We need bloggers

The year is starting with so much good stuff in the works. Those new to blogging have often been told to focus on one very niche topic. That has commonly been considered the way to gain credibility, readers, links, and ultimately traffic, assuming the blog itself isn't a source of income. But is keeping it narrow really the best way to go?

I see dance being used as communication between body and soul,

to express what is too deep to find for words. ~Ruth St. Denis

That is what I tried to do in the beginning. I started with what I consider Social Ballroom dancing only. Somehow I learned to accept the Rootzi Tootzi influence with exhibition and competition dancing. Still it was pretty vertical. Then Frank first introduced Line Dancing in the Dancing in the Dark blog and I figured, why not?

From there I began to go more into the night club and studio circuit. Less than a year later Frank introduced Country Dancing. It just struck me as quite all right. Now that he has his own blogs he is even more horizontal and his blogs are holding their own very well and the interest is there for the reader/dancers.

"Show Me Heaven" by Maria McKee

For some, vertical content is good enough. Another way to go would be to cover as much ground as you possibly can. Throw a wide net out there and see what you catch. Once you see what you've caught, maybe you can catch more in the same area. The thinking is that the more ground you cover, the more people you are potentially exposing your work to. It's going horizontal, rather than vertical.

From the scads of hints, emails and other notices that I get, Horizontal Content seems to be the coming thing for 2013. In our blogosphere I figure the Cultural dancer first and foremost. Then the others that are related to this content. If we can get only one guest author in each of our blogs, it will help to define that blog and the readership will go up.