The Importance of Being First in Niche Blogging

Posted: 01 Oct 2012 01:06 PM PDT

The ones who do something first usually get the most credit. Be that in business, innovation, creative work. In some cases, it is due to satisfying the audience even before they realize they have the need. In other cases this can even translate into being the first who answers an already apparent need, something already missing. However, for the most part it's mainly due to serving the curiosity which is ever growing.

The thing is, that answering this need, being the first who provides the content, is as good a place to start as any when wanting to establish yourself as an authority within your niche, as well as capture a bigger market by leveraging random affinities and going viral.

Don't let me bother you with flowery prose, and let's delve deeper into why is it that you should always stay on top of what is new in your niche.

1. New things to write about

Even if sounding way too naive, this holds sense. You always have something new to write about, right? Think again. You will realize that on a second thought that's almost a no. How come?

You see, even if the material you create is new in the sense of never repeating what you already have on your site, it's probably talked about many times before, on sites that share the similar theme.

Now this is not that bad of a thing, don't get me wrong. You definitely have contributed with presenting it in a slightly different fashion, from a different perspective, having it connected with other information, thus making it unique (have you?).

But it is still not something entirely new, you see.

By staying on top of what is happening in your niche, you can have something brand new to say to your readers. And not only them, but the whole audience interested in your niche- the potential audience, that is.

2. SEO candy

Realizing that every day billions of searches constantly happen, and that one third of those has never been typed into the search query box before, you should already get the picture about what this means.

In short, it means that sometimes chasing the event keywords or trying to predict the search volume of new trends beats already popular keywords by a huge margin.

I recently wrote a huge review about the Insanity workout. The thing is that it became quite popular in the world of fitness. The workout, that is. So, targeting an audience that resembles the workout potential buyer, I figured that it's a great thing for me to cover. However, I did this a little bit too later.

Granted, I rank well with the review, have some conversion and sales going on, tons of visitors on a monthly basis. But, had I decided to go for creating the review the moment this workout was out of the oven, things would have been entirely different. You get the picture, right? If I stayed on top of what is happening in the niche, I would have made a fortune by now. But alas, we learn, and that's a good thing.

Sometimes try and even predict what will be going on in your niche. Take for example people who build sites around event keywords before they even happen. Like creating a site for, let's say the Olympics. Sounding familiar? Darren Rowse did this once. Way back, with the games in Athens, 2004 was it?

Since then many others tried to duplicate this approach, creating sites around things that they predicted would be talked about. The epilogue? Some had huge success with it, that's for sure.

Now here is the thing; Not only they made a site centering the main keyword, they also tried to predict things like lack of available hotel rooms, traffic jam, incidents… You know, things that happen constantly on such events. In short, the result was great. Whenever some of these happened for real, they already ranked pretty well. And that's a lot of traffic if you ask me.

3. Link bait

We slightly went off-course with the previous one. I hope you don't mind. Let's get specific again, shall we?

The reason why I'm not putting link bait in the same basket with the SEO aspect, is because I refer to it more in terms of Internet Marketing.

You see, being the first to create content about what is new and trendy in your niche, the content itself becomes what SEO's know as link bait. In short, content that is very likely to be linked. And regardless the form, be that in text, video, podcast, it buys you a lot of links either way. The reason being, because it covers what's new and trendy, and we already discussed that people have the intrinsic need for such things.

But creating the content would not suffice all by itself. It has to either be a valuable resource (like those huge articles that Glen from ViperChill makes), present things in a certain entertaining fashion, make connections with other niche related aspects – random affinities (this term is coined by Ian Laurie from the SEOmoz community, and basically means an existing connection between two topics only in terms of having a common audience).

Your content can cover one of these, and classify as link bait.

4. Becoming authority within the niche

How long do you reckon before people start to notice you in the sense of always being the one who brings the new right on the table? News travel pretty fast on the Internet. Go viral with one story, and you already caught the attention of the biggest part of your potential audience.

It won't be that much longer before people turn to your brand, and start looking for exclusive content that can rarely be found other places.

Of course you will have to stay innovative and create content that satisfies those needs. Creating random affinities is as good a place to start as any. But I digress…

The thing is, be the one sharing the new going on in your niche, and you will see that people see you in an entirely different light authority wise.

5. Making connections

This one is very tightly connected with the one above. Mostly in the sense of big players noticing you. They will cite you, maybe even ask you for advice or interview. Even linking to your work, they will make an effort to contact you, since it's clear that you are an up-and-coming player in their niche now.

If you bother to ask, many bloggers will tell you that they made most of their connections this way.

Knowing what is going on in your niche can give you the upper hand in captivating and wooing your audience as well as opening to a new one, earning those links and Search engines love, thus ranking for those keywords as well. You will also make countless of connections, build authority while at it, and even expand your area of interest niche wise by leveraging the random affinities in connection to what is new.

Slavko Desik is writer and editor at Lifestyle Updated, a site about improving one's lifestyle and enjoying life full time. He also writes about subjects closely connected with internet marketing and blogging.

Original Post: The Importance of Being First in Niche Blogging

ProBlogger: When You Don’t Have “One Reader”: Writing for a Diverse Blog Audience

When You Don’t Have “One Reader”: Writing for a Diverse Blog Audience

Posted: 01 Oct 2012 07:04 AM PDT

“Write for one reader” is advice we hear often in the blogosphere, and it can be a useful way to get a consistent voice going on your blog.

But the longer you blog, the more likely you’ll be to get to know your readers, and the more diverse their needs may seem. Or perhaps you’re blogging in a niche whose readers, while they’re united on some fronts, have deeply divided opinions on certain aspects of your topic.

Image courtesy stock.xchng user mzacha

This kind of diversity can be particularly common among readers of blogs in the religious, political, and “cause” niches—areas where people feel really strongly about the topic, and have a deep appreciation of what can be the many complex aspects of the topic.

That said, I’d guess that plenty of blogs would reach audience segments with differing—perhaps conflicting needs. Meeting the needs of those segments is a challenge that every blogger faces.

What if you don’t have “one reader” that you can keep in mind as you write? What if you have three, or four—or more?

Today, I’d like to talk about a strategy you can use to meet the varying needs of a diverse blog audience. It has three key steps:

understand
match
meet.

1. Understand

The first step—and perhaps the most important—is to understand the different audience segments you’re writing for. Have a think about your readers, and note down the ways you think they vary.

For example, if you’re writing a travel blog, you might be juggling the needs of armchair travellers who want a vivid story and glowing shots from around the globe with those of pragmatic travellers who really need practical advice and inspiration to help them get out there and see the world.

You might have more segments than just two—that’s fine. Once you’ve worked out what basic factor differentiates them from other readers on your site, it’s time to delve a bit deeper. Look through your blog comments (or those on other blogs or forums in your niche) and try to track down some key facts about each segment:

Their attitudes: Consider their motivations or reasons for holding certain opinions.
Their media preferences: Your blog may in fact unite readers who might not otherwise come together online. But even if it doesn’t, different segments will likely use different media within (and beyond) your niche. It’s a good idea to make a little profile of their media usage habits, as far as you can work them out, as this can give you insights into other opinions, preferences, or expectations they may have.
Their post format preferences: There may be little difference between segments’ preferences for different formats, or there may be a lot. Do certain segments prefer list posts, or vlog posts, or opinion posts? Does your podcast subscription list equally represent your audience as a whole, or has it attracted more readers from a particular segment?

All you’re tying to do here is get a feel for what makes these different segments tick—what interests them, and why.

2. Match

Once you understand each segment a bit better, you can consider how your brand serves the needs of each one.

You might be able to see, for example, why different reader types respond in certain ways to particular topics you’ve covered on your blog, or why they react in certain ways to your interactions on social media. Ideally, you’ll be able to point to actual examples of posts on your blog that work—and don’t work—for each segment within your audience. I’ve visualised that matching of your brand, your blog topics, and your segment’s needs in the diagram below.

Don’t just look at posts on your blog, though—it’s a good idea to also at the other media you know this segment’s readers use, and do the same there.

Hopefully, this exercise will help you come up with a list of topics and messages that your brand can use as a basis to form deep, lasting, loyal relationships with the readers in this particular segment within your niche.

3. Meet

The last step in this process is to make sure you meet each segments’ needs through your activity on and around your blog.

You created a list of topics above, you know what aspects of your brand resonate with each segment, and you also know how they like consuming your content. The trick now is to create a list of potential posts that look at the topics of interest through the lens of your brand.

Now you can drop those post ideas into your content schedule, so that you can make sure you’re meeting the needs of the important segments within your larger audience. If you want, you can probably come up with some more targeted, specific ways to address them through social media, through your current (or new, targeted) email sequences, and perhaps—for large segments—through your product strategy too.

This way, you can make sure you’re diligent about meeting the needs of each subsegment within a diverse blog audience, without undermining your blog’s brand or making any group you want to serve feel left out or forgotten about.

Celebrate diversity

I think that perhaps the best way you can go about addressing sub-segments of your readers very specifically is to get excited about the diversity your blog has attracted!

One of the most enjoyable aspects of blogging is how it opens up doors to connect with people we’d probably not have met otherwise. Those relationships can be so rich and rewarding—don’t miss the opportunity to connect with key segments in your broad audience.

Does your blog have a diverse audience, with a few—or more—different segments? Tell us about them, and how you’ve tackled them, in the comments.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger