Niche is a hot buzz word these days, particularly as it relates to marketing and publishing. In simplest terms, a niche is a very specific area of focus. You can have a niche business or a niche blog, so why not join the two and have a powerful niche business blog? It’s brilliant, and many businesses have found great success on the social Web by defining and exploiting their niches via their business blogs. You can do it, too!
The Web is full of clutter, but you can stand out from the noise by establishing your niche and offering authoritative, reliable, and shareworthy content and conversations related to that niche on your business blog.
The first step is to define your niche by asking yourself the following questions:
1. Who is my target audience and what do they want from me?
Define your best audience, and then find out where they spend time online. Listen to their conversations and join those conversations to learn about what they want from a niche blog like yours. Then, create amazing content that meets those wants and needs.
2. Is my niche viable today?
Take some time to learn who else is publishing content related to your niche, and make sure there is an active and engaged audience already seeking information about and talking about your niche. Also, use a tool like the free Google AdWords Traffic Estimator to get an idea of the traffic a niche blog might attract.
3. What keywords should I target?
Do some keyword research to ensure your content is optimized for search engine referrals and effectively attracts your target audience using tools like Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, or the free Google AdWords Keywords Tool.
4. How can I differentiate my niche content and make it valuable to my audience?
Niche business blogs are highly focused, therefore, it’s important that you learn who else is publishing content related to your niche to ensure you add value to the online conversation. You don’t want to simply republish the same kind of information that your competitors are already publishing. Take the time to create amazing, shareworthy content to fully leverage the compounding effect of blogging.
5. Can I make this niche work for the long term?
While it’s important that your niche is viable today, you also need to make sure that you set your business blog up for long term success. Make sure you can create enough content for your niche blog for years to come while remaining passionate about your subject matter. Also, don’t choose a trend niche that is hot today but is likely to fade into oblivion in the not too distant future.
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About Susan Gunelius
I like your article Susan :)
Finding and exploiting that perfect niche is definitely a must. Point number 4 really hits home. Many bloggers are in fact blogging about the same things that others frequently talk about. To truly stand out one has to take blogging seriously and go the extra mile to provide unique content.
Very soon the average reader will realize this for themselves and the entire blogosphere will make a huge shift and readers will stick to the truly outstanding blogs.
Robyn, Thanks for commenting! I agree — if you want your blog to be successful, you have to go the extra mile!
If there is one thing I have learned over the years of internet marketing, it is that the more you drill down your niche, the more profitable you become.