Are you drowning in a sea of bloggers who are blogging about the very same topic you are? Is your voice getting lost in the crowd? Are you tired of being non-existent among search engine results pages? If so, it's time to get with the program and start "Cornering the Market!"
Like many others out there, I thought I should blog about my passion. Which I certainly would encourage everyone to do. However, what do you do if your passion is a popular one? Are you up for the challenge of competing in a saturated market? In this post, I will explain why you may want to consider blogging about a topic somewhat "off the beaten path" in an effort to run a successful blog and perhaps even start making money.
See The Beaten Path and Avoid It
People tend to think alike
In my experience, I have found that most people tend to think alike. As a website developer, I’m often being presented with proposals for starting blogs, usually fashion, celebrity gossip, or finance. I think starting a blog is a great idea for many reasons, but my advice to these people is, "you had better be one heck of a salesman, writer, and personality." Otherwise, be ready to hustle.
Me, I’m into the development of internet culture, application websites in particular, and how people are using them. A little over a year ago, I decided I was going to start my own blog about web culture. Nearly every day I myself read several popular blogs on the subject. Clearly there is a demand! How could I go wrong?
Then it occurred to me, the internet is flooded with bloggers and teams of bloggers like TechCrunch practically shoveling first-rate content at us on a daily basis! How was I supposed to compete with that level of content flow? So much for being the Web culture guru!
Recognize The Opportunity & Do Your Research
Eight months later, a friend approached me about developing a craft beer blog. He was an avid fan of craft beer, very knowledgeable, and seemed enthusiastic about starting the venture, so I told him I would consider it. Craft beer wasn't exactly my passion, nor did I have what I felt was the required knowledge to be an authority on the subject. Nonetheless, I did some research on the beer industry and took a look around the Blogosphere to see what sites were covering craft beer.
I was pleased to discover that few beer bloggers appeared to possess the skills or resources I have as a website developer and video editor. Furthermore, it didn't seem as though they fully understood many of the aspects of blogging that we discuss here at Blogussion, things like proper internet marketing strategies.
After doing my research, I felt the niche was ripe for the taking.
As I worked on the design of our blog, I continued to study other successful bloggers and learn the tricks of the trade. I decided our site would approach craft beer from a different angle. It would be more about entertainment than information, since many blogs were already covering that area of the industry. This turned out to be a good decision.
Enjoy The Success & Build On It
In what felt like no time (half a year to be exact), our traffic is doubling from month to month, our brand is becoming widely recognized within the beer community, and we are now in the process of developing advertising relationships. Not to mention, nearly half of our traffic is Google organic!
Of course building the blog and community has been and continues to be a lot of hard work. There is still lots to do if we are to be as big as I hope we can be, but in a relatively short amount of time we were able to start building what I see as a promising community of dedicated viewers, and I believe that’s because I (along with my partner) recognized a need and sought to fill it.
Look beyond the obvious
There are so many needs out there not being met. Unfortunately, most bloggers are supplying ones that already are. My advice is to look beyond the obvious. Why attempt to grow your blog on land that is already being tilled? I’m finding running a promising blog with an active and growing community to be exciting and a lot of fun. Who wants to run a blog where no one comments? Perhaps providing a useful resource for like-minded individuals was my passion!
If you see an opportunity, but don’t possess the knowledge on a subject, find someone who does and team up. Let your job be managing the blog and promoting it. That’s plenty. Take it from me.
What do you think?
Is "Cornering the Market" a valid approach to running a blog or should we stick to our passions no matter how popular or competitive they may be?
The Discussion
Leave a Comment Read Again?Awesome concept, Andrew- I totally agree. Seems as though the blogging world is becoming a bit bloated, and needlessly so.
I’m working on a niche site in a field that isn’t widely covered yet, and this post was encouraging! Thanks!
Thanks Steven! I’m gald you found it encouraging!
The “easy to publish” nature of blogging allows anyone to launch a blog. The problem is most people have neither the knowledge or discipline to work hard on making that blog great. It can be frustrating when trying to grow your community and compete with sheer volume of bloggers in your niche.
I think the next step for bloggers looking to make a name for themselves is to start out in a niche that isn’t being widely covered, as you say, in order to grow a readership. Then you can direct that community to your second project which might be the topic you originally wanted to blog about. As Blogussion has always said, patience is everything.
Great advice.
I would agree too. Some niches are getting overly populated, and your advice seems like a good option.
There are many, many niches online. Some do not have much competition. While some have way too much competition.
Kindest,
Nabeel
Thanks Nabeel,
Some are so overpopulated it’s not even funny and others are being completely overlooked.
Definitely look for an opportunity to grab a stake in a niche before other people start to realize the opportunity and take it for themselves.
Wow!
Really great post Andrew,
You are absolutely right.
People tend to think and do things alike which is what leads to competition, being unique is a great key to reaping unlimited profits.
Thanks a lot for the great post,
-Onibalusi
Thanks Onibalusi! Glad you liked it.
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition. In fact, I think it pushes us all to work harder and be better. That being said, the internet is a vast space and competing with 150,000 people is a lot different from competing with ten. When that’s the case, you may want to look elsewhere.
Hey Andrew,
Awesome Post and some amazing advice there.
Researching the niche is very important.
Thanks for sharing this great Post.
~Dev
Thanks Dev!
You’re absolutely right. Research is key. I would not recommend starting any business or blog without having done your research first.
Thanks for commenting!
I agree with you completely. Although it can take a little more time to build credibility when approaching a topic from a different angle, once you break through the mold you’ve set yourself up for longer term success as a blogger and YOU become the authority in that particular area you focus on.
Absolutely right, Spyder!
Breaking the mold can sometimes take a bit longer than following that “beaten path” because it takes people a moment to understand how to use your product or in this case, read your blog. You should WITHOUT A DOUBT seek to become the AUTHORITY in your niche and if you’ve got a great idea, blazing that trail can make you just that.
nice one man….
seeing beyond the obvious is a very important thing…i try to write what i feel should be known for everyone and does not caring about whether it will be liked or not…some of those articles have got 40 comments and some of them less than 5….
Blogging is a bit about taking risks and you should not be discouraged if they do not work for you
Thanks Tushar!
I think many people fail to realize how obvious their topic is until they’ve put a lot of hours in. Once they realize how competitive their niche is, they get discouraged.
You’re absolutely right. It’s all about trial and error. Doing your research can help you avoid a great deal of errors though. Many people fail to do this.
All that being said, don’t get discouraged. If you’ve put time in, stick with it.
Yes the competition has increased these days with small blogs coming up to compete with big sites, really google has degraded the market with bloggers coming up from no where and .com’s going down each day the cost of maintaining and setting up a blogger blog is zero
You’ve opened up a whole other can of worms, Nathan. Lol!
Google takes into consideration a great deal of factors when ranking a page. Financial investment has nothing to do with it. Larger sites and ones that have been around longer should edge out an upstart blog on the SERP, unless the larger site fails to search engine optimize their pages.
Like you, I do worry that the cost of maintaining a quality site sinking many companies could result in a lack of quality content on the Web.
Thanks for commenting!
Andrew if you check you will find that google has also given priority to these blogs over .com as soon as you post in a blogger blog they are indexed while it takes time to get a new post indexed in google though caffine has been a benefit for these .com’s i would suggest people to start blogging
Very well written post Andrew, very impressed. It’s a great theory, but putting it into practice is somewhat harder. So many niches seem to be filled up these days, I think it’s more standing out from the crowd somehow that really determines your success more so these days.
I’ve got two blogs,
One that covers general tech stuff http://www.techinfo-4u.com
It’s been on the go for over a year and hasn’t really grown a whole lot
My second, is the iPhone Niche – http://www.nextiphonenews.com , it’s traffic is 4 times that of my first site, and it’s only been up a little over 6 months!
Just goes to show, you get the right niche and your sorted
My passion is about video games and I’ve spent more than half of my life talking about video games, playing video games and thinking about them so naturally I decided to make a blog about them too. However, unfortunately my niche is incredibly over-populated but I hope to be a lot different from most of the other blogs out there by being a really involved blogger and developing the community as well as regularly posting articles with my opinions that are also quite entertaining. I think that more bloggers could benefit from blogging in this way if they really tried hard to separate themselves from the pack and even I could try harder at this.
By really trying to be unique, we can show our readers how different we are from the hundreds if not thousand of others in the same niches as us who are out there and they’ll decide to root for us underdogs instead the folks with all the money and the power.
Good for you Jasmine!
In no way is the niche my blog covers untapped. I simply did not feel anyone was approaching it from the angle I wanted. So I made that my mission in the same way you did.
Stay focused and build your community. Good luck!
Thank you! I’ve been trying to make sure that I don’t start following all of the other bloggers around when it comes to my opinions. As for the community thing, I’m going to do my best and hopefully it will work out! < There are many blogs, especially in my niche, who fail to attempt at garnering a community whatsoever and so their reader-bases are in chaos.
I bet. In my limited experience visiting gaming sites, I’ve noticed that they can have a lot of non-constructive comments from users. This type of commenting is usually from one-time visitors. Build a solid community of people who value your site and start recruiting them to your mailing list. Gaming affords you the opportunity to offer a lot of E-courses on certain games which can lead to affiliate marketing opportunities. Perhaps the Top 10 Tips & Tricks on the most popular game out.
I recommend you sign up for From Planning to Earning, if you haven’t already. I found it to be very informative.
Oops! Didn’t click the reply button with my last comment! See it below
I check every comment for spam and for things that aren’t constructive I always have a witty retort or comeback up my sleeve to reply with! My site’s only a month old but already have about 5 really loyal readers who visit the site regularly and I do plan on releasing E-Courses in the future too.Though for the course that you suggested, do you think that a course like that would be paid? I signed up FPTE before and it was really helpful!
I’ve been using Twitter to gain more loyal readers but I’m not sure what else to try, do you have any community building suggestions, I’d really appreciate them.
I would suggest you start out by offering outstanding free E-Courses and then once you’ve got a solid fan base built up, you can explore paid E-Courses. You could perhaps offer Day 1-5 for free and then Day 6 & 7 would be an additional charge. Sell those days as the “super secret” tips, but be sure the free part is amazing as well, otherwise they won’t go any further.
Reach out to the game makers and see if they will supply you with press releases early and perhaps even game secrets. That will make you valuable to your readers.
In regard to growing your community, if you’re not utilizing Facebook pages already, I would definitely start. Go to other gaming websites and comment on their articles. Use them to steer traffic to your site. If you have written a post on the same game, drop a link on the other gaming site and explain to readers why they should check out your site for a more comprehensive article on the subject. Don’t be too “selly” though. Be casual about it and seem eager to share with them and help them.
Lastly, gamers are very visual. Make sure your site looks AMAZING. You want that “wow factor.” Your site itself should look like a “souped up” video game. You may even want to develop a free Flash game on your site to get people there.
You have a lot of room to work with in your niche.
Hope that helps! Good luck!
Thank you so much Andrew, you’ve really been so helpful, I appreciate it!
My site’s just over a month old so do you think that that’s too soon to start giving out free E-Courses? Should I focus on site content and promotion until I gain more readers?
I do link building things now but I found your ideas about Facebook pages and ‘souping up’ my site with a bright theme etc. really useful and they’re something I’ll definitely try to implement.
I don’t think it’s ever too soon to start providing free E-Courses. If done well, this will actually help build your community.
Ok, then, I’ll get to work on those E-Course as soon as possible! Hopefully I can do it well and build my community.
Thanks Andrew!
How are thing coming along on your site and E-Course, Jasmine? : )
Hi Andrew, another good post of blogussion, love it
You really have a good point, i have never encountered having a popular topics which has “high” competition. So thanks god, that my blog’s niche doesn’t have lots of competitors out there, and i hope it can get higher and higher place in SERPs.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Thanks Kimi! You’re welcome. Glad you liked it.
Good luck!
Great blog post! One thing I’ve found from blogging online is that even in the most crowded of niches, there are almost always undiscovered angles, stories, or other takes on the topic that could lead to very successful blogs. Staying away from the beaten path and carving out your own is one of the best ways to get noticed with quality content. Thanks for sharing.
Of course it’s a great idea, but most will run into the same old problem – passionless = 3 month old dead blog.
I see two choices for successful passionless blogging…
1. Start making money really soon.
2. Partner-up; passion/brains kinda thing.
I couldn’t agree more. Thanks, Dennis.
Hey Andrew, great blog but a slight issue. As you may have guessed I’m just writing to request you to remove my image from your blog. I generally let people use my images in blogs if they ask permission first but here you have not done so. The image on my flickr page is copyrighted, I suggest you search creative commons licenced images in the future which would be easier for you.
Luke
Hi Luke,
Thanks for letting me know. I was not responsible for choosing the images used in this post. I’d recommend you contact Alex and the Blogussion team and let them know. I’m sure they’d be more than willing to resolve the issue.
Best,
Andrew
It definitely gets harder and harder to find new and original things to blog about. My blog is in the internet marketing niche and that’s especially difficult becaue there are just so many other bloggers in that niche and a limited amount of information. I mean, how much can you write about article marketing and email marketing? Sonner or later you will have to start reworking the same information. I think that’s why you see a lot of bloggers stary from their original topics so often. That’s a big mistake because even though they think they are providing new information, they are actually turning off their regular readers.
I can see how that would feel like a “Catch 22″ there, Chris. However, I would recommend you rework that information as that can keep your site growing and fresh in terms of SEO authority and if you are marketing your site well, there will always be new readers who will be discovering your content daily. To them the content is new! Squeeze out whatever new info you can whenever it’s available.
Good luck!
Andrew I agree – I think we bloggers forget that we get new readers each and every day and the more content we have on our sites the more people haven’t read all of the posts. I usually write about similar topics but ensure I always put a new angle on them. In IM especially things change regularly and while you might have written on a specific topic a year ago the world has likely changed since then.
This post made me feel fortunate to be in a small niche–kids martial arts. The only drawback is you probably have a little less to write about in a small body of knowledge.
Matt,
That’s great! If there is a small body of knowledge, there is room for you to create new information based on your studies and become an authority on the subject.
The study of martial arts is thousands of years old, so I imagine there is an abundance of knowledge out there. It may just require a little more digging. If you still don’t find what you’re looking for, perhaps try to translate the knowledge there is about adult martial arts to children’s.
Thanks Andrew, I am trying to do exactly what you suggest above in first paragraph. Your suggestion about the translation is brilliant. I have not thought of that. Many thanks.
You’re very welcome, Matt. Glad I could help!
Finding the oportunity and recognising it as a good one is the key in my opinion. In my early days of creating website I spent a lot of wasted year building site in highly competetive niches.
Ste
It can sometimes take a long time to find the right niche for yourself. Interestingly, the fact that you moved on shows that those topics weren’t even your passion. If you find yourself operating in a highly competitive niche and are enjoying yourself and not even thinking about the competition, you know you’re in the right place. That is golden.
blogging on a daily basis on a subject you’re not interested in would be a nightmare. imho one should stick to subjects u have a genuine interest in no matter how competitive.
I actually agree with you. It would be hard to get people interested in reading your blog if you’re not even interested in writing it. I don’t do most of the writing on my blog. I’ve brought on a team of talented and passionate writers to handle that part of things. I truly enjoy operating as creative director and Editor-in-Chief.
I think a lot of people have the knowledge and interest for creating a blog but are either waiting for a subject matter to strike them or do not possess strong writing skills. These people may not be bloggers at all. Maybe they’re really blog developers.
Yes, it’s true, become a big fish in a small pond is much easier rather than big fish in big pond.
I agreed with you sir I work on the principle of generalization and specialization instead of posting all kinds of post I concentrate on my target traffic and post cachy interesting post of one kind till i got success and see myself in top 10 blogging guru’s of my industry.
Good for you! Glad to hear it.
It is all about planning a head of time and finding your niche. Thanks for sharing.
Planning is the operative word. Come up with what you believe will be an effective strategy for success and then be prepared to change it as you go.
A little extra help is always useful. Bloggers who try to do it all get sucked in a blackhole. Where time flyes and nothing gets done.
I think it is a great idea! sadly, in my case, my interests and passions are pretty mainstream, but hopefully I will be interested in something more unique one day. Either way, I just wanted to say that I love this post and the blog as a whole. You state things that are not obvious and written elsewhere, so keep up the good work!
Thanks for the feedback Moneymakergal! Glad you enjoyed it. If the name is any indication of what you’re up to, I don’t think you have to worry about it
thank you for this awsome post, this art just what i was looking for ×ž×©×—×§×™× ×‘×¨×©×ª
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