Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?

20 November 2025

There are some rules when it comes to blogging. However writing content that is meaningful in some way can be one of them. I believe it is up to the individual to determine what is meaningful.

In the heyday, the so-called Golden Age of blogging, there were plenty of people willing to offer definitions of what was meaningful and write accordingly. It was natural. At one time the web was full of blogs of all kinds. Likewise people who wanted to show others how to blog “successfully”.

Again, the definition of successful depends on the individual, but it is clear that it includes monetary returns for some people. And why not? If you’re going to put time and energy into creating a resource that is useful to other people, why shouldn’t you make money from it, even make a living?

One of these people blogging about blogging was Melbourne-based Australian writer and author Darren Rowse, who launched his blogging resource ProBlogger in 2004. Without going into detail, because you can see it for yourself, Rosé, as one of the first bloggers about blogging, did quite well for itself and probably still does.

Rosé’s writings and those of his contributors attracted many readers to learn what they could do about blogging, and the possibility of making money from it.

Problogger is said to have a niche blog. As a blog about blogging, its focus remains largely the same. Some people consider this specific principle to be the basic principle of blogging. In the early days of blogging the idea was, and probably still holds, that blogs would perform better if they had some features. Not only were search engines said to favor this approach, but the author of a particular or specific blog would generally be considered some kind of expert in their field.

Rather than the proverbial jack of all trades, a master of one trade.

Anyway, the world was once full of blogs on every topic imaginable. It was a great time to be alive. If you want to learn about something specific, there is a blog for you. Some publications featured quality content, others required a little fact checking, while some were definitely to be taken with a pinch of salt.

But niche blogging was never a format that suited everyone. There are people who have written, and still write, about a wide variety, sometimes a wide range, of subjects. Kottke is one of the better known blogs that does not have any distinctive features. Publication is the specialty here. To repeat what I wrote in the first sentence of this article: blogging has few rules.

But the aspects of blogging covered on ProBlogger and many other similar websites generally only apply to blogs of a business nature. This doesn’t mean that one or two individual bloggers will pay attention to the tips posted there to grow their audience, or improve their writing. But in my view, individual bloggers were not part of ProBlogger’s target audience.

It’s been a while since I last wrote about ProBlogger, let alone visited the website, probably over fifteen years, but a recent mention of it by Kev Quick via LDStephens caught my attention. But I do not believe that Rowe is in any way critical of individual bloggers because they do not follow any specific or particular publishing format. That’s not what ProBlogger, or Roves, is about.

But this got me thinking and writing another long post of my own.

In an era where social media and influencers have taken over blogs and their A-list writers in a race for supremacy, one has to wonder what role websites like ProBlogger still have. Today only a handful of blogs generate a livable income. However, despite the destruction and despair, the form is not completely lost. The backlash against social media and the growing IndieWeb/SmallWeb community has led to a revival in personal websites.

It is largely a non-commercial movement. Of course, there is nothing wrong with personal websites. Many of us started with them in the early days of the web. But the Web wasn’t just for individual magazines. It was a medium to share all types of information. The web can also empower individuals and partnerships to not only set up shop online, whether it’s blogs, or virtually shops, but potentially earn a living at the same time.

But with the revival of personal blogs, I think it’s time to bring back niche blogs. I’m talking about well-written, quality, topic-focused resources. This content is rapidly disappearing from the web, reducing the options for obtaining useful and accurate information. what are the options? Is social media a swamp of misinformation? being served aye Summaries created in response to search engine queries? A web chock full of AI slop?

Also, I’m not advocating a return to typical blogs filled with ads and popup boxes that urge visitors to subscribe to a newsletter before they even have a chance to blink to read.

I’m talking about works produced by independent writers interested in their subject matter, who are not backed by large media organizations or private equity. It is bringing back reliable sources of information, which also compensates content writers in some way. Hopefully we’ve learned some lessons about monetization since the last wave of niche blogging. We know it’s possible to generate revenue without compromising the reader experience.

The resurgence in personal blogging, if you will, is the first step in rebuilding the blogosphere into a vibrant, thriving web. The focus now should be on restoring the flow of accessible and reliable information.

Blog, History, IndieWeb, Self Publishing, Smallweb, Technology, Trends