Find Your Niche And Stick With It

What Is A Niche?

The buzzword of the blogging world is “niche”.  Every blogger is supposed to find his or her niche and then move on to hold a substantial amount of the readers in that niche.  But what exactly is a niche?

The simplest definition is as follows:

a position particularly well suited to the person who occupies it; “he found his niche in the academic world”

As applied to internet marketing, Wikipedia defines Niche blogging as:

Niche blogging is the act of creating a blog with the intent of using it to market to a particular niche market. While it could be argued that all blogs are, in some form, a niche blog, the term as it applies to marketing refers to a particular kind of blog.

While Wikipedia is correct as far as a blog designed to make money is concerned, I find that the first definition is more accurate for most blogs. Making money is not the primary goal for most bloggers, but sticking within a niche is imperative if you want to attract regular readers.

To state it plainly, your blog should cover one topic and one topic only.  The topic itself may be broad and cover a range of subtopics but your writing should always stay centered on the subject matter that you began writing about in the first place. That’s your niche and you should always stay true to it.

If you really must write about more than one subject, it makes sense to write more than one blog.  That way all of the content on each blog will interest the people that decide to see the other posts you’ve written on that topic without being forced to filter out the other subjects that don’t interest them.

What’s My Niche?

A lot of people struggle with the concept of finding their niche, but the reality is that it’s probably staring you in the face right at this very moment. you already have everything it takes to jump right in to your niche, you just might not know it.

To find your niche you simply have to define your interests and experiences.  Whether you love to quilt or have been working in the food service industry for years, there are people out there that are interested in the same things that you are.  If you know it and you love it, then you’ve already got  your niche, you need look no farther than the things that interest you.

Find A Niche Within Your Niche

Although it is completely acceptable to create a blog that covers all aspects of a topic, you’ll find that if you narrow down your focus you’ll be more likely to drive more targeted traffic to your blog than you would if your writing is more generalized. writing in a sub niche will guarantee that the people reading your blog are looking for exactly the kind of information that you are writing, rather than trying to find that one gem of information in the proverbial haystack.

As an example, let’s say you have decided to blog about Internet marketing.  Internet marketing itself is a very broad topic, so you decide to narrow your focus to only affiliate marketing strategies.  You are now writing in a niche within a niche on a very focused topic, this will keep readers coming on a more regular basis and keep your writing on topic because the focus of the blog helps to keep you from drifting off-topic.

Becoming An Expert In Your Niche

Now that you’ve got your niche, you have to try to position yourself as an expert on your chosen topic.  How exactly do you accomplish this?

First of all, do your research!  Even if you know the subject matter, make sure to brush up on the specifics from time-to-time.  There’s nothing that will hurt your credibility more than posting incorrect information.  It will probably happen, but if it does, quickly correct it and post a retraction.  Let people know you’re honest.

Write with authority.  Never make it look like you “might” know what you are talking about.  Always write as if you’re absolutely positive in your ability to cover the topic. This is not to say that you should be arrogant.  you should always be sure to remember that the people reading your blog are just that, people. You definitely don’t want to be insulting.

Post often and stay on topic.  Visit forums and comment. Visit other blogs in your niche and leave relevant comments.  don’t ask to be validated, simply do what you do and make sure that other people know that you are doing it… Politely.

If possible, set up an opt-in newsletter and maybe even write a few short ebooks on your chosen topic.  You can either sell these or give them away, but in either case it goes a long way to show that you actually know what you’re doing.

Of course there are many top-notch bloggers who have neither an opt-in list or have ever written an ebook.  If you’d rather focus your time on content, feel free to do so!  Even if you initially get little traffic, keep writing.  It takes time to get readers, especially returning readers.  If you keep writing it will happen.

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