I am a big proponent of niche blogging. In other words, picking a niche and blogging about it. Staying focused on this one niche and “crushing it.” When my coaching clients ask me if they should combine niches, I almost always tell them no. Keep it focused and there are at least two reasons why.
- If you keep your posting on one particular blog focused on one particular niche, you will be able to target your efforts to that niche and the potential market.
- If you keep your posting focused on one niche, your readers will also be more targeted on what you are writing about and will not be confused or put off if you hit on too many things on one blog.
There are plenty of offline examples. And when I say offline, I am talking about brick and mortar businesses. Those businesses who have their customers actually walk through the front door and buy either their service or product.
Let me give you an example of a brick and mortar business which is narrowly focused on one thing and one thing only. They are a restaurant who serves one thing. Seats a maximum of 300 people and is full almost every night they are open.
The Brookville Hotel serves fried chicken and only fried chicken. The meals are served family style. ½ chicken, relishes, sweet-sour cole-slaw, mashed potatoes and cream gravy, cream style corn, baking powder biscuits and home style ice cream. $12.95 puls $1.50 for coffee, tea or milk. WIne and spirits are also available.
Every thing is very good and some of the items are outstanding. They get extra marks for serving milk in iced mugs and giving free refills.
Their hours are pretty limited and they are closed Mondays. Reservations are recommended. Oh, and did I mention, they are always full. And the food absolutely kicks butt. In fact, there are sites that have the recipe for some of their stuff.
My wife and I stopped there on the way home from a day trip just the other day. And while sitting their enjoying my limited servings (thanks to my doctor who will remain nameless), I noticed for the first time exactly what I had been missing. Brookville Hotel is a prime example on how a business can focus on one very narrow niche, be the best at it and have more business then you can imagine. Brookville Hotel is also a perfect example of how a business could use a blog to focus on a very narrow niche and be successful at it too.
Focus on a Niche and Be the Best You Can Be
All too often I see bloggers, especially businesses and/or professional service firms try to do too much on one blog. Even if you have multiple areas to your business or service firm, you have to stick to one niche in each blog. Have more than one niche, do more than one blog.
Let’s take for example a professional service firm that actually handles more then one area for its clients. More likely than not, these areas of service are going to be very different from each other. While you may be very passionate about each. Your potential clients are not. Keep in mind how your clients or customers look at you and to you for help. If they are looking for a specific area of expertise from you, don’t give them what they don’t care about in a niche blog. In other words, do one niche per blog and be the best you can be.
When people are looking for a particular issue or problem, they don’t care you know about the other. In fact, they don’t want to wade through the information which does not apply to them. Keep your niches separated for you and your readers.
What they had to say on twitter
I asked my followers on twitter the other day to give me the best one piece of advice they would give a blogger looking to do a niche blog.
Here they are:
We will be running a short series soon on niche blogging. So, please leave your comments about niche blogging on this post. Let’s keep the conversation going. Now is your chance to ask questions about niche blogging. Anything, don’t be shy.
