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What is niche blog content & how does a niche help with SEO?

May 18, 2018February 25, 2019 by Alyce Vayle 4 Comments

Niche blog content: what is it, do you need it, and how do you define it? Niche blog content is a buzzword you have probably heard. In a world of ever-increasing competition for readers’ attention, niche blog content might be a way for you to capture a smaller, but specified and enthusiastic audience for your content. Here’s why.

What is niche blog content?

A “niche” is by definition, something (such as a topic, product or service) that appeals to a small, specialised section of the population. Here’s how it relates to SEO (search engine optimisation). You might want to write a blog all about puppies, however, there are hundreds of thousands of blogs already about puppies, so how will an audience find your content? The subject is simply too big and too competitive to rank in search engines.

So, you decide to create niche blog content, on a topic that is more specific. Perhaps you’d focus on a specific breed of puppies, or a particular subject to do with puppies, for example, puppy training. Maybe you could “niche” this out even further and create a blog about training Labrador puppies specifically. Yes, the audience will be smaller, but having unique, niched content might attract a smaller, but more active audience – and because you know who you’re talking to, you can go about creating very specific content.

The principle of niche blog content could help you stand out from an otherwise generic crowd, which is particularly important, given that today the online space is becoming more and more competitive.

How do you find a niche blog audience?

As mentioned, a niche is a focused subset of a particular market group; for instance, if you were to be writing a travel blog, a niche blog could be focused on travelling with a disability, or it could be something pertaining to a specific country or continent. It’s essentially taking a very broad topic and finding a specific subsection within that topic which is where you will reside.

Why is niche blog content a great blogging strategy?

When many people start out with creating a blog, they tend to focus on being quite generic and broad in order order to attract as wide an audience as possible, yet this isn’t the most effective strategy. The reason is that because you become a “jack of all trades” rather than a “specialist” you lose out on being respected (and followed) as an expert within your topic.

Writing or curating a blog isn’t just about writing about what you love (or what interests you), or about practising your writing and grammar, it’s about speaking to a specific audience that is highly interested in what you have to say. When you think about it, the broad content and blogging market is often very crowded – with just a few dominant leaders. To become an authority, you need to think more specifically when it comes down to content.

Keywords, competition and SEO

Google provides the ability to bid for keywords, based on how popular they are. The more popular keywords have a larger search volume, and therefore a bigger audience – that’s why they cost more. For example, the keyword “online beauty course” is more competitive (and costs more) than the keyword “eyebrow threading course”; however, the users searching for the second keyword might be a very engaged and active audience.

If you were to consider this from an advertising perspective, you are wanting to get the greatest return on investment possible, and the cost per click for an advert relating to “budget travel” for instance is going to be much higher than “budget disabled travel” because the search term is a lot less competitive – meaning you will attract more relevant subscribers for much less money.

It means the person clicking on that particular advert will be a much more relevant customer who is looking for your particular solution. After all, you don’t want thousands of people clicking on your adverts – you only want a few hundred qualified prospects to make your blog business a success, particularly if you are selling something off of your content marketing strategy, and therefore the more niche focused your marketing is, the better the conversion and the higher return on investment.

Niche blog content and your audience

When we think of specialists within the medical profession, they are a lot like specialist bloggers. You have a general practitioner (GP) that focus on your broad health issues, then you have specialists that focus on a particular health or medical “niche” in a specific way. These specialists might even charge more for their time. In focusing on a particular topic they create a “pull” toward their offering.

How do you select your niche blog topic?

Jonathan Thomas is a blogger and social media marketer who runs several successful niche blogs. The author discusses how to choose a niche. “Think long and hard about what interests you so much about your niche subject,” he says.

“What would you like to read about? Compare to your competition. Find some way to differentiate yourself while still focusing on the subjects that interest you the most. If you lack passion for any of your posts, it will show in your writing and will turn off readers.”

He points out that by operating within a niche, you position yourself as the go-to-expert, and become aligned with a particular audience group. Remember, the people reading blogs come to the blog with a problem and seek a solution – if you can therefore position your blog as a more relevant solution than the competition, they will remain loyal to you; even if you’re just starting out.

Summary