Go to any online marketing expert and ask them what the most important aspect to SEO is; they’ll all tell you the same thing: content. And not just any content—it has to be high quality and thoughtful, the kind of content that will turn your blog into a genuine industry resource instead of just a blog. These days, it’s not enough to post consistently; quality matters.
It’s for this reason that simple, straightforward topics won’t do. Here’s an example: a young man named Jacob owns a small photography business in Anchorage, specializing in portraiture. To gain new clients, he wants to improve his standing with Google by utilizing SEO, and to do that, he’s going to need great content. He’s optimized his landing pages, perfected his meta page titles, and ensured his site design is user-friendly. All that’s left now is to get his blog up and running.
Broad Content Versus Niche Content
For someone like Jacob, who might be a little bit protective of his business and want to do all of this himself, it’d be easy to tackle a bunch of general photography-related topics in order to get the blog active. However, those kinds of general topics won’t do much for his business or help improve his ranking with Google. That’s where the importance of the difference between broad content and niche content comes in.
Broad content
Broad content refers to the more general topics you can find within a particular industry. Continuing on with our little case study of Jacob, these topics would be anything that fall just under general photography. Topics like “Digital Photography Tips” or even some listicles like “10 Instagram Photographers You Should Be Following” are the kind of general thinking I’m talking about here.
Niche content
Niche content, as you might imagine, refers to the content on the opposite end of the spectrum: instead of writing about more general topics within your industry, you choose the topics or keywords that are considered “niche” and target them instead. Again, chasing our example Jacob’s photography business, a niche topic for him might be something like, “Unique Lighting Could Make Your Senior Yearbook Portrait Stand Out”.
The Importance of Niche Thinking
The biggest problem with broad content is that it features topics that have been written about hundreds, if not thousands, of times in the past. You are competing with keywords that are already dominated by other websites that have huge amounts of trust from Google. It’s extremely difficult for your content, and consequently your website, to rise up through the ranks to the first page of Google for general keywords like “digital photography”.
With niche content, you get extremely focused topics that still fall under the broader keywords that are important to your industry. Take the topic we came up with for Jacob’s photography business as an example: “Unique Lighting Could Make Your Senior Yearbook Portrait Stand Out”. The keyword “senior yearbook portrait” hones in on portraiture, which is what Jacob’s business specializes in, while also giving him the opportunity to talk about something intricate about his work: the lighting. This gives him the opportunity to position himself as the expert he is. Your niche content should do the same thing for you.
Not only that, but when you create niche topics like these, you’re typically honing in on the long-tail keywords that aren’t as competitive as their broader counterparts. Though niche keywords may only draw in a handful of visitors to your site per month, these visitors are actively seeking out these highly specific topics. They are looking for the answers to their questions, answers that you and your business can provide. This makes them optimal for conversion, which makes niche content the best way to bring you more traffic and leads.
