Do Niche Websites Still Work in 2020?
Niche websites have taken a bashing over the past few years. According to some, they no longer work as they used to. Now Google and other Search Engines have grown wise to the activities of people who are in it only for the money. Trying to manipulate them into giving a narrow site prominence is no longer the way to go.
Well, that may very well be true, but who says a niche website has to be narrow and shallow. After all, there is very little difference between a niche site and an authority site. In my view, niche websites still work very well in 2020. You just need to know what you are doing.
What is a niche website?
A niche website is a site that has a very narrow area of focus. In most instances, the owner creates it for the purpose of making money. To be fair, most people create websites for the purpose of making money. However, for niche sites, there is a narrow focus on a topic of interest. The list below shows you how sites can go from being general to being niche.
- Site that talks about technology (General)
- Site focusing on audio equipment (General but slightly focused)
- Site focusing on headphones (Authority)
- Site focusing on Bluetooth headphones (Authority)
- Site focusing on Sony Bluetooth headphones (Niche)
- Site focusing on the Sony WHXB900N (Niche)
Why do niche websites?
But why should you bother creating a niche website? Isn’t it better for people to create sites that focus on more issues? Well, the answer to that is that many people make the mistake of wanting to talk about everything when they create their sites.
What then happens is that they fail to master a particular area. The whole idea about being successful as far as the internet is concerned is being able to create a loyal audience. Of course, you can get by through new traffic brought to you by Google, but you need to have some degree of loyalty if you want to be successful.
This is where niche sites come into their element. By focusing on a particular topic, you are able to create a loyal following. If you create a site talking about football, as an example, you will be able to easily convince many football lovers to follow you.
However, if you create a site that focuses on football, technology, news, modelling, interior decor and any other topic under the sun, you are not going to be able to convince that many people to follow your site. In a way, one can say most sites are niche in one way or the other. They have a focus on a particular topic. If you are wondering what a niche website looks like, here is an example of one selling the best e readers for 2020.
How do niche sites differ from authority sites?
The difference between a niche site and an authority site is the depth of content. What used to happen is that people would create a one page sites and then they would do nothing else on the site. Then they would do a lot of marketing for that particular page that’s aimed at selling one or 2 products.
Here is another example of a niche site talking about the best headphones extension cables for 2020. Now, that’s a narrowly focused site. However, being niche is not that bad. You can turn a niche site into an authority site by becoming an expert in a particular field and covering more topics. The site given above actually talks about headphones in general. So, it’s not narrowly focused on a particular area.
Do niche websites still work?
If you have the idea to create a website a day talking about only a single topic, then that’s probably not going to work. Search engines have largely grown wise to that. However, it can safely be said that niche websites still work in the year 2020. In fact, they work very well. What matters is for you to put it into your mind that you are going to have to do a lot of work to succeed. Gone are the days when you would get away with targeting on a single keyword.
Now, you need to focus on a topic, and from there, talk about it as much as you can. Just to get back to our example of a site talking about headphones; that site can cover a wide range of topics. In fact, it’s never going to be able to cover all the potential topics around this area.
The site can focus on the best headphones, the best earphones, the best speakers, other audio equipment and much more. By doing this, they become not just a niche website, but an authority site. So, niche websites still work. However, you just need to take yours a bit further than one product. Also remember to produce great content that people are looking for. That way, search engines will recognize that you are an authority on a particular area.