Today I have 9 reasons that you should choose a niche market for your website or blog. When you’re thinking about starting an online business or blog, it is critical that you take the time to define your niche. You do not want to “hope” for success, but instead, you want to create it!
“Hope is not a strategy.” – Unknown
This does not mean that you cannot have more than one niche on your blog. However, you do want at least one money making niche on your blog if you plan to earn money from it.
Welcome to Fearless Affiliate. My name is Irma and I help new bloggers to learn the ropes. There is a lot to take in that first year of blogging, from choosing a niche to changing your mindset from worker bee mentality to that of successful entrepreneur.
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Niche marketing involves focusing your business marketing efforts on a small, well-defined group of the population so that you can better serve them. When you can serve your target audience well, you’ll enjoy success in your business. However, this isn’t the only reason why you need to define your niche. Let me explain…
9 Reasons Why You Must Have a Niche for Your Online Business or Blog
1. Having a niche increases your search engine ranking
How do you think people are going to find you in a sea of similar industries? By ranking higher in search engines.
How do you improve your ability to rise in the rankings? By blogging about your niche! This is by far the best of the 9 reasons you must have a niche.
Using the keywords of your niche and building out content based on those keywords will help you to build authority with search engines, thereby improving your rankings. Google gives preference to websites and blogs with lots and lots of relevant content on one topic.
This is not to say that you cannot rank high with random posts on various topics, but it is more of a challenge to find an audience.
2. A solid niche helps you focus your content and product strategies
If you set up your blog knowing that you will be writing about a specific topic, you can also plan your future marketing around products available for that niche.
This is part of a smart sales funnel, which is to bring your visitors to your blog to read your post. Then while you have them there, you can subtly promote products for that post. Or you encourage them to sign up for your newsletter to receive a freebie and then promote products with your newsletter.
If your goal is to earn money with your blog, you must always have a solid plan for monetizing it. This is the second most important of the 9 reasons that you must have a niche.
3. Having a niche makes creating an avatar easier
Blogging about everything can make it hard to find an ideal client to direct your posts at. It is important that you communicate in a meaningful way to your audience, which is hard if your audience is made up of every/anyone.
When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. - Meredith HillClick To TweetMy avatar is a woman who is unhappy with her current job and wants financial freedom, so that is who I write to. And this lets people who do not fall into this category know who I am writing too. This helps to filter out people who are not interested in my message or products that I promote.
4. You specialize in one area and become the go-to expert
Defining a niche market can be beneficial to your business in terms of reputation because you can become known for a more specific kind of product or service. When you narrow down, your niche customers are more likely to remember what you excel in and will be more likely to refer you to others who are looking for your particular product or service.
If you spread yourself to thin and try to be everything to everyone, you are less likely to succeed.
This also helps you to use your specific skills, knowledge, and credibility to create your brand.
5. A niche helps direct traffic to your website
Let’s face it…if you choose to blog about tree frogs, your traffic options are limited. You will get some visitors, but it may be a challenge to earn an income.
Consider adding one of the more monetizable niches to your website to bring in traffic. This can increase your options for earning while allowing you to pursue your passion, the tree frogs.
This can work with many of the more popular niches: pets (how my schnauzer likes our trips to the Amazon), making money online (how I earn enough money online to be in the Amazon for six months a year), and even fashion and beauty (how I deal with jungle humidity with my curly hair).
6. A focused niche will increase your conversions
As you continue to solve problems for your readers, they will keep coming back for more great information. These visitors may leave comments (which shows engagement with your posts), sign up for your freebies, or purchase the products you promote.
Focusing your blog means creating a streamlined website that has a clear message. You need blog posts that match what your niche is about, so that no one is confused by what you offer.
If you are thinking of restructuring your website
Try writing an “elevator pitch” about what your website is about. An elevator pitch is a 15 second blurb that you tell someone when they ask what you do for a living. Theoretically in an elevator, but not mandatory 😉
For example: “I just love koala bears. They are so misunderstood and such lovable creatures and I want everyone to know all about them so that they can love Koala bears too”.
You should be able to find your tag line within this pitch, as well as a clear direction for your blog posts.
A website named “All things Koala” should have an appropriate tag line (“we love koala’s and we want you to as well!”) and tons of posts on Koala bears. This leaves no doubt for the visitor that you are, in fact, all about Koala’s.
7. It Becomes Easier to Form Industry Relationships
Narrowing down your business to a single niche can help you network and collaborate with companies in similar markets. When you focus your time and energy on promoting a specific niche in your industry, rather than offering everything, it becomes much easier for you to reach out to others in your field and form beneficial partnerships.
By narrowing down your offerings, you are more likely to complement other businesses rather than creating competition with them.
8. Eliminate the competition
When you shop or research online products, you likely have websites that you go to most of the time. You trust their information, you like the way they write or the level of detail that they provide.
You can be that website for your audience. And the readers will come to you.
Why?
Because they love the level of detail that you provide or the voice you use when you write. You want this! Stand out in the crowd and be the authority for all things…koala…or camping…or makeup…or shoes…or dogs…or kittens…or walking sticks.
You may start off with a broad niche, like personal finance, and as you write you will niche down. It will become a hybrid of what you like to write about most passionately and what your audience is attracted to. This is inevitable, so watch your analytics to see who likes which of your posts the best as well as how people are ending up at your website. And I have a post for that!
Related Post: Google Analytics Tutorial
9. You Get to Do What You Love
Narrowing down your product and service offerings allows you to address your target audiences needs and better meet them, but it also allows you to focus your time and energy on those aspects that you love the most. This can be incredibly helpful for making improvements to your business and will allow you to produce your best work. No matter what industry you are currently working in, there are many subgenres within the market that you can branch out, allowing you to find something that you love.
Related Post: Finding A Niche That Works For You
Conclusion
If you haven’t already narrowed down your business to a single niche, these 9 reasons your blog must have a niche should show you why it’s imperative. When you can narrow down and define your niche, you can better serve your target audience and build a successful online business or blog.
In the interests of fairness to those who do not want or need a niche website, I offer this post by Nat Eliason: Does your blog need a niche? Maybe not. It has some fair points and also some great info that backs up some of my points as well.
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Happy blogging, and follow me on Pinterest!
-Irma 🙂
Hi Irma,
Great tips for the potential affiliate marketer here in your post. I can see a lot of sense in looking at a more specialist niche as your target audience.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately and I think I have found a niche I can target for my age group.
I look forward to seeing more of your posts and wish you all the best for the future.
Frank
Way to go Frank and thank you for visiting us today!
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
Dear Irma, This is absolutely amazing free content that me myself as a blogger just love! I know I will be bookmarking this article because it gives me a valid reason for why my niche is so important. I can use my niche to create better posts and better promote products. Thank you so much for easily laying out all these great reasons why it is important to have a niche.
Hello Jaylin and thank you for visiting us today,
I am happy that you are being helped by my article. When I first started blogging, I was under the “if you write it, they will read it” kind of assumption. Far from true! You have to keep writing and writing until you figure out what your audience wants from you, and then you give them tons of it!
I wish you the best of luck blogging!
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
Great post Irma, a really enjoyable read.
I remember when I started my blog and the hours and hours I spent trying to think of the niche and then trying to think of how to narrow it down. I contemplated going for one that I believed would get traffic fairly quickly or one that has more competition but is closer to my heart. One that I can write more passionately about and communicate that passion to my readers, that’s the one I went for and it has been great watching it grow.
All that started from the niche, the idea, the theme of what my website would be about.
Thanks for the article!
Hello Andy and welcome back!
I know how that feels. I was spinning in circles trying to think up a niche before I decided to learn about blogging and sharing that knowledge with others. I know there are tons of websites like mine, but I also know that not all of them will resonate with every visitor. The joy of blogging is learning!
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
Great article Irma. I knew that having a niche for my website is very important, but after reading your article I learned at least five more reasons why is important to choose a niche for my website. For example, I didn’t know that having a niche can help me to increase my search engine rankings and can increase my conversions. Thank you so much for sharing this valuable information with us!
Hello Marius and thank you for visiting us today,
I went back and forth many times when choosing a niche, but ultimately I wanted to learn everything I could about starting a blog so that I could share with other. I am so glad that you enjoyed this post.
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂