No Link Love For Blogging Bloggers Today

I was going to link to some good blogging posts today, but decided not to. Deb did on Sunday anyhow, and we read a lot of the same stuff.

I like blogs in the niches I blog best; probably because I (thankfully) get to blog what I enjoy. I love architect bloggers, and also really like blogging and green bloggers. These are the topics I write about most, and likewise the blogs I visit most.

However, breaking out of your niche is cool. I think bloggers should have a good handful of blogs, that don’t relate to their own topic, that they visit on a regular basis. There are payoffs for visiting outside of niche blogs. The biggest is you have no idea what other people read. If folks see you around, making comments, they might click your name and like what they see. Sometimes you get the oddest, most seemingly out of character readers.

Example: For the longest time, at Offbeat Homes, I got a ton of page views from one guy. I went to investigate. Turns out he didn’t even have a blog, he was on one of the social network sites – MySpace or something like it, where we had one friend in common. All this kid (he was young) talked about was beer. How to get it, drink it, and beer based shenanigans; typical kid just found beer behavior. He did however, like my blog. He’d link to it, and this kid had oodles of pals, who also only talked about beer, but they liked beer guy, so they’d click on his links. End result, me with lots of page views (and some odd comments – but I can live with that). You never know who might like you.

Another benefit is it keeps you from wearing out. Maybe five of my blogs are green, or have a heavy eco slant. I love green, really, but sometimes I’m just so tired of thinking about it all the time. Reading outside of my niche probably saves me from complete and total saturation; my brain gets a rest. You can also get some quirky ideas. You’ll find stuff you don’t normally blog about, that you can perhaps slant to your topic. All in all it keeps things fresh.

So today, forget reading all the blogging blogs, forget blogs in your niche, go find something new. If you have no clue where to start, here are five random ‘out of my niche’ blogs I visit.

• People In The Sun
• Cranky Fitness
• Smells Like Alternative
• Mid Beacon Hill
• My sister’s random blog

Now tell me five out of your niche blogs you like. I need some nice new reading.