Archive for November, 2009

Finding Your Business Web site Niche

Posted by Jason Shindler in newsletter on November 10, 2009

Don’t fall into this common trap – having an Internet presence for your business will make you rich. Or, this one – if you build it, they will come. Just because you have a Web site doesn’t mean that it will be successful in bringing you business. The answer? Niche marketing. Finding your niche is an easy, and the most effective, way to enhance your business model. Don’t know what niche marketing is? While some may mistakenly believe that niche marketing is essentially narrowing your focus, nothing could be further from the truth.

Niche marketing is finding your best target audience, and tailoring your marketing strategy to that specific target. Furthermore, finding your niche market is the most important thing you can do before building your Web site. Why? Laura Lake, of about.com, states the following 5 reasons:

  1. You have the ability to maximize your marketing budget by targeting your defined niche market. You’ll know exactly where to advertise. You’ll know where to look to find e-zines and related sites that are catering to your market. This gives you a starting point.
  2. Your site can then be optimized for search engines so that your niche market can find you easily.
  3. You are able to cater your site to your niche market. You can develop your site to guide your viewers and help them find solutions or products that you offer that are specific to the problems that your niche market encounters.
  4. A defined niche market makes it easier to develop ideas for new products or services that inherently appeal to your specific niche.
  5. You have an upper-hand in establishing yourself as a leader in your industry.

Finding your niche isn’t as difficult as you might think. Lake suggests you answer the following questions without thinking too hard – just write down the answer that first pops into your head:

  1. What is it that my current clients have in common?
  2. How do I set myself apart from the competition?
  3. What is different about services or products that I offer?
  4. What are the “extras” that I bring to the market?

After you’ve answered these questions, you can examine your answers to define who your niche market is. Essentially, you’re trying to best understand what makes your company different. For instance, a cabinet maker builds and designs exotic-wood cabinets for homes, offices, boats, and luxury motor homes. What do you think will make him stand out from his competition? Let’s point out that there are a lot of cabinet makers who specialize in exotic wood in his location. But, few – almost none – have the expertise and experience in designing and building for tight spaces like boats and motor homes. So, owners of boats and motor homes are now his niche and he can target this audience by using more pictures of these types of projects than any other.

Another example – a couple owns a bed and breakfast in an area that relies heavily on tourism. They do OK in high-tourist season, but they struggle a bit in the low season. They own a lovely old Victorian with well-appointed rooms and they even have two tree-house bungalows on the property. Wait? Tree houses? There are very few places one can stay in a tree house! So the couple chose to highlight this unique lodging on their Web site, and to charge quite a bit more for the experience. Now, their tree-houses are booked months in advance, and even their Victorian is almost always full as the couple is able to market these rooms as a less-expensive alternative, or “consolation,” to their booked-months-in-advance tree houses.
Finding what makes your business different from its competition, and capitalizing on that difference, is what will make you successful. In today’s market, it isn’t enough to find an already successful business model and “just do it better.” You have to find something unique, and market it well. In the above examples each business owner found a need, or a void if you will, and filled it. They found their niche. Instead of trying to improve what someone else is already doing, work to discover your own distinctive product or service. Chances are, if you’ve looked for something and can’t find it, other people have too.
Once you’ve discovered your niche, capitalize on it. We, at Curvine Web Solutions, are prepared to help. We’ll work with you to how to best publicize your niche market so that they’ll find you quickly and easily. We’ll design a site that highlights your unique service or product and makes it easy for your clients to take advantage of your expertise or purchase your products. Contact us today – armed with your niche audience – and we’ll get to work immediately!

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