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niches

Although personal blogs often wander through a variety of themes and topics, for a serious blog project you will want to focus on a limited range of topics.

Although personal blogs often wander through a variety of themes and topics, for a serious blog project you will want to focus on a limited range of topics.

Defining a single main area or niche for your blog topic has three main benefits:

The strongest, most memorable brands are the ones most quickly and easily understood by consumers. Building a brand for a blog thatchanges topics regularly is much harder as the blog becomes harder to mentally categorize.

It’s Easier to Build a Memorable Brand

By contrast, a focused blog is easily simplified into a memorable idea. So for example it’s much easier to think “Stock Market Tips” than “Covers topics like the Stock Market, Television, and Cars.” You can in fact still build a great brand around a bizarre set of topics; it’s just a lot harder! A good example of a blog that isn’t easily defined is BoingBoing, which covers many things, including technology, sci-fi, gadgets, politics, and Disney.

A focused topic attracts and retains a strong audience because readers quickly learn what the blog is about, and if they like it, then they stick around.

They are also more likely to recommend the blog to other people interested in the same topics. If you move between a variety of unrelated topics, you are likely to lose readers who aren’t interested in some parts of the blog, or who simply can’t be bothered to wait for the next post on the topic they are interested in.

Your Readers Know What to Expect

It’s much easier to attract advertisers to a focused blog because the topic of your site defines your audience.

For example, businesses selling financial advice are likely to see a blog about stock market tips as an attractive place to advertise given the clear overlap in audience, whereas they may be more hesitant if the audience match wasn’t so clear because the stock market tips were mixed with posts about other topics.

It’s Easier to Attract Advertising

It’s much easier to attract advertisers to a focused blog because the topic of your site defines your audience.

For example, businesses selling financial advice are likely to see a blog about stock market tips as an attractive place to advertise given the clear overlap in audience, whereas they may be more hesitant if the audience match wasn’t so clear because the stock market tips were mixed with posts about other topics.

It’s Easier to Attract Advertising

Sub-niches

For any topic, you will always have the option of either taking a broad view of the topic or focusing on specific parts, or sub-niches.

Here are some examples of niches and more focused sub-niches:

Broad Niche Focused Sub-niche

Blogging Professional Blogging

Investment Tech Stocks

Weight Loss Low-Carb Dieting

Travel Travel in Asia

It is possible to break topics down further and further. For example, “Travel in China” would be a sub-niche of “Travel in Asia,” and even more specifically “Travel in Hong Kong.” Both broad and focused blogs have their advantages and disadvantages.

These are summed up in the next tables.

Broad Niches

Pro Cons

Large depth of contentMight be a bit TOO much to

write about if you have limited resources

Larger potential More competition and often more organized competition

Focused Niches

Pro Cons

Less competition makes themeasier to dominate Smaller potential

Can act as a foothold intothe larger niche Not as much depth of content

Can be better for branding to have a strong “angle” on the

broad topicCan get boring!

In essence, the choice to focus is really about whether you aim to be a little fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a little pond.

If you have limited blogging experience, it’s usually better to go for the smaller niche and dominate there before trying to shoot for the broader niche. Not only will you then have a foothold to use to broaden your site, but you’ll also have a much easier time doing well on a topic with fewer competitors.

As a general rule, the smaller your topic area is, the smaller your potential audience will be. To broaden your subject matter you could choose to add multiple topics to a blog. If you do this, it’s always best to make them related subjects.

For example, an Investment blog about stocks might benefit from articles about other types of stock market investments like derivatives, options, and so on. On a broader scale still, it would also work to have articles aboutreal estate investment since investors often move between stocks and real estate depending on how the markets are faring.

Should You Cover Multiple Topics?

Another broad option would be to have posts on luxury goods such as cars and accessories, the sorts of things that high income investors might like to buy.

On the other hand, mixing in articles about blogging would be a much tougher sell as there are no natural overlaps between the two subjects. As stated previously, diluting your topic area presents more drawbacks than gains.

It can be very di!cult to blog on a topic in which you have little or no personal interest. There is no simpler way to make blogging a chore thanto force yourself to write, read, and learn about a subject you don’t actually care about.As an entrepreneur approaching blogging, you will most likely be hiring writers to write on the subject so you have a bit more leniency in this than a hobby blogger.

Nonetheless, a personal interest in the subject matter of your blog has numerous benefits:

Your Interest Level

• If you do end up writing yourself, blogging is more enjoyable and feels a lot less like work.

• You are likely to already know a good deal about the subject matter.

• You are likely to be reading/learning about the subject anyway.

• Your passion will show through in how you interact with the community, your sta!, and in your writing.

• You know how to solve the problems your readers face, or at least you know what those problems are.

• You are probably already involved in some networking groups, forums, communities in this area. If you aren’t, it won’t be a problem to get involved.

Given the profusion of available topics, unless you have seen an incredible opportunity that’s too good to pass up, it’s probably best to stick tosomething you are interested in.

If you’re worried that the topic is too narrow, then try opening that topic up to a broader view of the same area.

In essence, the choice to focus is really about whether you aim to be a little fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a little pond.

If you have limited blogging experience, it’s usually better to go for the smaller niche and dominate there before trying to shoot for the broader niche.

Not only will you then have a foothold to use to broaden your site, but you’ll also have a much easier time doing well on a topic with fewer competitors.

A key question in selecting a niche to blog in is to ask yourself whether you can create value for your readers.

At all costs you want to avoid simply launching a “me too” blog that solely imitates (whether consciously or coincidentally) other blogs in the niche.

Can You Create Value?

For a blog to be successful it must create real value for its readers. It must be a worthwhile addition to their reading schedule.

Creating value doesn’t mean you necessarily need to create a blog that is totally unique. It might simply mean that your blog explains a hard topic in a really simple way, or it might mean your blog has a much more frequent posting schedule giving more up-to-the-minute updates, or it might mean your blog provides great entertainment (you can never have too much entertainment!).

Creating value is the di!erence between o!ering something that is already available and providing something new, di!erent, or better.

Without a solid point of di"erentiation it’s very hard to catch up to competing blogs.

After all, why should readers bother switching to your new blog if it doesn’t provide anything new or better?

If you are unsure whether your blog can create value in a certain niche, try asking yourself these questions:

1. Can you generate a lot of content in this niche?

2. Do you know or are you able to find out things that others want to know?

3. Can you create content that isn’t currently available elsewhere?

4. Do you have a di"erent take or angle on existing subject matter?

5. If someone else came out with the blog you are planning, would you read it?

Blogging as a Business Opportunities in Blogging Risk and Reward A Sketch of a Blog Business Your Role and Blogging Experience Setting Up as a Business Capital and Investment Co-founders Your Mission and Vision Business Planning

Planning and Researching NichesResearching a NicheCompetitive AnalysisUnderstanding the Niche Planning Your ContentYour Overall Strategy

Creating a Brand What is a Brand? Naming ConsiderationsDomain NamesVisual BrandingWeb DesignOther Elements of Branding

Sta!Freelance and Salaried Sta"Freelancer BasicsEmployee BasicsFinding and Identifying Good PeopleWhat to PayWorking with Remote Sta"Setting Parameters and Focusing on ResultsOther Sta" IssuesRolesRole: Site Editor/ManagerRole: WriterRole: Web DesignerRole: Web DeveloperOther Roles

Planning ContentWriting for the WebMaking Content ValuableEditingThe Editing ProcessQuick Editing TipsKnow What You’re Talking AboutLists and Popular ContentFrequencyQuality Evergreen ContentNews ContentFiller PostsImages and DiagramsHeadlinesHeadlines Galore!Style and Tone

Long Term StrategiesBuilding a Long Term BusinessFrom One Blog to ManyUsing a Blog to Build Other BusinessesValuing and Selling a Blog

Case Study 1: FreelanceSwitchHitting On a TopicCapitalizing on a Good IdeaThe Road to ProfitabilityTra!cLessons Learned

Case Study 2: Psdtuts+

Case Study 3: AppStorm

Appendix: A Blog Basics Crash Course

Generating Tra"cGoogle AnalyticsBasic Techniques for Generating Tra!cSocial Media BasicsGuest PostsContent AggregatorsBuying Tra!cKeyword ResearchGiving Away Free Stu" Leveraging Your Existing Network and AssetsConsistency and MomentumLinking Out to Generate and Keep Tra!cSearch Tra!cA Basic Guide to SEO

Monetization Tips General Tips on MonetizationAdvertisingA!liate SalesPremium ContentSupportSelling ProductsAd ServicesSelling Your ExpertiseCreating and Selling Web AppsOther StrategiesBlending, Iterating and Experimenting

Inside the book:

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about the author:

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about the author:Collis has authored three books, written dozens of the most popular tutorials on the web and is an accomplished entrepreneur, designer and blogger. He is the creator and cofounder ofEnvato and Tuts+, producing blogs and sites that serve over fifty million pageviews a month.