Don’t Be a Dodo: Darwin’s Laws Applied to Blogging

“In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.” – Charles Darwin

The sad story of the dodo bird is well known throughout the world as being the main example of animal extinction. It is also a demonstration of one of Darwin’s laws of survival in regards to adapting to a new environment, or, in the case of the dodo, a lack of adaptation. In the age of the ever expanding Internet, by learning to adapt ourselves to a new environment, we can avoid the fate of the dodo.

“We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.”

The fate of the dodo is not completely the fault of that species. Partial blame will always be applied to humans and their constant deforestation of the island the dodo resided on, plus the introduction of new predatory species (i.e. dogs) to the island. But the dodo was extremely comfortable when placed in front of new situations, or plain stupid, and welcomed the presence of the human inhabitants without concern. Within a hundred years of meeting these new explorers, the dodo had seen its last days on earth.

As a blogger, like the dodo, we have each chosen a niche area, or island, to position ourselves in. Much has been written about finding your perfect niche or niches that are ripe for the pickings when monetizing a blog, but there is an inherent danger in becoming too attached to one niche. Niche blogging is less of an artform than it was and has become more of a science with the advances of SEO, article marketing, affiliate marketing, and the countless eBook resources available to us all. All of this information helps the writers who already exist within that niche, but it also aids new writers in discovering your niche. These new writers may have more writing experience than you or have a larger network of fellow bloggers available to them to help grow their site, putting yours at risk of extinction.

There is hope in avoiding this issue, however. You possess a certain gift that the dodo did not: the power of flight.

“Doing what little one can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue.”

Flight in this instance does not mean giving up your blog and moving in a different direction right now. It is impossible to predict what may happen within your niche or blogging as a whole. This is merely a precautionary step to protect yourself in case disaster does strike.
In order to not become the dodo, the blogger of today needs to learn how to adapt to a new situation. If a new blogger comes on the scene that strikes a bit of fear in you, you will have to change how you do things with your blog. The easiest response to a rising star is to create more content, better content, more frequently and increase your marketing initiatives. The problem with this strategy is that it only keeps your current readers on your site, and may increase your readership by a small margin.

The safer bet is to expand your knowledge now, and slowly input a different topic (that compliments your current niche) into your blog in a slow manner. You can accomplish this in a few subtle ways:

• a weekly roundup post of interesting links across the web, but include a topic (or topics) that is outside of your niche.
• publish a series of posts over a span of weeks/months that introduce a concept, philosophy, music genre, or other niche. Start with posts that cover the basic subject matter and progress to more complicated posts.
• publish a mini-blog that compliments your current one with different subject matter – a Tumblr, Posterous, publish an email newsletter, or use an alternate Twitter account. I call this creating layers of content.

You will notice that I did not suggest creating a second, alternate blog to write on. The reason for this is you may come across the same problem with that blog/niche, and why would you want to go through these headaches again?

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. “

Expanding the scope of your blog is simple to do and is best applied in a slow manner. Do not rush from a blog strictly focused on a raw diet to a blog about martial arts, mechanics, and a raw diet. Your readers will almost certainly revolt if they witness a sudden shift in your subject matter like that. Instead, offer them a slow dose of a new subject matter, and after a month of new content, ask them what they think of it. If they are of a curious mind, they will enjoy reading samples of a different area that they may be interested in or maybe you will help them discover a new interest for them.

Success lies ahead for you if you are willing to take a leap of faith, and bring your readers on a brand new journey.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. “

This post is part of our amazing Blogging Contest, please add a comment and tweet it to support the author.

Tagged as: best blogging tips, Blogging, contest, Niche