Part One The topic of my blog, “Labels Keep Me Stable,” will be organization as well as home décor. Originally I had suggested these as separate ideas for blogs, but after presenting my Google Slide on possible ideas to my peers, I came to the conclusion that my niche blog would be stronger and more cohesive if I combined the two separate ideas into one. The blog will cover organization and cleaning tips for every area of the home, as well as Do-It-Yourself projects to add personal style and additional organization. The cleaning part of the blog would focus on natural and effective ways to keep your home in tip top shape. It would also focus on making the best of small spaces, and figuring out clever ways to conceal personal items that someone may not want on display, while still providing easy access to these things. The Do-It-Yourself portion of the blog will directly correlate with the organization and cleaning portion by providing step by step instructions to make personalized décor to show off and make the most of any space. This blog will be different from others because it will be tailored to the individual needs of each reader. Although I plan to have a wide variety of readers, I will be sure to cover all the bases so that it meets anyone that could be reading the article's needs. I will do this by providing alternative designs, material, and brand options for any products mentioned, as well as being adaptable to any space. This way a reader on any budget, in any environment, in any room, closet, or area, will be able to follow along. Other blogs tend to focus on one particular space, whether it be kitchens, pantries, laundry rooms, bedrooms, closets, etc. This blog will provide tips for every room, and décor and organization tips and guides that could be applicable to any space. Additionally, “Labels Keep Me Stable” will focus on functional ideas rather than purposeless style pieces that many other blogs teach readers how to create. The audience that I aim to address are mainly women. This is not to say that some men would not be interested in the topic of my blog, but in general, women are more inclined to take interest in organization and design of the home. The audience that I expect to take interest in “Labels Keep Me Stable” would most likely be interested in home improvement in a general sense. This could include organization, unusual cleaning hacks, creative ways to clean, storage solutions, functional but appealing décor, self-made products, or some combination of all of these things. The audience’s age becomes a bit of a blur because these topics can correlate with many age ranges. It is hard to say for certain, but I would expect women between the ages of sixteen to fifty to be interested in the contents of my blog. I am making this assumption based on the information I know about when women begin to take interest in décor and cleanliness, and when they seem to stop seeing it as something important. Of course, this information could be slightly inaccurate, and there are always outliers to any type of data. Part Two: Blogs that similar to my own are vital resources in learning how to successfully run my own blog. They provide insight into things that I could do to improve my content and layout, as well as showing me things that I would prefer to avoid. In my exploration of blogs similar to my own, I compiled a list of ten that I thought lined up best with the niche I am working with. Of these ten blogs, three of them stuck out to me as my absolute favorite, and I feel that they will be the most beneficial in helping me develop my own organization and Do-It-Yourself décor blog. The first blog I fell in love with was “A Bowl Full of Lemons”. This blog had a beautiful layout with one column running down the middle of the page. This column had a brief paragraph about the contents of the link with a photo above each, similar to the layout of "I Heart Organizing". The about page was also very well laid out, with detailed information and an FAQ. The top of the page had a very well put quote to sum up the site that read, "A Bowl Full of Lemons is a growing community of people who aspire to get their lives in order. If you are new, Hello! I’m so glad you are here. Before you begin, think about what you are looking to achieve here at ABFOL. Do you want to get your home organized from top to bottom? Do you want to learn some cleaning tips? Is your budget a mess? Or are you looking to make new friends? There are many places you can begin, but the easiest way to get your life in order the “ABFOL way” is to follow these simple steps…" This friendly and easy to follow informational page is something that I aspire to replicate with my own spin, while also incorporating the clean look of "Simply Organized". There are multiple advertisements towards the top, side, and bottom of the page for many different brands which shows that the author makes a reasonable income off of them. The same assumption can be from "Clean and Scentsible's" blog. She also has an entire page dedicated to her advertisers, with an area to contact her if a brand or company wished to advertise a product on her page. The page is doing extremely well, with over 100,000 Facebook fans and even more Pinterest followers. Readers of this page are likely women from twenties to mid -life, who are either first time home owners, or busy moms who want to live a more organized and stylish life.
Another blog that I admired was “Everything Etsy”. The basic layout of this page incorporated two columns in the blog with the column on the right for advertisements, and the column on the left for pictures of the project, a hyperlinked title, and a brief description of why you may want to create the project. The author of “Everything Etsy,” Kimberly Layton, does not have an about me page, unlike the authors of "A Beautiful Mess," and instead identifies herself exclusively through her writing and personal details of her articles. There are many advertisements off to the right of the page, and all of them are related to the content of the blog. They include places to buy crafts supplies and tools to complete the crafts on the blog, which I think is a great advertising technique. “Everything Etsy” is linked to IKEA, which helps link it to a younger and low budgeted audience. It is also linked to Etsy, which is a website for creating your own products and is strongly entwined with the blog. This particular blog is aimed at twenty-something year olds who are interested in DIY crafts and budgeting strategies, but still want to be trendy and fun. Another blog that I looked at was “Honey We’re Home,” which was not my favorite, but was still a good resource to examine. The page is organized into five columns with small thumbnail photos and titles of each article. From an aesthetic standpoint the blog is beautiful, but from a functionality point of view, it is not the most organized. It would be difficult for a reader to navigate through the tiny thumbnails to find exactly what they’re looking for without having to click on each link. "Organizing Made Fun" also has a very unorganized look to it, as well as a distracting theme. Down the right of the page, it has a list of every social media site and every form of contact possible, which would be wonderful if it were arranged a bit better. There are almost no stand out advertisements, but the articles talk about specific brands and products that you need to create the project, an idea used by the blog "Organizing Junkie," which is indirect advertising. The blog is also linked with many other brands, as the author has been mentioned in many different places. These include Family Circle, House Beautiful, Better Homes & Gardens, Pottery Barn, Joss & Main, and many more. The blog has about 483,000 page views, as well as a weekly newsletter. I would expect almost entirely women to view this page, likely from teenagers to middle aged women. The author organizes her page by topic which allows for many subdomains of readership, but makes the blog less cohesive and more confusing. "Organizing Home Life" also uses subdomains, but they are much more closely related to the topic of the blog, which makes it preferable.
2 Comments
3/21/2017 05:06:23 pm
I love how you explain your blog topic. You are very clear and to the point when describing what you're going to be discussing.
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Daniela Molinaro
4/24/2017 04:29:28 pm
Overall, I loved how you hit all of the components that the assignment called for for your niche blog proposal!! I liked how you included a different font color to show the colors that you have made. I know you included what the different portions are, but a suggestion would be to somehow include how you are going to split each of the three blog posts and write what they are going to be about. Overall, great job!
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Michele Trimnell
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