Why you should choose a niche?

If you want to be successful at any form of marketing, you have to segment your audience. Customer segmentation is all about understanding your customers’ unique characteristics and behaviors so that you can tailor a message that communicates with them effectively. The same applies for blogging and choosing a niche. The phrase “niche” signifies a circumstance or action specially suited to a person’s pursuits, abilities and nature. If you understand your audience, who they are and what they looking for, you are going to make it much easier on yourself to grab their attention.
The most successful blogs are all focused on a specific niche. Some good examples include:

Strobist.com: A photography blog that, rather than focus on the general topic of photography, went uber-niche and blogs about using small, inexpensive flashes.

Farmvillefreak.com: A blog devoted to the online game Farmville.

Thehappylitterbox.com: A blog focused on litter box issues.

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Sticking to one topic will help you create a loyal readership by offering content your readers want. This helps strengthen your relationship with your readers with each blog post. Niche blogging entices advertisers who look for related content to market their goods and services. In addition, it’s hard to stand out from the crowd when you are blogging with the masses. Strobist.com would not be as successful as it is, if it competed with other blogs in the general photography category. The idea is to supply your readers with relevant and specialized content. The kind of packaged content they won’t be able to find easily on another website. Posting for the sake of posting or posting about random ideas will never help grow your blog.

How to Choose a Niche

This is going to sound like a cliché but it is important. Choose something you are passionate about. If you are going to be blogging on a regular basis (which you must do if you want to be successful), then you better write about something that interests you. How you feel about your topic will seep through in the undertones of your writing. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating your audience’s intelligence. They will quickly pick up if it is truly something you care about or not. If you are interested in your topic, ideas for new posts will come quickly and easily. You’ll also find yourself reading and researching your topic more intensely.

Research your proposed niche before making a final decision. You can do this by conducting keyword research. Use a keyword research tool like Wordtracker. This will tell you how many people are conducting searches in your proposed niche. The tool can also be used to find related keywords which will uncover more information on what people are searching for. The ultimate goal of this exercise is to ascertain if the topic is 1) popular and 2) how much competition exists for the keywords/topic you have chosen.

Try to identify a niche with very little competition but a significant amount of interest. Steer away from trendy topics. If you want to create a successful blog with longevity, then avoid topics that are popular now but won’t be down the line.

Once you have chosen your niche, own it and stay focused. If you want to achieve your goals you are going to have to serve your audience with the content they seek. It’s got to be fresh, unique, compelling and worthy of being shared. Focus on creating content that is beneficial, different and new, newsworthy and easy to understand. Think about creating content that is either, entertaining, educational, informative, thoughtful or helps establish a sense of community. Remember that building a successful blog requires a massive time investment. You’ll not only publish posts but you will also spend a great deal of time promoting your blog and researching new topics.

Jeff has been blogging since 2007 & contributing on many websites since that time. He is a professional internet marketing and blogging consultant. Jeff is also a consultant and content contributor for Queens luxury condos community.

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