Let’s being this article with defining niche, what does it mean? If you have spent a considerable amount of time on the Internet, you must have heard this term more than you have heard you name.
“A niche is a subset of a subset of a market made up of individuals who share the same need and have the same desire concerning the category in question.”
Sounds complicated? Let’s take an example to explain this, and to do this we will head towards publishing industry.
Market, Segment, Niche & Micro-niche
We read books, right? Some of us just read course book, while other indulges in different kinds of books. The books in general is a complete set, a complete market that has different subsets (segments) like course books, reference books, guide book, etc.
As you saw, I have divided the book market in three mutually exclusive segments based on how the books are used. There can be many more way to define segment, but that definition falls outside the purview of this discussion.
Now, let’s take course book as a segment and divide it further, and what we get after the divisions are niches. Let’s continue with the preceding example; the course book segment consists of physics course book, math course book, and English course book, etc., niches. As we can see, each niche is different from the other niches, although they are part of same segment, and complementary to each other.
Should we wish to define the micro niche, we will divide any one niche further. Let’s divide physics course book: the micro niches that we get will be physics course book for class 10th, physics course book for class 9th, etc.
In all these divisions, have you noticed one important thing? The narrower we went dividing our niches, the lengthier the keywords became!
“Please keep this in mind that the length of your keywords is directly affected by the depth of your market segmentation. “
How to identify and select a niche
If we could continue with the previous example then physics course books for class 10th micro niche can be further segmented to form physics course books for class 10th toppers, physics course books for class 10th a-listers, etc., but is it worth?
The answer lies in the following question: would you like to be a top seller in the niche that is made of total 4 customers?
I hope, your answer is no. You should consider the following points while searching for a niche in your industry:
- A niche, to be profitable for your business, should be sufficiently big. The actionable size of a niche varies from industry to industry, so see what is worth targeting in your industry.
- Find out how many units you need to sell in a month to book profit? The answer to this question will tell you what should be the minimum size of a niche in your industry.
This marks the end of the technical part of selecting the niches. Now, let’s start searching within you to find an actionable niche.
What are you passionate about
If this “passion” thing goes on to your nerve, and if you get irritated just on the mention of “find a subject you are passionate about and work on it” then get used to this and similar phrases, because this is very, very important. You will require a strong inner pushing to carry on for months in times when there will be no hope of getting so much as a glimpse of success. This you cannot do, if you are not passionate about the subject you are blogging about. Your passion for the subject will keep you going even if success doesn’t come by, and perseverance pays here as well.
Ask the following questions and make a list of the answers you get, if you are to find your passion:
- What made you forget your food today, yesterday, or day before?
- What keeps coming to your mind when you have nothing to do?
- One activity you can’t imagine to quit, apart from smoking or drinking?
- One thing you have clung to since your childhood? Or for at least 3-4 years?
- One subject that you cannot help but read?
- If you have all the time and wealth of the world what would you like to do, and how long will you be doing that?
- What is that one thing about which you know more than anyone else around you?
- What kind of advice do your friends seek from you, and on what topic?
- What is that one thing for which you are considered an expert?
Ask these questions at least five times over, and make a list of answers that you get. Now, you have a list of things you can write about. The next step is to do the keyword research, and for that take the top three topics from the list.
A brief overview about keyword research
A keyword refers to the word that the Internet users enter in the search engine when they want certain information. Suppose someone wants to buy an iPod and looking for discounts then he may enters “iPod discounts” in the search bar to get the relevant result; “iPod discounts” is the keyword here.
You need to find out the terms people use to search for the things in your niche. To do this, first make one list each for the 3 topics we have chosen above, and in each list write at least 10 words that you think people will enter if they have to search for the topics related to the niche in question. Once the list is complete, use any of the following tools to do the keyword research.
- Google Adword Keyword’s tool
- KeywordTracker Keywords (Free Version available)
- VRE (Virtual Real Estate) tool bar (Gives Overture output. Overture is Yahoo’s property)
- Keyword Discovery (Free Version available)
While doing the keyword research find the terms that have most searches and least competing number of pages. See which ones you can use, and there you got your niche and your keywords. I would suggest using Google Adword Keyword’s tool for the purpose.
Content: How strong is your king?
The next step in the process is to write compelling content for your blog. The strength and the relevancy of the content will determine who comes to your website and how long does he stay in there, therefore you will need to chalk out a proper content strategy. You content strategy must include the following:
What: Type of blog-posts
What kind of blog-post will you put on your blog? You have number of options to choose from: news posts, posts sharing your view on different issues, how to guides, tutorials, announcements, insider secret posts, in-depth articles, interviews, list posts, reviews, etc.
How many: Frequency of blog-posts
How many blog-posts do you need to write in a day to keep your blog up-to-date without overwhelming your readers with too many blog-posts? The answer to this question depends upon the niche you operate in. some niches requires a post every hour while other requires every other day. If you are techcrunch.com then you will have to post multiple times a day to keep your users informed.
When: Blog posting schedule
Not just what and how many of blog posting matters, but when is equally a big questions. To optimize the timing, you will need to study your website statistics and find out the following things:
- Which country or time zone makes the largest chunk of your visitors?
- What time of the day they come to read your blog?
- Which is the most active hour for your niche on various social bookmarking sites? Try to get data at least for Digg, StumbleUpon, reddit, del.icio.us and flocked.
- When do you see the highest tweets and retweets in your niche?
Schedule your posting 10-15 minutes ahead of the time frame you get from your study. If you do not wish to miss the traffic surge for the day, do not post more than 30 minutes ahead of the time frame you got in the study.
Who & Why: Hire a professional to do the writing
Writing is a specialized task as is designing, therefore I will suggest going for a professional writer to do blogging for you. A professional writer that has a knowhow of your niche will bring more profit for your blog than a non-professional writer who has no knowledge of the niche you are operating in.
The content created by the professional writers will match the strength of the content created by the masters of the field. He will be researching, synthesizing, writing, and editing for your blog giving you enough free time to market your blog.
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Thanks Steve.
I liked those 3 blocks on What, How Many and When. It is truely a big deal to configure out the audience and adjust your writing and posting accordingly to get as many readers as possible.
Great article!