The Reader Appreciation Project

In this world of blogs, where there are so many ways you can please your readers (including your extremely suspicious ones), a world in which even 12 years old bloggers give pertinent advice on how to turn your visitors into loyal readers, a world in which you never know how your readers are going to write about your articles, have you ever thought of expanding your reader pool outside the niche you are currently in?

Some people would say that stepping outside the niche is a waste of time, be it in writing, or in commenting on other blogs. They want to stay focused, so commenting on a blog post which doesn’t bring in any marketing benefits is a waste and it should not happen. Not to mention writing about something which is more or less off topic, which consumes you a lot of time, only to see your readers accusing you of divagations (think only how many of John Chow’s readers accused him in the comments because he writes about food or because he takes paid reviews).

Some other people would encourage you to write posts that are outside your niche, but publish them somewhere else: like on other blogs you may own, or via guestblogging on other people’s blogs.

What do you think? Is writing outside your niche beneficial for your blog, or does it offend your readers?