Blogging Q&A #3: My Turning Point, Facebook Ads + Do You Have to Have a Niche?

Blogging Q&A #3: My Turning Point, Facebook Ads + Do You Have to Have a Niche? I answer these three questions in today’s video, hoping it helps SO many of you!

You know, I’m honestly not sure if there’s anything better here in the blogging world than hearing from you all. When you ask these questions, it does SO many things. Here are just a few…

• Tells me you’re there. Online can be so lonely at times, until others speak up and create a voice.

• Helps others by asking the questions someone else may want to know the answers to also.

• Gives me direction on the things that you’d like help on. (I can’t read minds, so communication is so important!)

So thank you. Thank you for taking the time to submit these questions, and I truly hope that I can help you and so many others in some way!

If you haven’t submitted your questions yet, you can still do that! (HERE) I’m always looking to answer your questions if I’m able!

Ready to Start Your Blog?

If you’re ready to start your own blog and you’d love a complete, easy to understand walk-through, then:

so you can get your blog started TODAY!

By the end of this video series, you’ll have your very own blog, publishing your first blog post! Click here to learn more!

Blogging Q&A #3: My Turning Point, Facebook Ads + Do You Have to Have a Niche?

Today I’m answering three more questions from the bank of questions that have been submitted. You all, I could talk about blogging all day with you! But since we don’t have hours and hours to sit and watch a video, I break the videos in to chunks. You can see Q&A #1 HERE, and Q&A #2 HERE, if you’d like to get caught up. For now, here’s #3…

To quickly summarize for those who don’t have time to watch the video now, I’ll briefly touch on each question:

1. Did you have a turning point in your blogging career?
   

   — Nope, not really. But it all depends on what you classify as a “turning point.” Some become an overnight success because in today’s world a post can go viral and you end up on the Ellen Show within a couple of days. For some, this may be the turning point. For me, my turning point is a combination of all of the little successes along the way.

   Small goals met, accomplishments made that I never thought I’d achieve, and so on. For me, an example of this was being invited to be a contributor on one of the biggest blogs I know. For you, your turning point may be appearing on the Today Show. So although I never had an “Ah ha” moment of “I’ve made it because…” I’ve chosen to celebrate the small victories and create a slow turning out. Which I’m incredibly thankful for, because it gives me more “meat” to understand my blog, its readers (YOU), and I get to learn more and more about what I’m passionate about along the way.

2. Do you think Facebook ads are a good way to attract followers?

   I’ve recently changed my viewpoint on this question, so I’m so glad you’re asking me now. I believe that Facebook ads can be a great way to gain readers and followers. HOWEVER, before you just blindly create and run an ad… I strongly urge you to do some research. Watch a YouTube video, read a blog post, etc. on how to run Facebook ads. I learned the hard way, and so have many others that I know. You can spend a TON of money on Facebook ads, just shooting in the dark. Find out who your audience is, who you want to target, and create something to gain when the reader and follower engage with the Facebook ad. Perhaps something like a way to collect their email address, have a landing page that’s full of GREAT content that can make your visitor want to turn in to a follower, etc.

   Just remember, creating a vague ad only about your Facebook page can probably get your follower account up, but engaging fans is what you want. Sure, higher fan numbers are something that brands like to see. But if your goal is to actually give visits/sales to your blog/site, you want followers that are truly interested in what you have to offer. Or else Facebook will waste your ads by showing them to those who don’t really care about what you share.
   P.S. I’m definitely no Facebook ads pro. I really recommend Amy Porterfield’s Podcast for some serious help in that area.

3. Do you have to have a niche with a blog?

   I’m probably alone on this one by saying “no.” But I’m not sorry. Especially saying “No, you don’t have to have a niche when you want to start a blog” to those who haven’t started yet. Why? Because that’s the idea/thought I had when I first started, so I started a blog about party planning and styling. A few months in, I was bored out of my mind with constantly talking about party styling. I wanted to talk about so much more! I still loved styling and creating parties, but being limited to what I could talk about on my “Party Planning Blog” was suffocating. So, I wiped the slate clean and started over with a blog name that could cover a ton of topics I wanted to talk about.

   My advice:

   If you’re strictly wanting to start a blog to make money, yes… blogging about a certain niche would be a great idea. You may get super bored with it, but it may be a niche that’s high in demand and low in supply. (I give an example of creating a blog about vacuum reviews in the video so it can help make more sense.)

   If you’re wanting to start a blog about something that you love so much, but you’re not quite sure if you’ll want to talk about something else too from time to time… create a blog that can easily transform into another topic so you don’t have to start all over from scratch because of a domain name and blog name.

   Do I have a niche? I do actually.

But wait a minute Jessica, you just said you don’t have to have one.

Yes, I know this. But what happened over time was that my niche defined itself after a year or so of blogging. I niched down after finding out what blog post topics I thoroughly enjoyed writing about, and what my readers enjoy reading about. When I first started, I thought for sure I’d be blogging about kid life hacks and kid parties all of the time.

Come to find out… I didn’t really enjoy that as much as I did writing about fashion, decorating my home, cooking quick and easy recipes, and styling parties for adults and girl time. Thank goodness I didn’t name my blog “FantabulousKids” right? Just a thought. So DO NOT let the idea that “I don’t have a niche yet, so I can’t start my blog,” stop you.

Don’t forget to watch my video where I’m answering the popular question, “How to Gain Followers” too!

Are you Ready to Start a Blog?

So you may be watching and reading this because you’re ready to start a blog. Or at least THINKING about starting a blog. If that’s true, head over to my “How to Start a Blog in 5 Easy Steps” post to see just how you can get started. Seriously, you can start your blog today if you really want to. How cool is that?

Or if you want to browse all of the blogging archives here on the blog, you can browse for hours if you like HERE!

Remember, I always love to hear your questions, so feel free to submit them anytime HERE!

Thank you so much for coming by. I truly appreciate EVERY.SINGLE.ONE.OF YOU!