When trying to decide my niche blog topic I wanted to choose something that was different than something your average college student would write about. I wanted to inform people about a topic but also show my experiences and stories in the blog, connecting with my readers on a deeper level. After much back and forth I decide to do a blog on gardening. The choice of this topic was because it fit all those requirements and it is something that has become newly near and dear to my heart, as just two years ago I got into a serious relationship with a man who owns a nursery where I spend all my free time working there doing everything from pulling weeds to help customers. In this blog about gardening I wanted to give tips and tricks that can help all gardeners out there, and want to be gardeners learn more about this wonderful skill. What will make my blog different from many of the other blogs I have researched is it will have my personal experiences intertwined in all of my blogs. While there is many gardening blogs out there who intertwine their experiences in their blogs, many of these people who write these blogs are expert gardeners who have years and years of gardening experiences to discuss. I am not your garden expert, but I have learned so much in the last few years I feel more people can relate to me as I was a newbie to the gardening world not long ago, and I am still learning more and more everyday. By creating a blog that is about the advice I give and relating to people who are also feeling they don't "know it all" can help create a great bond with the readers making them feel no question is a dumb question. The audience I am hoping to reach with this blog is people of all ages and genders who are looking to learn more about gardening from someone who is just like them. While "all" ages is a very broad audience I really want to make my blogs versatile for all people so no matter what their gardening situation is they can learn something from my blog posts. If I were to narrow down my audience from the very broad spectrum of everybody I hope to reach to people of all genders in the age range of early twenties to early forties. I chose this age as many people in that age range are often times new to the gardening world as they are buying their first homes and creating families and tend to want to become more informed and learn more about the gardening world, from someone with first hand experiences who is just like them, pretty new to the game. Prior to settling down with this topic I preformed quiet a bit of research, looking at different blog out there on the internet about gardening. When conducting the research it helped me learn more about the blogging world relevant to my topic by looking at different peoples layouts, content, purpose of the site, the audience that has already been targeted and decide what I liked and didn't like before creating my own blog. The first thing I noticed when looking up gardening blogs is there is so many out there. When I googled gardening blogs it often took me to sites that would then give me a long list of top blog sites all about gardening. Once I started to dive in deep in my research it became apparent that many of these bloggers have been at this for years! For example Gayla, who is the author of You Grow Girl, has been blogging about gardening since the beginning of 2000. There were so many bloggers who have been not only blogging about gardening but also gardening for over 10 years that it helped me in deciding that I knew I wanted to create a blog that offered advice to newbie gardeners from a newbie herself. Throughout this research it also helped me in determining the content I wanted to share with people. In some cases I found blogs that were not really blogs at all, more so informational sites such as Backyard Gardener. In other cases I found sites that were very personal and made you really understand the authors point of view and the advice they wanted to share like Family Food Garden. In almost all of the blogs they offered tips for beginning gardeners and then moved into tips on how to garden and so much more. In the blog site Get Busy Gardening, the author Amy offers so much information it is almost overwhelming when looking at her site and trying to find exactly what tips and tricks you are looking for. In another blog site called Urban Turnip, he is very easy to understand the content he offers and also cut and dry. When comparing the two blogs I knew It would be very beneficial to be a combination of the two. One of the biggest advantages of completing all of the research came from looking at the way each blog site was laid out and determining what sites where inviting and interesting and made me want to click around verses the sites that I did not get that warm feeling from. One of the sites that I absolutely hated the layout from is called Gardening With Confidence. I personally did not like the layout at all as it was plain and very uninviting also giving a sales pitch vibe to just buy the authors book and her blog was not very important. With that being said my favorite laid out site was called, Miss Smarty Plants. The site is vert attractive and as many say first impression means everything, this blogger definitely takes that into consideration when she created this site. I want to create a blog site that connects people who are new to the gardening world to a newer gardening who is sharing her experiences with the world. My domain name is going to be Great Green Thumb Gardeners, as having a green thumb is another name for being a good gardeners. I also chose to add the word Great in their as I feel once you develop your "green thumb" you can be a great gardener. Finally I chose to end it with gardeners as I want to create a community of people who are learning about being gardeners and give them a sense of involvement in the page.
After determining the name of my blog site I have narrowed down what the three topics of my blog will be. The first topic will be all about gardening on a budget. I will give different tips on how to keep the cost down but also keep things beautiful, while involving my personal stories in each tip. For the second topic I want to talk about vegetable gardens. I will discuss how to create a veggie garden, the benefits of a veggie garden and just how enjoyable one can truly be. My last blog post will be all about caring for your gardens. How to trim plants, watering tips and keeping your plants alive. Overall I want to create a site that is inviting, informative and entertaining to help my audience connect with me on a personal level when it comes to the gardening world.
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