When performing research, it’s sometimes not enough to settle for a general market or topic. Many seasoned bloggers enjoy success because they’ve chosen to blog about specific niches.
From General to Specific
A niche market is simply a smaller sub section of a larger market. If you imagine a big circle to be a general market, a smaller circle in it would be regarded as a niche market. You can go deeper than this. If you draw a smaller circle within the small circle, that would be what you would call a niche within a niche market or a micro niche.
Some online gurus take niche marketing to a whole new level, identifying increasingly smaller markets within small markets. Depending on the market or blog topic you wish to pursue, this may or may not be applicable to you.
Why Enter a Niche?
The reasons for going after a niche should be obvious. Because some markets are so big, blogging about every single sub category in it can almost seem like you’re writing about unrelated topics. Readers typically prefer blogs that can focus on a specific topic of their interest. They’ll lose interest when you stray from their points of interest.
It’s also worth noting that people who are interested in a niche usually share a common language, culture or vibe. You’ve got to tap into these to effectively connect with your readers. This won’t be easy if you’re blogging about different sub niches within a market, each niche having different qualities.
An Example
To illustrate, crafts could be considered a huge general market. A smaller market within it would be clay crafts and within this niche would be a smaller niche like polymer clay crafts. You can drill even deeper with a micro niche topic like polymer clay jewellery.
Research Objectives
Keep in mind though that just because you imagine that the topic or niche you have in mind is a good one, it doesn’t mean it is. That’s why you need to do research. Once you start looking into a niche, you should keep in mind a few objectives. Research should help you determine if a niche:
- has enough traffic or interested people
- has manageable competition
- offers profit opportunities
In the next post we’ll look closer into these three objectives.