Seth Godin has a theory about the Minimum Viable Audience.
I really like that concept when it comes to business, blogging and even life in general.
Some of the most successful people seem to have started with small ideas. That’s often the opposite of what is presented to the public. Big ideas and big dreams. Sure, that can be great, but it can also lead to big letdowns. That’s the big trap. Sometimes big ideas can seem so big that it’s easy to think you’ll never get there.
Small ideas seem possible. Sam Walton had a dream for one discount retail store. From that he grew it into Walmart, the biggest company in the world.
You can grow with small ideas. Even a small blog with a small audience. And most of the time it’s just fine if you stay relatively small. But often you can grow it plenty big.
Here are a few ideas to help if you think you’re in a niche that is too small for blogging…
1. Identify Question Sources
It’s true for any blog, but especially important for small niche blogs…you need to really identify the sources of questions. Finding the questions the people in the audience are asking is critical. Find the questions, provide the answers with the posts you create. This is a practical way to give the audience what they want. It’s good for SEO. It’s also good for social media. People see the titles and want to click.
You can bet that if one or two people are asking that many more have the same question and are curious.
Let’s say you make maple syrup. Find every maple syrup blog you can. Read the comments for questions. Do the same on YouTube and those comments. Look for ecommerce stores that sell maple syrup and equipment and look for questions in the reviews.
2. Up The Quantity
Small niches offer a great opportunity. Especially for small and local businesses. Many will ignore the niche. They think it won’t be worth the time and effort. So competition could be low.
Go all in with your quantity.
Most blogs could do better by upping the quantity. With quantity, you learn how to create quality. The more you create, the more you learn.
With a small audience, you can really test things out and go with a lot of content. Obviously there is a point where you might find that you’re not creating the highest of quality. If that happens, ease back, but in almost every case the business or blogger could create more. At least one piece a day or one per business day.
3. Increase The Snippets
With more quantity you’ll be able to increase the snippets you create. These are just little sections from the posts. Copy them and post them on social media. Don’t include the link to the post. Social platforms want native content. They want people to stay on their platforms.
That’s okay. You can still build engagement and brand awareness on those platforms with the content you create. And from this awareness you will find more people searching for you and your brand when they’re off the platform. It’s indirect traffic, but it works.
Aim for at least 3 snippets on social media each day. It doesn’t take much time if you’re already creating one post a day.
4. Boost The Guesting
It can seem like you have a small audience when you’re in your own little blogging world. Just staying on your blog and not venturing out into the world. Even staying within your own world and profile on social media.
Guesting is a great way to really see who is out there. Your audience may be bigger than you think.
Guesting is simply creating content for others with an audience. Your shared audience. Think of the actors that go on late night talk shows just before their movie premiere. They go on, entertain and build awareness for their film.
You can do the same with guest blogging, going on podcasts and YouTube channels. Starting searching for these entities. Identify a list and start reaching out. Keep the first contact simple. “I discovered your podcast. Are you taking on new guests?’
You’ll probably get a surprising number of responses. Then set a time and prepare in advance.
5. Experiment With Word Count
Most blog posts are between 500 and 2,000 words. Everything in between can work depending on the niche, audience, what you’re good at and more.
I like to experiment with different word counts. See what works with engagement on your blog, on social media, with SEO rankings and more.
For context, Wikipedia has strong rankings with Google. Their average page is about ~1,200 words. Start there. It’s as good of a word count as any. Test it out. See what happens. Then sprinkle in some other word counts. A few that are 500 words. A few that are 2,000+ words.
6. Win Every Audience Member
If your niche is small there is a good chance that people are ignoring it. Content creators are ignoring it. You can probably go all in with the goal of getting every person in the niche audience aware of your blog.
That can be bigger than being a small fish in a big pond.
Imagine the auto mechanic in a small town. He or she could have the goal of getting everyone in the community to come to their shop. That can be a really great “monopoly” to have. You can do the same with a blog.
Conclusion
There are many successful bloggers in small niches. You probably haven’t heard about them because you’re not in their niche. But they have people reading. They often have businesses that are doing well. They can be in un-sexy niches that are more practical, but that make money.
Don’t let the idea of a small niche deter you from going all in with the blogging effort.