Generalization vs specialization in choosing a niche and domain name.
There are some important points to consider when choosing a niche and choosing your domain name. Keep in mind, you cannot change your domain name. If you change your mind and want a different name, you will have to create a whole new website!
A niche can be anything you want, however I think you need to consider the following:
1) Is it something you are really interested in? Is it something you won't mind spending years working on and researching? If you get bored you will not be able to keep up the pace and keep producing quality content.
2) Is it a topic in demand if you want to make money or:
3) Is it something you can share with the world if you just want to spread information
4) How much competition is there? Are there thousands of other sites similar in content to your idea?
5) We are told to be specific. Open-ended, broad niches (we are told here) will be harder in terms of getting focused traffic. If someone wants to buy a certain product, having that product name in your blog title for example will attract a person further along in the buying cycle. A person who is just browsing the internet will probably not be searching for that specific product name.
6) So, are you trying to sell a product or spread information? If you are trying to spread information it might work better to have a broad niche and or broad domain name. For example. My domain name is ThrivingCat. I did not choose a more specific domain name because I wanted to share information on a variety of cat (and dog) health and behavior products. I toyed with putting "Dog" in the domain name as well but followed the advice here to focus and be as specific as possible. I created a sentance after my domain name to further explain what my site is about. "Easy Solutions for Cat Behavior and Health".
Recently, I met someone here who has small animals including hamsters. She wants to try my recommended products and home remedies for them! Here is an example of the decision we have to make. If I did not just have the word "Cat" in my domain name and instead included "Dog" or made it even more broad, would I attract a larger audience? Is it better to focus in on what we know best and then our information can spread organically to a larger audience?
I am still not sure what the correct answer is but I would suggest you consider these points carefully before choosing a domain name.
Are you trying to sell a particular product?
Do you think you may want to branch out and sell other products, and if so would a specific name be too restrictive?
Do you want to reach a broad audience or a focused one?
I think there are many pros and cons to each approach, broad and narrow. For some people a very narrow niche and domain name may be smart. Then when they want to promote another product they could start a whole new website. I knew I did not want multiple pet websites however so I choose to stay more broad in scope to encompass whatever I may want to add later. That is why I didn't put "Health" or "Behavior" etc. in the domain name.
Another point to consider when choosing a domain name. Keep it simple. I think this is a very important point. A long, hard to remember name even if you think it is clever is still hard to remember. A short name is easier to fit into forms, remember, print on business cards etc. etc. I wouldn't want a long name that is easy to confuse so someone types it in wrong and then doesn't find my site. Because domain names cannot have spaces, long names often get confusing since someone is trying to get their point across but the easy names are already taken. So they start tweaking the spelling of words and pretty soon it is just gobbledygook. Sorry if you have one of these names! I know sometimes it is unavoidable!
So there are a few niche and domain name tips that I have been mulling over.
Let me know what you think.
Jessica
Recent Comments
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I think your absolutely right.
I can barely remember my own domain name because it's way to long. I'm playing around with some ideas now and after reading this information, I may have to revise it, more like scrap my domain name. I'm not upset about it, in fact you have inspired me. I now know why I've been not making any progress!
The reason behind the fact I don't have very much content and that I'm struggling with writing about content is because I obviously needed to find this advice earlier. Clearly I believe that destiny is trying to tell me something.
After reading and thinking about your post the more I realize I will definitely have to go back to square one. Between keywords, domains, which results in higher traffic this information is an essential tool to have as part of my moving forwards to success. And what I'm doing is clearly NOT working!
I agree Affiliate Marketing is extremely competitive and you definitely must offer SOMETHING to the public to get rated, noticed, otherwise your spinning your wheels and who wants to do that?
Stand out from amongst the crowd which you are definitely doing. I'm sure it has not been an easy ride, but then I could be wrong. I'm just happy for you!
Personally, I don't know what I'm doing! But that's part of learning and this information is gold too me. I feel I have some hope now! Seriously!
And the advice your giving us is clearly working and necessary to share because of your own success stories. Everyday I see your progress. That's fantastic Jessica! Not only are you helping people, but your helping us, but especially me!
This article has changed everything. I can say that between you, destiny and intuition, ITS ALL GOOD! And I'm following your advice because destiny says too! :)
Way to go and thanks for sharing and caring.
I think you just taught a class Jessica!
Becky :)
Thank you Becky! Your glowing support is so appreciated!!!
Someone asked me last year to do a training on this...I think I should. I have received a lot of feedback that it is useful!
I hope you find your direction soon and it all works out for you.
I'm a lot more clear on some things for the soon to be developed website, at least I hope I'm closer!
Thanks for your post, it really helped.
Your doing great Jessica; just fantastic!
I went out and bought some ACV the other day. And yes, it was the cloudy kind, lol! Braggs, organic ACV. :)
Building a website to be proud of,
Becky :)
I can't wait to see your website Becky. Let me know when it is up or send me a link through the personal messages here.
I am so glad this helped.
Jessica
We went to a wedding today...I will do a post with pictures tomorrow. It was great, though definitely the coldest outdoor wedding I have ever been to!
I hope you are well too.
Jessica
And what month are we in?
Cool, no pun intended, lol!
I hope you had a great time and I look forward to viewing the pictures. I've never been to an outdoor wedding before.
Sounds marvellous though!
Catch up with you soon
Becky :)
This is the third outdoor wedding I have been to, not counting our own! So they seem perfectly normal to me! We have another one in two weeks...also outdoor. Hopefully the weather is a bit better though. Summer in Alaska when it is sunny is absolutely amazing. So green and flowers and birds everywhere. There were wild roses at the venue yesterday. In a few weeks the fireweed will be blooming too and irises. Lilacs are already in full bloom, and so much more!
I'm growing Hybrid Rio Samba Tea Roses from our balcony. They are yellow roses with a tinge of orange mixed in. I have three buds that are just starting to bloom.
I noticed that the buds were more closed last night, but they delivered opened flowers today. One of my going concerns.
It's an experiment.
I'll take a picture tomorrow and show you!
Yes, never been to an outdoor wedding before, not once, and you have been to several. Nice!
It sounds like your just coming into Spring now? Our Spring season runs from March 20 - June 21. Than summer kicks in.
Becky :)
Alaska goes quickly from winter to summer. We don't have much of a spring. This is early summer but it could just as easily by extra warm as extra cool. Generally July and early August get the hottest weather though.
We can have lovely falls though with multi colored leaves, dewy nights and beautiful cool but sunny days...or it can rain the whole time until the rain turns to snow. Weather here is highly variable. A sunny day will often turn to thunderstorms in the afternoon and rainbows and then sun again.
Hi Jessica, I took a picture of the roses, (that I'm growing from off my balcony) but when I go to post the pic it ends up being upside down. I'll have to figure out how to rotate it, then I'll send it to you. I'm so proud of myself for trying to grow roses from off the balcony and not only that but from a plant pot.
I'm keeping my promise, thus from our above conversation.
Night, Jessica.
Becky :)
Some very good point you made in this post Jessica! Indeed it is not easy to choose the right domain name. Along the way, when setting up a site, your focus might slightly change. Especially when you start to become more specific in what you want to achieve with the site. And suddenly you figure out, that the domain name isn't what it should be.
Actually this is the advantage of SiteRubix. You can start with one name and build the outline of your site on SIteRubix. If during the setup of your site you wish to use a different domain name, you can do so when moving your SiteRubix site to the final domain.
Good advice Eric. I did not use SiteRubix. I went straight to my own domain but that is a great suggestion.
Jessica - thanks for these tips. I rushed into choosing my niche and have since found that it's probably a little too broad. So I'm working on ways to narrow it down a little bit. I definitely should've done a little more research prior to choosing my niche - but I was unaware that I should do that. This is really good advice, especially for the newer people just joining WA!
Yes, when I started the courses here that portion was just skimmed over. It seemed lacking to me. Thanks!
Jessica, how I wish I'd had this information before choosing my niche and domain name - would've saved me the current struggles I'm having!
While I think there is place for my niche (fitness for older/maturewomen), the problems I've encountered are:
domain name of maturewomanfitness.com apparently makes Google Adsense think that it's an "adult" site when nothing could be further from the truth! I merely meant it to refer to women over 50 or in menopause...
I'm not only looking at addressing physical fitness, but want to include fitness of soul and spirit as well - in fact, everything of interest to midlife women. My blog post cover various issues, but I think that anyone seeing the site name probably think it means body fitness...I hope they are pleasantly surprised when they see the other content at least!
Hopefully it will all work out in the end as I'm put hours of work into this already!
Your domain name seems very logical to me! I'm sorry it was mistaken for an "adult" site. That must be so frustrating! Do you have to use Adsense? I use Amazon. Someone (a human I believe!) reviews affiliate sites when you sign up with Amazon. I would think you would be fine there. The comissions are 4% and then 6% after you get a few sales per month. It's small but can be a lot more than Adsense. There is also name recognition with Amazon. Maybe you are already doing this.
Good luck!
All great points of consideration when choosing A DOMAIN NAME related to your niche, take your time and do it right the first time and keep it simple. It should roll off the tongue.
I have General, Specific and a hybrid site. The General sites generate many times the revenue of the others.
That is good know. Thanks for sharing. That goes against what we are taught here I think...as I recall at least. I chose general too.
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Excellent work.
Thank you.