Don't choose a niche
- Thread starter Kamikater
- Start date
KraftyKyle
Elite Member
- Aug 13, 2008
- 3,669
- 6,911
I'm a little confused by this thread. You may want to change it to "MAKE SURE To Choose a Niche".
I'm not so sure about this guy's advice.
If you start with a broad topic, like personal development, that has many sub-topics, you are going to have trouble ranking IMO. This may have been fine 6 years ago, but there is a lot of competition today - especially from people doing niche sites and optimizing for long-tail keywords. It seems to me that you would need to build up a considerable amount of content before you start getting ranked for anything useful. You may grab some long-tails just by luck, but using completely white-hat methods will leave you with a very steep uphill battle for any cash-generating traffic.
That's the whole point of going for a specific niche. Sure niche marketing will exclude people, but that's the point - restricting your traffic to those interested people who will BUY.
Unless you have a huge budget or tons of time and knowledge of your chosen broad topic, organic ranking is going to take a very long time. You may have an authority site / be an authority face for your topic in 3 years, but I believe that time can be spent on more profitable activities.
Monetizing with Adsense (what it sounds like he's hinting at) on a site like this could generate some money, but it's a gamble as to how much. It all depends on the traffic you can generate. You could build this into a huge content-rich site with lots of traffic and then sell advertising on it, but that can be a full time job. If that's what you like, go for it. If you are looking for more income at a faster rate, I would not take his advice.
He says all posts should be plain text. That's fine, and he's right about the search engines using it to index your content. However, including video is powerful - both for sales and for search. His own video is on YouTube! Not to mention Google's video sitemap capability. Posting your video on YouTube with a link to your blog and embedding that video in the related post (and linking from your Facebook page, Twitter feed, etc.) is a huge draw for visitors (and repeat visitors).
This may just be the cynical side of me talking... I know he gives some good info but I don't like the overall plan he's trying to sell to the audience. I wonder when one of these guys makes a presentation like this if he isn't trying to give lousy advice on purpose to stop competition before it starts and collect a fat paycheck from more speaking gigs.
If you start with a broad topic, like personal development, that has many sub-topics, you are going to have trouble ranking IMO. This may have been fine 6 years ago, but there is a lot of competition today - especially from people doing niche sites and optimizing for long-tail keywords. It seems to me that you would need to build up a considerable amount of content before you start getting ranked for anything useful. You may grab some long-tails just by luck, but using completely white-hat methods will leave you with a very steep uphill battle for any cash-generating traffic.
That's the whole point of going for a specific niche. Sure niche marketing will exclude people, but that's the point - restricting your traffic to those interested people who will BUY.
Unless you have a huge budget or tons of time and knowledge of your chosen broad topic, organic ranking is going to take a very long time. You may have an authority site / be an authority face for your topic in 3 years, but I believe that time can be spent on more profitable activities.
Monetizing with Adsense (what it sounds like he's hinting at) on a site like this could generate some money, but it's a gamble as to how much. It all depends on the traffic you can generate. You could build this into a huge content-rich site with lots of traffic and then sell advertising on it, but that can be a full time job. If that's what you like, go for it. If you are looking for more income at a faster rate, I would not take his advice.
He says all posts should be plain text. That's fine, and he's right about the search engines using it to index your content. However, including video is powerful - both for sales and for search. His own video is on YouTube! Not to mention Google's video sitemap capability. Posting your video on YouTube with a link to your blog and embedding that video in the related post (and linking from your Facebook page, Twitter feed, etc.) is a huge draw for visitors (and repeat visitors).
This may just be the cynical side of me talking... I know he gives some good info but I don't like the overall plan he's trying to sell to the audience. I wonder when one of these guys makes a presentation like this if he isn't trying to give lousy advice on purpose to stop competition before it starts and collect a fat paycheck from more speaking gigs.
Autumn
Elite Member
- Nov 18, 2010
- 2,197
- 3,073
I got to 2:11 and it's just too retarded to continue. He seems to think that he doesn't have a niche when his niche is quite obviously the broad niche of self development.
Some of the personal development stuff on Pavlina's site is quite interesting but marketing wise, he was just one of those people lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. He should stick to talking about self help topics.
Some of the personal development stuff on Pavlina's site is quite interesting but marketing wise, he was just one of those people lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. He should stick to talking about self help topics.
I can't be bothered to read your reply then.
There is no such thing as a broad niche, as being tiny is what makes a niche a niche.
Autumn
Elite Member
- Nov 18, 2010
- 2,197
- 3,073
No. Within marketing lingo, "niche" is a general and unspecific term meaning a "topic." It can be broad or small. Some people would use the term "niche" interchangeably with the term "vertical" (which is a broad meta-niche, like "weight loss"), whereas some people might use it interchangeably with the term "micro-niche" (a niche within a niche within a niche, like "atkins diet recipes").
I've worked with both internet marketers and offline ad agency people (I am an occasional contract copywriter for M&C Saatchi) and they all use the term the same way. It's a broad catchall.
What is silly about that vid is that Steve claims he doesn't have a niche (being in self development), then he turns right around and describes "law" as a niche, which is just as broad a topic as self development.
If you're looking to Steve Pavlina for marketing advice, I'm afraid you're looking in the wrong place.
ramtripper
BANNED
- Jul 31, 2010
- 426
- 274
dont pick a niche just be a queen, dont take a drag just be a fag... this guy did it when SEO was an unknown term... good luck doing it today.
Yes. Niche is by definition tiny and specialized. Like market niche for example. Law cannot be a market niche.
Well he is still there. He is still making money and obviously enough to have a house and pay bills. I don't know about any other income-streams of his other than stevepavlinacom.
What are you up to?
Your answer does not make much sense. Elaborate more, make it specific.
RuleTheWorld
Junior Member
- Jul 7, 2009
- 108
- 24
I never choose a niche, I put in whatever Im thinking about at that particular point in time and then gather thousands of related keywords and sort them out. Too easy.