If you want to make your blog a success, whether financially or otherwise, it’s important to choose a niche for your blog.
There are many reasons why niche blogging is better than general blogging, so consider these points before you hop on the blogging bandwagon and start to write.
1. Niche Blogging Establishes you As An Expert
One of the reasons niche blogging is better than general blogging is because if you choose a specific subject, that helps to establish you as an expert. Once people consider you an expert on a topic, they are more likely to visit your blog for the specific information you can provide.
If it’s a niche you’re comfortable with and know a lot about, you’ll see your traffic and revenue increase steadily based on how much work you’re willing to put into promoting your blog.
If you don’t consider yourself an expert on a topic, choose one that interests you and become an expert.
Having a niche for your blog is an important way to stand out from the crowd, because you’ll be able to attract people interested in your subject who will begin to view you as an authority if you take the time to write regular, relevant content and know what you are talking about.
2. Niche Blogging Helps Build a Community
Once you’ve established your niche and begun blogging regularly, you will start to see something pretty amazing happening. You’ll start building a loyal following, and a community of like-minded people will be eager to share their thoughts, opinions and questions with you, the expert.
While many people read blogs strictly for information, many more are involved with their favorite blogs on a deeper level. They want to feel part of a community, and by niche blogging, you are helping bring people with similar interests together to discuss their favorite topic and interact with you and your readers.
3. Contextual Advertising Works Better When you Have a Niche
If you want to make money from your blog, contextual advertising has been found to work much for effectively for niche blogs than general-appeal blogs.
Why? The concept is simple: when you choose a niche and dominate that field, readers are more likely to click on contextual ads on your blog because those ads are already targeted to your audience.
Bloggers who don’t establish a niche will find that contextual advertising doesn’t work as well for them, because their ads aren’t targeted to their demographic.
4. Search Engines like Niche Blogs More than General Blogs
While it’s certainly possible to rank well in search engines if you have a general blog, it’s much easier to rank well when you have a focused topic you regularly blog about.
Once search engines see you post regularly on one specific topic, those search engines are more likely to see your blog as an authority and rank it higher in search engine results than if you had a general blog.
Obviously, massive sites like Wikipedia rank exceptionally well, but most bloggers do not have that kind of power behind them. If you’re like most bloggers, a niche blog can be the way to go for better search engine rankings.
In Conclusion
Niche blogging will always be better than general blogging, especially if you want to establish yourself as a credible expert in the community and potentially create a source of revenue from your blog.
Once you find your niche and dedicate your time to dominating it, you can end up having a highly successful blog.
True. And most bloggers who remain generalists don’t last very long.
Niche is everything. Athletes don’t play on multiple teams or wear different jerseys, and the same thing for a blog. People want to know what you’re about, what you stand for, and what to expect. Few blogs will make it to the winner’s circle of someone’s daily bookmark and a blog that is purely a landing spot for both everything and nothing at the same time, won’t achieve that coveted reward.
At least not my bookmark.
Hello Brian, I Find niche blogging is much better then trying to label your self as an expert in every field. Find something that interest you and run with it and learn all there is to know about it. I see a lot of blogger don’t really know what they want to blog about so they start by adding every topic known to man kind on their blog confusing their readers. Great post Brian.
Thanks Rob, appreciate it. Once in a while when I find myself wanting to start a side blog for fun, I wrestle with this very thing. Should I go all out? Or focus on one particular (or niche) element that would allow me to be seen as an expert.
I think focusing on a niche will give you the ability to produce much better content. I try to stay with something I truly enjoy writing about that way I’m well focused.
It also helps you hone in on targeted visitors when you want to do thinks like make money as an affiliate or sell advertising as well.
Yep – I need to learn that…apparently I’m going to do it the hard way:(
Hang in there, patience and hard work is rewarded.
That’s very true Brian in the long run people will notice your hard work.
Richard, learn it fast, it’s a hard lesson.
Also, what may start as a niche blog may end up being too general as the field matures. You may need to continually niche down.
I use an “overflow blog” for stuff which I “have to write no matter what.” It’s private. =)
Great advice. The part I have had issue with is choosing the incorrect niche for me. I started out somewhat general, then quickly narrowed my focus to a “Dad blog”. After almost a year of doing that with very little results, I started to generalize again for R&A.
I have been blogging as a team with my wife for the last two months and we’ve discovered that our heaviest hit posts are ones that offer digital products, printable crafts, and design stuff.
So, naturally, we are moving in that direction. Good thing I have you guys here, right? Looks like I will be really utilizing StudioPress, Genesis, and graphic development a lot more in the future. Give the people what they want, right?
Hi Brandon sounds like you already have a plan try focusing on what gives you the best results and see how that works for you.
For what it’s worth, I think it’s completely ok to (initially) blog across a variety of topics, especially if you don’t know what your niche should be. Sometimes, like Brandon, you set out one course, and end up sailing another.
You hit the nail on the head Brian. I started with a niche blog but after running out of topics to write about expanded the content to include all different topics although they are closely related. It’s now grown into a more general blog ie web design, link building, video marketing, list building, etc. Perhaps I’ll build a micro niche blog and compare.
Niche blogging feels right, but it’s nice to read a well written, well reasoned article on why niche blogging is the way to go.
“If you don’t consider yourself an expert on a topic, choose one that interests you and become an expert!”
I’ll go with that.
If you have an interest the rest will follow.
Brian, I totally agree that a niche blog works for the reasons you mention. My largest blog, Staging Diva Home Staging Business Report, targets a very specific (and relatively small) niche of people who want to grow a business decorating houses to sell. It has certainly helped build my reputation in that industry and supports a high 6-figure business selling my information products to that group.
I’m creating a new blog now, VoiceofPossibilty.com, and I’m struggling with it feeling so “open” after writing in such a tightly defined niche for so long. My audience is entrepreneurs who want help creating their ideal business and lifestyle, but is that too broad to be a niche?
I know you blog about blogging/Wordpress, does that feel too broad to you sometimes?
Debra – I think it’s ok to have a relatively broad array of topics if the intent is to present to a specific audience. In other words, sites like ESPN who cover a number of sports are still targeting the same “type” of audience. Sports enthusiasts.
Now if ESPN starts posting articles about “how to plant flowers”, we got a problem.
Hi Brian
My friend, Keith Davis, twisted my arm to drop in and check out this post. Not to worry — the twisting was relatively painless. LOL
I read a cool post not too long ago entitled, “You Don’t Know Niche About Marketing”, and it ties in, seamlessly, with the message you’re sharing here.
Stellar advice, by the way!
I’ve been blogging for about four years now and I tend to be a “generalist”. Not by design and certainly not on purpose. If the truth be told, I’m your basic “creative writer” at heart. So I’m guilty of being all over the “topics” map.
Just for fun …
Here’s my acronym for NICHE:
Networking Information Connection for Hellbent Experts
Glad Keith recommended your blog and I always take him up on his recommendations. He knows a good thing when he sees it.
Niche On!
Hey Melanie – thanks so much for dropping, and thank Keith for me.
He’s quite the Genesis advocate, and usually makes his way around here to comment on my posts. All around, a very nice guy!
You made it Mel
First lady to comment on this one.
So what Niche are you going for?
You have a Genesis theme so first thing to do is sign up as an affiliate and put a Genesis link somewhere on your site.
They do a selection of tasteful graphics – no flashing banners unfortunately.
Or… write one of your award winning posts about why you use Genesis on your site.
Then we can all copy and paste it. LOL
I can always count on you, Keith, to come up with the best (Genesis) ideas.
I’ll let you know when I’ve cranked out that award-winning post so you can stop by and copy & paste it. LOL
Quick as you can Mel.
I’m short on ideas so I need your post, post-haste, you could say.
I’ll leave you to get cranking.
Any thoughts on a Niche?
Hey Keith
My thoughts are niche-less at the moment.
Not sure where I’ll dip my toes in the niche pool.
Have any suggestions??
No ideas Mel
Ask over on your site and you’ll get 20 ideas.
Will also give me time to think.
Great. Just what I need … 20 creative ideas floating around in my head. LOL
On a serious note, Keith, that’s a really good suggestion … “ask” my readers. Duh …
Excellent! I needed to read this. I recently started my blog and didn’t think about a niche audience. I’ll be taking your advice and blogging across several topics, then narrow down. Thanks Brian!
That’s exactly why I create my new sites. All new blogger needs to read this post to succeed in blogging.
Hi Brian! Nice post. I would just like to ask, how specific should our niche blog be? For example, I like gadgets and computer hardware, should I focus on contents related to computer hardware or should I filter it more like laptop, desktop or tablets?
I think you can cover all of that – considering it’s all somewhat related. Having a blog that covers computer hardware and types of tabasco sauce isn’t the best of ideas.
Just be smart with how you categorize things, and you should be fine.
Great post, Brian. I couldn’t agree more. When I first started blogging it was for a specific purpose / topic. While I occasionally will write about different things I’m able to stay pretty well on course. I don’t have thousands of readers but I’m extremely thankful for the dedicated following and interaction that my blog does have, which I know would be impossible if my post topics were all over the place.
I’ve recently started using Tumblr for a wider and unfocused variety of short posts.
I think that if your goal is to generate more traffic, then generally speaking a niche blog is better. However, if your goal is simply to have fun and speak your mind, then starting a general blog is easier to get off the ground.
I originally started blogging with a niche topic and realized that for me, I felt like I was up against a corner and had a difficult time coming up with content. Blogging isn’t a full time job for me currently, but more of a hobby. I decided to switch over to blogging about a much more general topic and have been having much more fun. I’m not limited to anything and can write about whatever I want. For me, this made more sense. If you are curious to check out my general blog, it is at http://www.clevergems.com
Let me know what you think and if you recommend ways to keep it fun while making it more focused.
I have always tried to blog within small niches. What happened was, that I started having trouble writting articles. I simply didnt know what to write about, nor did I feel inspired to write about these subjects anymore. So maybe its a good idea to have more than one blog. Have different nice blogs, so you can aleays write on one of them.
Well said and helpful. Great brainstorming thoughts to get me pondering my message, my expertise. I’ve heard it said that if you try and say everything you end up talking about nothing. This goes right along with your advice.
And these are among the reasons I chose to set up my Real Estate Agents Websites blog and CMS.
It reminds me of an old phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” If you are a generalist, you know nothing about everything. The opposite is you know everything about one thing.
Be well.
Agreed Brian,
They can appear in search results more often than the general blogs.
Niche blogs are loved by google too
Thanks for the the post.
Christian-
Do you host all of the blogs on the same server? Is it a pain to host multiple blogs at the same time? That would eliminate the problem, but it would be difficult to come up with enough content to make multiple well-designed and content rich blogs.
I’d agree with all your points above. Just want to add more, for point no 4, the best words to describe it is “keyword density”. When your blog have a niche, you’ll probably have higher density on certain keywords related to you niche. That will really helps to ranking better in SERP
I coudn’t agree with you more. I have a personal opinion/solution for when it comes to general blogging. Use your personal brand to talk about the things you love which in many cases are more than one. This might be a good idea when you arent an expert in something. Sort of a personal blogging experiment. Most of the time you will found yourself tending to a particular topic. Then it could be good to focus on that particular topic with a separate niche blog. On the other hand I have seen tons of people
using their personal brand for their passion and particular niche. At the end of the day I believe everyone should ask the question to the mirror… How can I share my value to the world? And start from where they currently are. Any thoughts?
With a niche blog it can be assumed as well that you will have a passion in what you are blogging about, provided of course, as Christian touched on above, the niche is not so narrow that you soon run out of things to write about. Take some sports related blogs for instance. Could you really produce a blog on golf for example and manage to cover all aspects of the game adequately for all of your visitors? It is best to find an aspect of golf within that broader golf niche, say something like golf swing, to enable to focus on the narrower niche and provide more of an expert service.
Also, if you are a football fan, could you write enough about football generally or would you be better advised to write about a narrower niche, like writing about a particular team for instance. I could write about Liverpool FC all day long given the time. It is a niche within the wider niche of football and there is plenty to write about.
Going niche is better, but make sure there is enough for you to write about within that niche and it is not too narrow.
Wow! Great post! Its like it was written directly for me. Will have to keep plugging away to find my niche.
Hi Brian,
Another great post. I always saw a problem with niche blogs, particularly the ones that are very narrowly focused because I could not imagine writing about narrow topics forever.
What I always thought would be a right thing to do is to have a blog which is still niche but not too narrow split up into subsections of very focused topics.
It seems to me that you and some of the commentors tend to agree with this sort of an idea.
Your post has given me something to thin about.
Thank you,
Dita