you, how many posts on other topics will you tolerate before you decide it's just too much trouble?

For example, let's say that you're interested in frugal home decorating (not my topic; it's just an example), and a blog with good posts on that topic also discusses frugal cooking and the raising of Siamese cats and an occasional story about the blogger's kids. Would you tolerate that? What if the blogger became a big fan of the St. Louis Cardinals and started posting on that? And then took up bonsai and started posting on that?

I know that in my case, I'm willing to tolerate quite a few posts that aren't in my topic of interest. The fewer posts of interest that the blog has, the less frequently I check it, but that's just because that way there are higher odds of finding a post or two in my area of interest each time I check - I will still check it regularly. I'll tend to fall away if the posts of interest are too infrequent - less often than, say, once every two weeks - but I don't greatly care if they're surrounded by posts of no interest.

So, opinions? Again, remember that I _do not care_ about advertising revenue. I need to care some about whether Google points to me and that sort of thing, but that's to attract people who may become regular readers, not to attract maximum drop-in traffic.

ChickenFreak

[ChickenFreak]

Thanks for the answer, Blogginm8! On the question of being related, I'm talking about totally unrelated topics - for example, imagine a blog with stuff about the St. Louis cardinals, stuff about bonsai, and stuff about vegan cooking. Those aren't my topics, just an example to give you an idea.

I do (I think) know what most of the readers are interested in, based on who comments and where the traffic comes from. They're there for the main overriding topic. Of course, that presumably means that all the other topics are going unread, so maybe my concern should be less whether I drive away readers for the main topic, but whether I'll get any readers at all for the others.

I did decide after making my original above post that the one added topic that would be high volume and _utterly_ unrelated - it's a pretty self-indulgent topic - I'd make a new blog for. But I'm still interested in opinions, because there are many other interests that I could either add or make new blogs for.

It probably partly depends on how many blogs are available for your interest - let's assume that there are dozens, but not thousands, and that it's a wide enough topic that there's plenty for the dozens to talk about.

ChickenFreak

[Robert A. Kearse]

ChickenFreak:

With many successful blogs it is the blogger's
injection of personality that is the essential
appeal.

In cases like that, there can be an unlimited
number of categories.

How well do you write and how much original
insight can you give to even the most common
of subjects.

If you are not that innovatice or original, then
the subect content might be the prime attraction,
which would necessitate a narrower focus.

Hope this distinction helps.

Robert

[lilymom]

My attention span is pretty short so its not the amount of posts that someone has but how lenthy the posts are. 3 or 4 short paragraphs is about all I can handle and even then, the write up has to grab my attention right off. If it doesn't, I don't hang around long. Also, pictures help.

[mitchman3]

I have no qualms whatsoever about what people write about if I like their style of writing.

I have three blogs. One is for whatever's on my mind, though I write a lot of internet and blogging stuff. Another is my business blog, but since I'm into so many things I have lots to talk about. My last is a finance blog, but as long as it has anything to do with financial issues, once again I have lots to talk about.

So, go for it. :-)

[RateMyBlog]

I think the occasional off topic post can help break things up a bit. As to the different subjects it depends on how closely linked they are. You could always run seperate blogs for the different subjects?

[maccam87]

to be honest i reckon you should keep to one topic and then work around it instead of picking a topic about the alskan woodpecker maybe do it about birds or even animals try not to make to too specific but not just random stuff because when you search for something in google that is what you want to read about at the time so i am searching for xbox cheats and come across your blog which has a couple of cheats then the next post is about how to cook a dead rat i wouldnt carry on reading i would just move on, so i would say to get what you are looking for that is interested readers to keep coming back then i would defo only go for 1 topic blog

[Campbellscoup]

I agree that the number of topics don't matter. It's more about the content and style of writing. If the reader is interested in what you have to say on a topic they'll come back for more. If there are topics/posts that don't interest them they have the option of just skipping them. What I like is if a blog makes me laugh, think and/or learn something new but the style of writing has to appeal to me in order to get me to read the whole post. What I am unsure of is if I should be sharing my identity when my ultimate goal is to promote and sell a product I'm in the process of creating. I imagine it depends on the nature of the product but I have to give this more thought and weigh the pros and cons.

[madison19]

Great article, thanks for sharing.