Why You Need a Niche

This is the first post to Your First Niche Series. Again, before I begin, it is likely that you experts will already know about this, but as I am just branching off into affiliate marketing, I am writing for those who are in a similar situation as me. Maybe this will be of a help to them and hopefully for the experienced, maybe this will help you remember the “old days” or even refresh you with a few tips you forgot about.

Before I get into the details on how you find your niche and all, this post will first set some needed foundation. A mistake many beginners make is that they have no niche. They either do something general or they choose a huge market that you could never label as a niche. You may be wondering why you need to choose a niche anyways.

You’re Not a Superman
You just can’t do everything by yourself and although you might be the smartest person in the world, you really can’t handle every topic. Rather than being mediocre in a lot of topics, you probably will do better if you devote all your time into one topic. Let me give you a scenario to really try to convince in you into finding a niche.

It’s Like a Major
When you’re in elementary, middle, or high school, you’re learning a whole lot of stuff. This is when you’re trying out a lot of stuff and seeing what’s right for you and what’s not. However, when you enter a university/college, you choose a major and focus on one thing. Maybe language is your thing or maybe even science. Whatever it is, you pursue that dream and later on if you have some time, you pursue another thing.

In a way, it is similar. There isn’t really a job called, “Do-it-all”, but there are jobs like “designers”, “engineers”, and “musicians”. In a rapidly changing world, competition in all fields are getting a lot harder. Even if you chose one job the competition would still be intense. That is after four years of studying your one major! I mean, shouldn’t you be chosen for the four years you devoted your time and energy? Unfortunately, it’s not like that. In the web, it’s quite similar. The competition for a “general” site is intense. It has no color, no focus, and often, no vision or a plan on where to go next. Like choosing a major, you need to choose a niche (even a niche is getting a bit too competitive these days) to test and give yourself some chance of success.

Time is Limited for You AND Your Visitors
Another reason why you need a niche is because of time. It’s just unrealistic to be doing everything at once. Branching off into other niches are possible after one project is at a level where it can sustain itself. However, unless you have some massive budget to begin with, you really want to use your time well. There is no point in making a website dealing with a whole lot of topics that won’t convert. That time could be spent on making one or two niche websites where you devote all your time into.

Also, setting up a website is not the end. What’s hard is optimizing and monetizing it. If you choose something general, chances are, people won’t go to your site as it takes them too much time to find the information they want. If I had some infection, I’d probably want to go to a website where every information on it is related to that infection. I wouldn’t want to have to browse through the webmaster’s picnic last Friday or the dinner he ate with his date last night.

Niches Convert Well
Often, if you choose a niche, it’s a lot easier to make money. Say that I was running a news portal. I probably will deal with topics such as breaking news around the world, sports, celebrities, science, and technology. Once I have a good amount of visitors coming to my news portal, I’ll probably link up the site with an affiliate network. I decide to put up sports related products like soccer balls, basketball jerseys, and autographs. Now, what are the chances that a visitor coming to my news portal to read about the latest news in science will convert? Probably a figure very close to 0.

Guys, it’s not getting visitors to buy stuff through your affiliate link even when you run a soccer related website. If you’re running a general site and hoping to make some money through some converts, I suggest that you stop dreaming as you probably won’t get too many sales, if any! You want to choose a niche, build a site, and optimize it so that a good portion of your visitors convert, buy something, and make you money. Websites with a focused niche can do that, but general sites just can’t.

Conclusion
Now, I’m not preventing you from creating a general website. It’s okay to make one like that and if it is a hobby, I’d say go for it. However, if you’re looking to make some serious money online and want to be successful through the Internet, that’s just not going to help you make money. It’ll only help you realize that general websites usually can’t make money as easily as other niche focused websites.

Again, it’s really up to you. I’ve created a lot of “niche-less” websites. ahnternet is a make money online blog, but in a way, as I’m talking about a lot of my other interests too, I guess it has a toe or so in the “niche-less website” pool. On the other hand, BloggersWalk is quite focused on the topic of whole topic of blogging, so that would be a bit more of a “niche” site than ahnternet.

Did I convince you that niches are the way to go? Still, not convinced yet? Have any questions? Think this post isn’t so impressive? I’d love to hear your feedback, so please do leave a comment. Remember that ahnternet dofollows your website/blog too and also utilizes CommentLuv to help you. Thanks!

Don’t forget to keep up with this series, especially if you’re new to affiliate marketing. For beginners, it’s all about finding the right niche, as your first niche will be where you get your feet wet with affiliate marketing!