New simply Nicole

Hello readers! Those of you who have been with me since the beginning (2009!) know that I’ve blogged about various topics over the years. I’ve trained for a half marathon, created delicious recipes, visited gorgeous places, organized the limited space in my apartment, and shared personal aspects of my every day life (i.e. graduating from college, getting married, buying our puppy). Since I started blogging, I knew that I should figure out the niche for simply Nicole. I brainstormed for months and months trying to determine what topic I could write about daily.

Healthy living always seemed like a perfect fit for me. After a not so healthy lifestyle in college, I wanted to revamp my life and become “healthy” once again. I started going to the gym frequently and was training for races almost every other month.  However, after a few years I felt that it was a chore to create content for simply Nicole. I even stopped going to the gym altogether because it felt like I “had” to go in order to keep my readers happy and coming back to my site. I felt terrible when I didn’t and I was creating content that I didn’t even want to read. The problem with a healthy living blog is that I felt the need to always post tips on how to live a healthy lifestyle. You can imagine how conflicted I could be if for instance I had an amazing weekend drinking with friends, eating fried food and getting too few hours of sleep. I’d want to share that story with you, but it doesn’t really fit within the healthy living niche. 

Over the past month, I spent a lot of time learning about the business of blogging and how to keep myself and my readers happy. (One of my favorite resources is Abby Lawson’s blogging e-book. I read it cover to cover at least 2 or 3 times so far!) At the end of this “process”, I decided that the best thing for me is to determine what types of blogs I’ve enjoyed reading for years. I made a list my favorite blogs and the general topics each blogger wrote about. The outcome was astonishing. At least 75% of the blogs on my list were general lifestyle blogs with topics such as organization, home decor, DIY projects and healthy living (healthy living being a small portion of the blog, not the overall niche).  

I can blog about something other than just healthy living?! Why sure! After much thought, this is the direction this blog will be taking. 

• Organization Projects
• Home Decor
• Healthy Living (recipes, food product reviews, yoga) – as a “part” of simply Nicole, not it’s entirety. 
• Travel
• Big News in My Every Day Life

You’ve probably also noticed a layout change. I’ve had a free WordPress theme for years and it just wasn’t working anymore. Plugins weren’t compatible, the CSS code in the stylesheet was all kinds of jumbled, and I needed something new! This past weekend I purchased the Genesis theme and a child theme from Restored 316 Designs. I’m also in the process of redoing my logo so keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks. 

I hope I keep all you current readers around as I embark on this new journey.  Thank you for all the continued support!