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I have a blog. (just started) I am having a confusion whether I should keep the blog focused on only one subject (for instance, technology) or not?
If I post different posts on various topics (with proper categorization), will it affect my traffic? i.e. If I write about technology, photography, personal experiences and some more, will it affect my readers' mindset?
Also, can I use a regional language for some posts?
This is a good example of when to use tags vs categories. There's nothing wrong with having varied content on a blog, or any other kind of web site. You just want to:
Try to resist the urge to create more than ten categories. Five would be better. Beyond categories, make good use of tags to organize your posts.
Lets say that you have five main interests:
A list of categories on your blog will then direct people to the topic that might interest them. Lets pick unicorn breeding (a favorite of mine) and say that I read a really good 'rant' that you wrote regarding forged pedigrees. If you tagged that post as a rant, lets say with 'rants', I might also discover that I most enjoy your writing when you are adamant and annoyed.
This lets me pull two feeds:
I strongly discourage posting in several languages, unless you are using some sort of plug-in or facility for translations which should allow people to subscribe only to posts available in a certain language. Google recently added new sources to their news mash up, lots of people are complaining that they are now getting French articles in their reader, even though their preferences are set for English.
Mixed and varied content for a personal site is not a bad thing, its just going to increase ways for people to find you, which hopefully results in quality organic inbound links. Its also nice to know that people actually read and appreciate what you have to say.
If you were running something like 'Pro Technology Blog', where the title and topic of the site suggested that the content within would be equally specific, it would be a bad idea.
Just use tags strategically and make sure you pay attention to what gets the most attention. The point is to get long term readers who actively participate in discussions and help promote your blog.
You could use a subdomain to link visitors directly to the category of posts you refer to... This enables you to link to your techblog and even use different styling options to make it a subpart of your blog which also contains your personal blog items.
If you want to have your blog accessible to as much users as possible... Use english... A lot of visitors stop visiting if they don't understand the language... A solution for this could be to only show the regional posts if a user looks at the site in a browser or location matching your regional language.
You should decide on a single language and stick with it. English only reader will unsubscribe when some posts are in a different language. Using another language than English reduces your competition but also reduces your audience.
As the topic goes it depends on what value you want to provide to your reader. Why should someone read your blog instead of reading one of the thousands of other blogs? If it's because you have an unique perspective on technology than you probably should stay on the topic of technology.
