Tiger and his wife, Elin Woods, are expecting their second baby. A big congratulations to them. According to various sources, they’re expecting the child in the late winter.

Great news for Tiger and Elin Woods–but this is a blog about blogging, writing, content, and the like. Not about sports stars and their children.

But what can celebrities like Tiger and Elin Woods teach us about blogging?

Sometimes you have to jump on the bandwagon and jump on it fast. Riding the trends is a great way to get your blog out there into the limelight and even stir up a new audience while you’re at it. That’s exactly what I’m trying to prove with this post.

So why did I choose Tiger and Elin Woods and her pregnancy as my topic of choice? I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading about the positives of using tools like Google Trends to help boost traffic to a blog. For some people, it seems to work like a dream–possibly bringing in thousands of unique visitors in a matter of hours. Just as good as social bookmarking without all of that high school popularity contest crap to go along with it.

By capitalizing on what’s hot at the moment, you can cash in on the hoards of visitors looking for a specific topic. Just give your piece its own unique spin and see where it goes from there.

However, a word of warning. Do try to keep your blog posts on topic when you’re recruiting ideas from Google Trends. Otherwise you may risk alienating your readers–which will ultimately show that you care far more about attracting uniques than keeping people coming back time and time again.

August was a great month for Contented Niche. With quite a bit of traffic flowing in, I’m pleased with the success this blog has experienced so far.

But now is the time to take it in a new direction. I’ve noticed that resource posts and other, longer, articles are drawing in the most attention, so I’m going to focus on those for a few months until I can sustain my numbers at a comfortable place. Then I’ll be back to daily posts and see where things go from there.

Does this mean I’m not going to highlight some of the best and most unique icons and WordPress themes? Of course not, just not as often.

And did I mention that I’m hard at work on building a few themes of my own? I don’t want to give any set in stone deadlines, but expect to see the first one posted by mid month.

So expect to see the changes come this week with fewer, but better (and certainly more in depth) blog posts to come.

Oh, and if you have any suggestions for a post you’d like to see, just drop me a comment below.

Thanks for sticking around.

Have all of the good ideas for blogs already been taken? Is it too late to start a successful blog? Is every blogging field too crowded by now?

No. No. No.

By no means is it too late to start a successful blog. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

I’m not going to be all sunshine and buttercups with you–a lot of the popular niches are tough to break into. Tech is easily the most difficult. There are some big guns in the business–and they’re not going away anytime soon. To make matters worse for the rookie tech blogger, most of the people reading blogs are into tech–and most of those who have even one shining desire to write are going to write about what they love. You guessed it. They’re writing about tech.

The niche is full–but by no means impossible to break into. For a tech blog to be successful these days, it has to come in at a different angle. Reviews and news? Completely overdone. Tips and techniques are great, as are top # lists–but at some point, those niches begin to dwindle.

What about other niches? The make money online (MMO) niche is another one with a lot of competition. But the good thing about a broad topic like MMO–you have access to just about anything you want to talk about. It’s not a walled in fortress of a niche like tech where you only have set few things to write before you have to resort to a review or two. MMO blogs have a much more expansive range and everyone has their own style for making a quick buck or two on the net.

And then there are the untapped niches. We’re talking book blogs. Fashion blogs. Photography blogs. Et cetera.

So can successful blogs still come to fruition? Of course they can. But you’ll need a unique idea or two to get you there. And if unique ideas aren’t oozing out of your ears, persistence is the way to go. No matter if the content is unique, dedication to the blog and an ever growing number of posts will always pay off in the end.

My four readers have probably been wondering where I’ve been these past few weeks. To make a long story short, work and life tend to grab hold from time to time. Mix that with a particularly lengthy project I’ve been working on for a client, and you’ll know why I couldn’t keep up with the blog. But now I’m back–and for good this time.

This whole lack of posting could have easily been avoided. Getting sick or finding yourself entrenched in other work is not a valid excuse for skipping posting days. Blogs are all about the content and that content just isn’t going to create itself. So, without further ado, here are some tips to help you (and me) keep up with blogging even on days we don’t feel like it.

1. Write Early, Write Often: Even though you’re sick, tired, or whatever else is nagging you, you can still avoid the curse of missed posts by writing at least a week’s worth of content beforehand. As long as they’re not time sensitive, just keep these posts as drafts for use on days when blogging isn’t at the top of your list of things to do. When you use one, replace it with another.
2. Find Images Beforehand: In a way, I miss the good old days of blogging. The days when it was all about the written word and not so much about the multimedia overload that lots of bloggers focus on today. Because so many readers want to be visually stimulated, successful bloggers need attractive pictures. Finding those pictures takes time. Time you’re not going to want to spend when you’re not feeling up to the task. So, like you did with posts, find some images you think you’d like to use beforehand.
3. Guest Authors: Guest authors allow you to kill two birds with one stone. Boost your readership (and theirs) by adding a new and unique voice to your blog. At the same time, you can recruit guest authors to work for you when you don’t feel like it. In the end, everyone’s happy.
4. Research Upcoming Posts: It’s no secret that most readers today love a good, long list. What that list is about doesn’t really matter, so long as it stays within the confines of your chosen niche. However, most of those lists require a lot of extraneous research on your part. If you don’t feel up to blogging, do some research for a list post. I’ve found that I feel more like reading on days I don’t feel like writing, so by the end of a day I don’t post, I’ve got new ideas galore.