What You Need to Know About Niching Down

Thinking of niching down? Read this post to learn about the pros & cons of niching down and tips on how to find your niche.

Should you be niching down? 

It’s a question we often ask ourselves as bloggers and content creators. 

Just because you don’t have a niche doesn’t mean you’ll never be successful. And in the same way, just because you’ve niched down, doesn’t mean you’ll also be successful.

So should you niche down? 

Ultimately, it is up to you. Let me explain this further. 

There are a lot of factors that come into play when it comes to being a successful blogger and content creator. 

And the beauty of it is also that you get to discover the perfect way that works… for you. 

What feels right? What inspires you to create content and stick to it?

In other words, will sticking to a niche help you stay consistent with creating content or will it feel restrictive?  

In this post, I will be sharing with you the pros and cons of niching down, why niching down is important, and what you need to know about niching down. 

This way, you can decide whether or not you should be niching down. 

There is no one straightforward, right answer when it comes to whether or not you should niche down. 

Before, I would say YES NICHE DOWN all the way. 

There are benefits indeed, but as a multi-passionate blogger and content creator, at times, having just one topic to talk about feels restricting. 

It also makes me feel bored with my content right away that I end up not posting at all. 

But for you it could be totally the opposite. 

It may spark loads of ideas and motivate you to keep posting. 

So experiment and see what works for you. 

Is niching down a requirement for you to be successful? 

Nope! 

Sometimes hyper-focusing on a niche that nobody talks or searches about can hinder your growth. 

Because it’s too niche there may be no market or not enough people in that market especially if you want to make money from your blog or as a content creator.

You can be successful if you don’t have a niche. I’ve seen successful bloggers and influencers who don’t stick to one niche.

An example of a blogger without a niche is Helene in Between. 

Instead, people are there for the creator themselves: their personality and a mix of what they post. 

However, niching down is just one of the ways–a faster way to grow–to get to where you want to be. 

Because this post is about niching down, let me share with you what is niching down and its benefits. 

But first.. 

What is niching down? 

Niching down means narrowing what topics you will be talking about on your blog and social networks. It can also be how you approach the same topics through a certain lens. 

It’s about not talking to everyone. 

In a way, as creators, we do niche down to a certain degree because we don’t talk to every person who sees our content. 

There’s a specific person in mind: someone with the same interests or mix of interests as you. 

For example, you can either niche down as a travel blogger who focuses on luxury solo female travel. 

Or you can be a travel blogger who only talks about budget trips to a broader audience. 

I used to have a travel blog for music lovers, so I could write about concerts, music recommendations as well as travel guides for music lovers based on the city. 

While it was a fun niche, it was too niche at that time. 

Why niching down is important and what happens when you niche down

While niching down is not a prerequisite to success, it’s still important if you want to create a community around a certain target audience in mind. 

It’s about not speaking to everyone, but a certain type of person. 

When you niche down, you know WHO you’re talking to…what they’re interested in as well as their likes and dislikes. 

And this may make it easier for you to know how to say what you want to say and what types of content will relate to your target audience.

For example, if you’re a luxury solo female travel blogger, then you know your audience may not be as interested in group tours or budget travel. 

Which would then mean they may not engage with that type of content since it’s just not something they’re interested in. 

Now, what you need to keep in mind when having a very specific niche is that there are people who follow you only for that specific type of content.

Of course, that isn’t to say that there aren’t others who won’t support your range of interests. 

But they may unfollow your content if it’s not relevant to them anymore.

This is natural when you rebrand or pivot to a different niche. 

Let’s say someone first started following you because you were a music blogger and she enjoyed your music recommendations and whatnot. 

Then you pivoted to the entrepreneurship niche, which is something she may not be interested in learning more about, so this person may unfollow you. 

However, there are still those supportive followers who stick around and love your content because of YOU. 

When you niche down, you can get clearer on the following: 

• Who you’re talking to
• What topics are of interest to them
• How you can speak to them or address them ex. If your target market is moms, then your blog posts or social media posts may start with “hey mommies!” 

Aside from this, it will also make it easier for you to brainstorm topics and search for related SEO keywords you want to rank for. 

What happens when you don’t niche down? 

When you don’t have one specific niche (though I do believe to a certain extent that you do have a niche but it’s just not as targeted or specific as others), you can write more about the things you love.

There is that risk that one person may come and love one of your posts on one topic but not engage in your post about another topic because it’s not relevant to her or she has no interest in that other topic. 

You can still rank for certain keywords, but overall, it would be harder to explain what exactly you write about to others. 

You could introduce your blog as a personal one, a lifestyle one, or even perhaps who your target market is. For example: a lifestyle blog for the modern career woman fresh out of school. 

You still get to write about several topics from beauty, health, and travel but you write for the modern career woman who’s fresh out of school. 

You relate to the struggles or challenges that she may be facing when it comes to beauty ex. easy and modern makeup looks for when you’re running late for work. 

It’s about how you angle your topics to still be relevant to a certain type of person. 

Or you could go with not having any niche at all meaning you purely write for yourself – about yourself and your life. In this case, your focus is on you and your life! 

So whoever reads your blog is mainly there to follow your stories about your lifestyle. 

Whatever you choose whether that’s niching down specifically or not is totally up to you. 

Now, if you do decide you want to proceed with niching down – it can be hyper-focused or narrowing it down a little bit from a general topic but there are different ways you can niche down.

If you want to learn the three different ways to niche down, it’s inside The Content Chest as well as tips on how to adjust when changing niches, what emotions you may feel when rebranding and if the lifestyle niche is too broad. So if you want to learn more about these things, check out The Content Chest membership.