I hear so much about why you HAVE to have a niche blog. Today I am going to talk about why it is okay to have a multiple niche site, as long as you know what you are doing!
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My Anti Niche Story
In 2015 I paid a super high priced, marketing titan to coach me on my business. At the time I was working with Realtors, entrepreneurs, doing speaking, blogging and a whole lot of other things.
His answer, after looking at what he believed to be a "mess", was to focus on the Realtors.
Just the Realtors. Forever.
And my renaissance woman's heart crumbled. Would I even want to be in business if I could only focus on one thing FOREVER? No.
So I did what any self respecting marketing professional would do, I opened a little Etsy store to sell necklaces (LONG defunct, but put me on a whole other path!) Now my Etsy peeps are way more of my income than the Realtors (like 10X)... whee.
A Call For Anti Niche Sites
So today I am going to talk a wee bit (okay A LOT) about why I think it is okay to have a multi-niche website.
Niches Get Crushed All At Once
While I haven't always been ANTI-niche, I turned over to the dark side when I watched a trend where niches got creamed for a number of different reasons...
- Medical sites got decimated when the Google "Medic" update happened
- Financial sites were crushed when the "YMOYL" (your money or your life) updates happened on Google
- Travel sites lost up to 80% of their traffic during the pandemic when no one could travel
- Even stock market darlings like the Tech Stocks get crushed all at once
Maybe it is because I have been around long enough to see hair scrunchies come back into vogue, but time and time again I see that putting all your eggs into one basket is not the best idea.
Data About My Anti Niche Site
Before we go too far down this niche rabbit hole, I do want to lift my skirt and show a little bit of my niche-y expertise.
This is my traffic report over the last two years for my Artsy Fartsy Life site. That huge spike up is when I wrote a post about "how to make purple". Definitely NOT a niche I was in the at the time.
And here is me compared to similar sites...
You can see that Art Studio Life is kicking my ass in traffic (right now), but they may have maxed out the variations of keywords that they can get, meaning their search traffic is limited to what is available to specific silos of keywords.
But me, hanging out over there on that edge with twice as many keywords to rank for has a chance to max out numerous niches' keywords... whoo whoo!
Additional Resource: How To Know What Is A Good Keyword
Google Doesn't Get Confused
So now let's address the thing that makes me so wicked mad... when people anthropomorphize Google and act like it can get "confused".
Don't get me wrong, I named my new Jeep Money Penny and I call my computer by her rightful name, "laptop", but machines are not really human and Google doesn't get "confused".
Google ranks keywords by numerous factors including (BUT not limited to) the strength of a keyword on certain websites.
So a site specifically about "how to make purple"might rank higher than me for that keyword, but not necessarily if more people click onto my link and then read that post and other posts on my site.
This is the same way that a site about "green M&Ms" might not rank in the top 10 for that search term if the search engine results page is full of links about where to buy them, how many calories they have and who makes them instead.
Site Structure
What matters more to Google is how your site is technically set up... your site structure (bear with me for a wee bit of nerdy talk... it matters!)
So here is the navigation bar for Artsy Fartsy... lots of art at the top... but also categories for my niches..
I am caring for my mother in law with dementia (caregiving), am a big ole tree hugger (natural living) and LOVE essential oils.
And if you look at my Top 10 pages by traffic you see that those niches are represented...
Interlinking Your Keywords
So how can you help yourself rank more for different niche keywords?
You have to interlink your posts about your same niche topics. For example, in my "how to make purple" post I link to my "how to make green" post.
Not only does this help humans who might like to make different colors, but Google can follow those links and see that I have a "niche" of inter-related color posts.
I KNOW, going back to old post to link them together is a pain, but if you have a niche, make sure all those posts are hooked together!
Additional Resource I Use: Link Whisperer To Link Your Posts Together
Promoting In Relevant Places
I think some of this niche-crap is coming from the olden days of the internet when there were just a few search engines.
Now you can get traffic from a multitude of sources (mine are Pinterest and Google, yours might be Google and Facebook or even LinkedIn and Instagram).
As with anything, it really is not about me or where I want to succeed, it is about where the people I write for are hanging out and getting information.
For example, my Caregiver articles do great on Pinterest and my color articles do great on Google.
If I was relying solely on Google it would make sense to niche down and just talk about colors all day, but I actually have other options.
AND going back to all your eggs in one basket, if I get hit with a Google update, my whole site will not go down since I have diversified my traffic!
More Keywords More Money
Soooo why would you want to rank for more (and different) keywords? MORE MONEY!
I make money with ads on my site, but you might want to do promoted posts or make products to sell your different niches.
The more niches you rank for, the more chances of getting traffic and the more money you can make!
Addition Resource :: How To Make Money Writing Blog Posts
When You Are Starting Out
So, what if you are just starting out? Should you pick one niche and focus on just that?
This is where I get a little worried for you!
On one hand I think you have to write about a bunch of different things until you see what "hits". But on the other hand as a beginning blogger it is easy to get overwhelmed and do lots of things not so well.
So, if you are great at juggling lots of things at once, yep, write about all different things, but if you a focus kind of gal, do one niche one month and the next niche the next month.
You Won't Get Bored
My penultimate thought is that if you have multiple niches you won't get bored and quit writing all together.
I KNOW that if I had just focused on Realtor Marketing all those years ago I would be unhappy and bored.
I HAVE to have different interests in my life and as a busy mom, writer and caregiver, I am fine with juggling a million balls and keeping them all in the air at once!
NOT A Niche Free For All
Last but not least, this is not permission to go all willy-nilly and have a million niches.
You do have to have focus and the willingness to commit to a bunch of work on a niche, whether you have one or five!
As a prolific writer it is easy for me to have 10-20 posts in each niche, for you it might be more of a struggle.
Only you know how much you can handle and enjoy!
