Blogging, as a content marketing strategy, has grown in leaps and bounds over the last few years. According to a survey, more than 80 percent of businesses use blogs as a marketing tool and most of them found that their blogs have delivered desired outcomes. As per the latest data, 7.5 million blog posts get published daily. Due to heavy competition, many content marketers suggest blogging for a niche audience.
Blogging for a niche can enable businesses to make a decent amount of money compared to blogs that cover a broad range of business-related topics. But blogs that target an extremely narrow audience, or are too specific to a particular industry, reach a limited audience and hamper search engine optimization. Here are some disadvantages of narrowing down blog posts to a limited audience.
- Extremely restricted audience
Creating blog posts for a specific industry or highly targeted customers limits the audience to a certain circle. It will resonate with fewer people and people outside that sphere will not be interested to read the blog posts. Let’s take an example of a business that manufactures only optical keyboards and creates blog posts on the topic. Its website will only have visitors who are researching various keyboards or looking for computer accessories. But if the same business creates blog posts on different computer accessories and writes something about keyboards, a lot of visitors will read the content.
- Low traffic
A highly targeted or extremely industry-specific blog post will not attract as many visitors as a blog post that focuses on a broader topic. Even though the blog will rank well in search engine results, the traffic will be extremely low. Taking the example of the keyboard manufacturer, its website will get visitors who are genuinely interested in optical keyboards. When the traffic to a website is low, it hampers the sales and revenue of a business.
- Search engine bots overlook the blog
When a blog receives high traffic, it signals search engines bots to crawl and index the web pages regularly. The more frequently search engine spiders crawl a website, the more data they collect and understand the site better. But as a micro-niche blog gets low traffic, the search engine bots overlook the website and web pages.
- Weak SEO
In a micro-niche blog, marketers and content creators target specific keywords, mainly long-tail keywords. These keywords are longer and more precise phrases that web users use when they are using voice search or are close to making a buying decision. A majority of long-tail keywords have lower search volume compared to shorter keywords. A user who is looking for a keyboard is more likely to type ‘keyboards’ or ‘keyboards for laptops’ instead of ‘linear optical switch keyboards’ or ‘optical keyboards for design.’
- Fewer ideas
A marketer who focuses on a target audience or specific industry will have fewer ideas for crafting unique and fresh blog posts. As the blogs focus on certain topics, a writer (or a group of writers) will run out of ideas and feel like there is nothing left to cover or talk about. If the keyboard manufacturer writes only about optical keyboards, its team or content marketing company will lack original ideas after writing for a few months.
- Tough to get high-quality backlinks
As the blog topic is extremely narrow, the website owner and content marketer will find it extremely difficult to get high-quality backlinks. There won’t be many websites on the same topic to link to. The lack of quality links may affect the trustworthiness of the website and impact its search engine ranking.
- Loss of potential customers
A business can’t have everybody as its target audience. To reach their target customers, they need to narrow down their audience and create content as per their ideal customers. But businesses that write blog posts for a limited number of readers may lose many prospective customers. Let’s take the example of the keyboard manufacturer. By focusing solely on blog content on optical keyboards, the business may forego some potential customers who are looking for an optical mouse but may purchase optical keyboards.
- Fewer advertisers
The businesses that create highly specific blog posts get few contextual advertisements on their websites and have fewer advertisers on their web pages. A website that crafts micro-niche blog posts will have fewer earnings as it is most likely to lose out on many potential customers as well as advertisers.
- Less learning opportunities
Content marketers that focus on a micro-niche rarely have time to learn things related to other niches. Also, the businesses that target a specific niche may get complacent and take a lot of time to up the ante.
- Slow growth
A highly specific blog has a much smaller market, which makes it difficult for a blog post to grow at a faster pace. Due to the small market size, micro-niche blogs get few affiliate programs
- Fewer guest posts
A blog page that has blogs related to a broad range of topics is more likely to receive a large number of guest posts from various bloggers and industry experts. On the other hand, blogs that focus on a micro-niche get guest posts from experts or bloggers in that particular niche.
- Niche can become outdated
A business that focuses on a particular niche can have a tough time if the niche becomes outdated. In the last few years, many technologies have become obsolete due to innovations. A blog that focuses on only one technology or niche is without a safety net. It can be hit if the niche or technology becomes out-of-date.
Taking everything into account,
Even though targeting a specific niche can enable a business to cater to a particular audience, too much narrowing down its blogs can be detrimental to its content marketing strategy. Successful blogs are broad enough to interest a wide audience but remain rooted in their industry.
