When a Niche Becomes TOO Narrow - And You Get Stuck
Is your niche too narrow to succeed online? You may have heard that it can't be too narrow, but it definitely can be.
I'm sure the last thing you want to do is get stuck in a niche where you no longer can think of content to create down the road.
Keeping it narrow is important but you want to hit the sweet spot.
I'll give you some insight into how to do this.
Why Keep It Narrow?
Less to Deal With
A broad niche can become a juggling act.
Should you write about this topic? That topic? How should you structure your menus? Should you create multiple email lists?
Keeping it narrow makes things a lot more simple. You have a targeted niche and you stick to it.
Less Paths for Visitors to Veer Off On
If you have some mammoth site about 'health' in general, then you likely have all sorts of information attracting all sorts of audiences.
You might have one post about improving eyesight and another about losing weight.
A visitor from your site might come along through a post about "Is the 'product name' weight loss supplement any good?" and then they see some other recent post that catches their attention about fish oil for skin health. They click on that and forget all about the weight loss supplement they were reading about, which you were trying to promote to them.
With a more broad site there is a more broad range of lesser-related distractions -- distractions that could make you lose a sale.
You'll Look Like an Expert
Do you want to look like a boss in your niche? Do you want people to call you 'the man' or 'boss man' (or lady)?
Then you want to look like an expert--and sound like one too.
Even if you don't know much of anything about your given niche when starting out--you can achieve this higher status by simply sticking to things.
It's a heck of a lot easier to become an expert in a narrow niche than a broad niche--because as you can imagine there is less to learn.
The saying "jack of all trades, master of none" fits perfectly here.
When Narrow Becomes WAY TOO Narrow
"Health" - This is an increadbly broad niche. There is physical health, mental health, emotional health, spiritual health. There are shaker weights to lose weight, nitric oxide pills for ED problems, meditation practices for stress relief, cough syrups, flintstones vitamins, gluten free cereals... and of course... kale.
This is much too broad of a niche. Narrow it down and have a better idea with which direction you will be taking.
- Conclusion - WAY TOO BROAD
"Health Supplements" - It's a lot more narrow than just 'health' in general, yet still a very broad choice. You have all types of supplements pertaining to physical health, mental health, emotional health, etc. You have diet pills, erection pills. pills to improve mental focus, pain killers, etc.
Keep on narrowing it down.
- Conclusion - Too Broad
"Weight Loss Pills" - Now this is more like it. There is still a heck of a lot of content you can create around this niche but it is so much more narrow than when we started. You could create content around weight loss pill reviews, different types of weight loss pills and how they work, etc.
But if you wanted to you could still go more narrow.
- Conclusion - Somewhere Right Around The Sweet Spot
"Keto Weight Loss Pills" - Now this is starting to get a lot more narrow--just when you thought it might not be able to get any more so. Now you are targeting people that are looking to lose weight without much work (with pills) and are into keto diets. The keto diet is very popular right now so this is a niche that is still do-able.
- Conclusion - On the Narrower Side of The Sweet Spot
"Keto Burn Weight Loss Pills" - Now this is going a little too far. "Keto Burn" is a brand of keto weight loss pills. While it would be possible to create a small niche site around a product like this, it wouldn't be advisable.
This is too narrow for a niche--it would be more worthy for a post topic.
- Conclusion - This Is Too Narrow for What Most People Are Doing--Not Suggested
"Ingredients in Keto Burn Weight Loss Pills" - Ok now this is starting to get a little bit out of hand. This narrow would be more suitable for a paragraph or section inside a blog post. I suppose it could be the focus of an entire blog post if the keyword is good enough, but generally speaking this would be more of a subsection inside a blog post.
- Conclusion - This is much too narrow. No one in their right mind would make this their chosen niche.
"Does The BHB In 'Keto Burn' Work?" - This is paragraph worthy. It's too narrow for even a full length blog post. This is suitable for a paragraph within part of a review blog post.
*BHB is a type of ingredient these keto weight loss pills have.
- Conclusion - Way way way toooo narrow. A site around this would be an absolute disaster. You would run out of stuff to write in about 10 minutes.
"There Is Some Science That Shows That BHB Can Help You Achieve a State of Ketosis, But Not Much" - Now this is getting ridiculous. This is only sentence worthy--and it is a sentence. If you would make this your niche your website would be...well... one sentence.
- Conclusion - Go to the doctor.
The last couple examples aren't even niches they are so narrow.
Definition: "A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused."
The last few examples are so narrow they don't qualify as a niche.
And I know none of my fellow WA'ers would choose something that narrow--but I hope this way of thinking about things helps you think about what might be too narrow.
How to Fix a Niche That Is Too Narrow
A niche that is too narrow can always be fixed--luckily.
The solution: All you have to do is broaden it.
Your niche is not set in stone. Sure, you might have a domain name called LillysBabyStrollerReviews.com --but there is no reason you can't broaden that niche and start creating content around sippy cups as well.
I know it isn't desirable to write about something that doesn't seem to fit with your domain name, but I'm just letting you know it isn't the end of the world.
NOTE: What one person considers too narrow might not be considered too narrow by someone else. This is just my take on it and I think most people here would agree with me.
What do you think?
How narrow is too narrow?
Multiple Choice Question: Choose The Best Niche
a) "Horses"
b) "Horse Equipment"
c) "Horse Saddles"
d) "Do Horse Saddles Go Underneath The Horse?"
*There is no right answer. I just want to see what you all would choose.
Recent Comments
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Hi Kyle, I guess you can start narrow and then expand your niche, for example start with c, then incorporate b from your list if you exhaust the first sub-niche, thanks for clarifying, Alan
I agree that its easier to broaden a niche vs making it more narrow. Probably why on a broad niche site taking the buyer to specific landing pages and a call to action from there. If they see more it will be after they have made a decision.
Starting narrow and broadening is a lot easire than starting broad and then trying to narrow it down. The reason being it is easier to become an expert in a narrow niche. It is much harder to become an expert in a broad niche.
umm...this is a tricky one. I would say C but, who knows how many horse saddles exist. So, to me that niche may end up too narrow but, for someone who is familiar with horse, it may not be a narrow niche.
On the other hand, "B' is a boarder niche but, with many areas too talk about but, it could be too board. My final answer for now, will be B.
This is post gives me something to think about, and it definitely has helped out. Thanks for sharing it...
B or C would work for me. I don't mind doing quite small niches where I reach a point to go on to another website. OTOH, we used to raise llamas and I still have a general website about them, where we sell infoproducts we created about them years ago.
I would probably choose B or C as well. But there is no "right" choice I guess. It comes down to preference.
You have nailed it, and clearly given great examples. I am saving your post to save me trying to explain it all over again to newbies. It seems to be the most asked question. Maybe Kyle should create a tips post/blog for newbies for us to refer to when we need to explain things.
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Good discussion on niche selection.
Since there is very little new under the sun, one very good way to qualify a niche is to see if there are successful affiliate programs for it already. Then, we'll know there are paying customers in that niche.
I would think a search for affiliate programs such as your example
"Ingredients in Keto Burn Weight Loss Pills"
would demonstrate there is insufficient market potential due to a lack of affiliate programs.
cheers Marc
Good point Marc--lots of different ways to go about niche selection but this is definitely key, since the point of all of this is to make money.
Thank you for that advice.
my pleasure, glad it helped!