Your niche on the Web

by Stephen Cope

The Internet is vast with millions of new web sites being added weekly- How do you stand out in this crowd?
This is topic we are going to address in this article. An understanding of which is crucial for your Internet success.

 The answer is rather simple - To make the crowd smaller!

It is easier to stand out in a small crowd than a big crowd! Therefore you need to get away from the crowd and go to your niche! On the Internet this translates into building and marketing your web site only for a small section of the Internet (your niche) and not to everyone (the big crowd).

Is Niche the same as Small?
People often confuse niche with small, whether or not it is depends on your target market, but generally speaking I would say niche means smaller not necessarily small. For example films.

Films covers a large area but is in itself still a niche on the Internet. We can divide the films theme into areas(sub niches) like Hollywood films,British films, Foreign language films, black and white films, Laurel and Hardy films. All of these are in themselves niche areas-- but not small, and can be divided even further. For example we can divide foreigm language films into French,French film Catherine Deneuve, German etc.
Why Make our Target Market Smaller?
The answer to this involves a basic understanding on how people search for information, products or services. On the Internet they normally go to a search engine and type in a query films. What would you expect if you entered this query at Google? ----You would certainly get a result but probably not the one you wanted!

Instead, you would probably enter a query like- films new releases, or action films or
films Tom Hanks.

Now imagine what would happen if you created a web site on films, would you expect to stand out in the search engine crowds when someone entered the query - films? ---------

Instead  imagine that you created a web site based around films starring Tom Hanks (your niche) and someone did a query for films Tom Hanks.

Well when I entered both queries in Google this is what I got:

• Films 76,900,000 web sites (the big crowd)
  
• Films Tom Hanks 285,000 web sites (a smaller
  crowd)

Is it easier to stand out in a crowd of 285 thousand as opposed to 77
Million? The answer I think is obvious. If so then why do so many people still
continue to make the same mistake when they build a web site?

Learn how to find your niche and build a targeted web site so that you don’t make the same mistake.

About the Author

Stephen Cope is a freelance trainer and the Webmaster at -
making a website and IncrediMail and Outlook Express Updates