When we’re young, we’re taught that being unique is a good thing. We’re encouraged to embrace it, and often it’s those unique qualities that end up defining who we are and what we develop an interest in.

But then we grow up.

Becoming an adult means becoming practical. Whatever whimsical activity or hobby struck your fancy as a child was gradually pushed aside to make room for skills that would serve you in the future. But not for small business owners.

I like to consider small business owners people who never fully grew up. That’s not to say they aren’t mature (quite the opposite, actually). They just never lost sight of the endeavors that brought them joy, no matter how non-traditional or risky they were. 

Embarking on your own adventure, which is how many view starting their own business, comes with many hurdles, struggles, and uncertainties. But when you know what you’re good at and what you’re passionate about, it makes embracing the unfamiliar extremely worth wild. 

The same mentality should be applied to content marketing. Content marketing is a cost-effective strategy that can do wonders for small businesses. However, it is seldom that small business owners and teams see exactly what they’re looking for from their efforts. 

Why is that? A lot of it is due to small business owners performing the jobs of at least ten people. It’s hard to focus on content and see the results you’re after when you have a business to run, people to manage, and sales to increase. 

But, when you’re looking to reach the right people and make your brand known, not much can compete with unique, high-quality content. And when it comes to resonating with your audience, it’s crucial that you understand what your bread and butter are first. 

Harnessing your niche – the specific and unique areas within your industry and business – is gold for your content marketing efforts. It shows your audience just how knowledgeable you are about a specific area, and it can help you tap into a market that isn’t already saturated. 

Have you truly embraced your niche, or are you focused more on your competitors and what’s giving them an edge? In this blog post, we’ll discuss three ways centering your content around your niche will benefit your small business and tips for getting started. 

Your Niche = Content Marketing Gold

You may think that keeping your content broad will make you more appealing to a wider audience. And although it’s not a bad idea to cast a wide net, it’s definitely more beneficial to focus on gaining new prospects that will actually use your business or services. Let’s dive deeper into why covering topics more centric to your business is more beneficial for your strategy. 

1. You’ll Appeal to Your Key Audience

When you focus on your bread and butter, you’re more likely to connect with consumers interested in what you can offer them. Your audience is out there, and they’re looking for content on your specific area of authority. This is a huge opportunity for your company to make meaningful engagements, but you have to capitalize on it.

There are quite a few different goals with any content marketing strategy, but at the end of the day, it’s about converting and nurturing your prospects. If you’re writing content that appeals to a broader audience, what purpose does it serve? You’re not likely to get very many customers out of it, and those efforts could have been put to use elsewhere. 

A great way to appeal to your audience through content is by vetting online publications and blogs within your niche and see if any accept guest-content. Sure it may be tempting to apply for a column in Forbes, Inc. or other broad business publications, but only a small fraction of your audience is reading those. Look for the industry-specific publications and sites that will send more qualified traffic back to your site. 

2. You’ll Convey That You’re an Expert

You’re the top authority on what you do, and you should always be looking for ways to show that off. When you share tips, issues, and insights within your niche — a.k.a. your area of expertise — you’re able to convey to your audience just how much you actually know. This boosts brand awareness and authority in general, as well as brand integrity and trustworthiness. And all of those are good things when it comes to making a sale.

Customers want to purchase from brands they trust. When you focus on creating content around what you know, you’re proving to your audience that you’re reliable and trustworthy for the most helpful content pertaining to your industry. 

To convey you’re an expert through your content marketing, incorporate long-form articles and gated guides or ebooks into your strategy. Prove that you can cover an area in-depth and create tactical, thorough content for your audience to use. You don’t want to only provide them with new information, but you want to also give them a tool they can go back to for help time and time again.

3. You’ll Boost Your SEO

When you narrow down your focus onto the topics that you know the most about, you build a library of resources that you can link to. This allows you to create pathways back to your site or valuable content, and ultimately, improve your SEO.

The more content you create on niche topics, the more link potential you have. These links are crucial in getting to the top of search engine results pages, which in turn drives more qualified leads to your site. Look for ways to link these pieces together, such as driving new articles to old ones, creating pillar pages, and writing guest posts on other publications that link back to your page. All of these efforts will provide a boost to your SEO, and because you’re staying within one niche, will also increase your site relevancy.

Tips for Zeroing in on Your Niche 

By now, you’re hopefully bursting with ideas and ready to get started on using your niche to drive compelling content. But just in case you’re not all in yet, here are some tips for carving out your niche and making it front and center in your content marketing. 

Know Your Audience

You have to know your customers if you’re going to know what types of content will appeal to them. This includes their interests, their biggest challenges, and the things that they have questions about. Work off your existing buyer personas, and if you don’t have any personas created yet (bad business owner!), take the time to create them, so you have the clearest picture possible of who you’re focusing your content for.

Get thorough by asking yourself the following questions about your core audience:

  • What are their biggest concerns?
  • What problem does my business/service help them solve?
  • What is their job title?
  • Who do they report to? 
  • What trends are happening in their industry? 
  • What solutions are they currently using? 

Talk to Sales

Your sales team can help you narrow in even further on the topic areas that are most relevant to your audience. Ask them what types of questions they get most often and what types of conversations they’re having with customers to get an idea of the trending topics that might work.

Work closely with them to create nurture campaigns that include the niche content you’re creating. Focus on each stage of the funnel, and what kinds of content best serve that stage. 

Re-examining your funnel and what your nurture campaigns look like will help you spot any gaps. 

Perform Keyword and Topic Research

When it comes to successful content, it’s crucial that what you’re creating is unique instead of adding to the noise. Once you have some general ideas formed, do some keyword research and start browsing terms and phrases to see how they’re already doing. If a certain area is over-saturated, it might not be the best place to start.

Use tools that can help you determine what terms are searched most often in your industry. Some tools will even tell you what your competitors are ranking for. Knowing these key terms and phrases will help you refine your areas of focus and ensure that the niche content you’re creating can be optimized for search and pop up in results when your audience is searching online. 

Look to Your Competitors

If your competitors are focusing on something, there’s a good chance it’s applicable to your content strategy as well. Don’t just follow their lead, but see what you can take away from the topics they’ve determined are worth honing in on. If you decide to tackle similar ideas, just make sure you’re bringing in a new angle, so you’re not repeating what others have already said.

Subscribe to your competitors’ newsletters, and make sure you check in with their blog and social media channels. Making these kinds of steps a part of your regular strategy will keep you one step ahead and ensure your content ideas stay as unique as possible. 

A niche is essential for conversion-worthy content. And once you find it, you should see a big surge in high-quality traffic. Don’t waste any more time – discover your niche, focus on incorporating it into your content strategy, and use that content to get the attention of qualified leads that need what your business offers.