For the last little while, about a month and a half ago, I decided to start another website in addition to this one I currently have.
I’ve wanted to create another website for a while now, but haven’t had the opportunity.
Basically because I was focused on providing content and trying to make this site the absolute best I could make it. But the thought and concept of this other website, which I won’t reveal at this moment since I’m still monitoring results, has been eating away at me for quite some time.
But I got to thinking about that other site ALOT over this American long weekend that just passed (Thanksgiving). I was talking with an associate of mine, the same one that I mentioned in SOI Podcast 002, and he was attempting to work on yet another project.
This time though, it would be a blog/website about marketing.
Curious to know where his newly found knowledge of marketing came from, I simply asked him.
He simply replied that he had absolutely no intention or writing a single word. He’s going to outsource all of his writing to others and build up his site by link building and social media.
After all, that’s how the pros do it, he added.
(In my mind, my hand was slapping my head repeatedly but I continued to ask questions.)
So I asked him what made him believe that this business will work when other business he worked on before, failed.
“Well because people are interested in marketing. Whether it’s affiliate marketing, direct marketing, email marketing, offline marketing, whatever type of marketing it is, they’re interested in. And I’m going to bring it to them. I’m going to be a one stop shop for all of their marketing interests and questions.”
“After all, that new website you told me about is almost the same thing. It’s a one stop site for information relating to what you’re talking about.”
That comment had my heart pounding.
The LAST thing I wanted was for one of my sites to be considered one giant hub for a wide variety of information.
So on Sunday night, when I went to check out some of the content that I already wrote for that website, my stomach was in a knot.
My associate was right.
The content I had already wrote did come across as being all over the place. Which is something that I didn’t want. And if you’re creating a site, it’s not something that you want either.
Creating A Blog About Everything Is A Horrible Idea
Sorry to say this, but there’s at least a 75% chance that my associate is going to fail in this new business of his.
The main reason is because he’s focusing on too many things.
He plans to have relevant content on affiliate marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, etc. and having your hand in many baskets at once is a sign for trouble.
Mainly because you can’t specialize.
Let’s say, for instance, I was interested learning about email marketing and from learning as much tips as I could on email marketing. If I went to his website, I would be greeted with post on email marketing and almost every other type of marketing out there.
Basically because he chose to cover all topics instead of specializing in just one.
If I came across a situation like that, more than likely, I would search for another blog that is 100% dedicated to email marketing and would be more inclined to follow the tips, strategies and advice that person gives.
If you’re thinking about creating a site about everything, you need to seriously reconsider.
If you do a search on the Internet, you’ll find that a lot of people that are the most successful, are the ones that are focused in on a niche.
And that’s what you should be focused on.
What Is A Niche Market?
I looked up Wikipedia to find their definition of what is a niche market. Here’s what they had to say…
“A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact.”
Pretty self explanatory.
Unlike the example I gave earlier about an associate of mine, and his determination to focus on the wide market, when you focus in on a niche market, you’re focused on one particular thing. For example, instead of focusing on all of the marketing markets, each one of those markets are separate niches.
Creating a marketing site around social media cater to those who want to do social media marketing.
Blogging about email marketing tips & tricks would be welcomed by those who want to see better results from their email marketing campaigns.
And so on.
How Can Choosing A Niche Market Help You Succeed?
If you haven’t already started writing about a specific niche in your market, then there are two things you definitely need to remember that will help you succeed.
1. Make Sure Your Niche Isn’t Too Wide
The main reason that you DON’T want to have a niche that’s too wide is because you won’t be able to build a targeted audience.
If you’re interested in health, you can certainly write articles related to health, but there are just far too many topic to cover. And because there are so many topics to cover, you most likely will struggle when it comes to getting any quality traffic to your site.
Sure you’ll probably get some visits to your site, but people should generally know what your site is about when they first visit. If you have one post about acne and then another post about pregnancy and another post about pregnancy, then visitors will be confused about what your ultimate message is that your site is trying to provide. And that will hurt any attempts to turn them into subscribers.
But say, for instance, you were interested in a topic like How To Stop Acne or Acne Remedies, then you would write about that and that alone. Any audience that you will build from that, will be of people who are interested to learn as much as they can about acne remedies and how to stop acne.
And that list will be much easier to build that way rather than just writing about a general topic like health. Mainly because you’re delivering that specific information, and only that specific information, that they’re looking for.
To succeed with your niche market, you must try to niche it down as much as you possibly can.
But also…
2. Make Sure Your Niche Isn’t Too Small
Now, there’s a thing called niching it down too much. Which you really don’t want to do.
When you choose a niche that’s too small, you won’t get enough visitors and you won’t be able to build your blog. This is mainly because there just aren’t too many people that’s interested in the topic.
For example, let’s say you were interested in knitting.
Now that topic of knitting is a HUGE topic and something you really shouldn’t focus on by itself. So you decide to find a niche to focus on. And you see the wide abundance or clothes and boots for dogs but nothing really for cats. So you decide to have your niche be “knitting mittens for kittens”.
Yes, you have certainly selected a niche market, but it may be far too small of a market for you to succeed in. So by knowing this, you shouldn’t focus on “knitting mittens for kittens”, but instead “knitting mittens.”
When you’re trying to figure out your niche market, there are two things you need to remember:
1. Would people read my site and the niche topic I’m talking about?
2. Would people be interested in my site overall?
Final Thoughts
Everything in this post is what I told that associate regarding his new attempt in business. Regardless, he’s fixated on creating one site and making that the hub. Even though I told him that crating multiple blogs on the different topics he’s interested in would be the better choice… since he’s outsourcing everything.
He disagreed.
But I’m tell you this… if you are interested in a topic that has many layers to cover, create multiple blogs on the different topics you want to create.
This is probably the best method to choose that you would be the most successful with.
Sure it’s a lot more work, but by doing it this way, you’re sure to see much better results because you’ll be creating a single website for each of the topics.
If you want to create a successful blog, then I highly suggest that you focus on one particular niche. Because at the end of the day, nobody’s truly winning when you try to write about everything.
You’re losing out because you’re not putting your best efforts in to solve the problem.
All you’re focused on is coming up with more content that may or may not be useful to them. And your readers are losing out because they’re not getting their questions and concerns completely answered.