Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the fight between specialist and generalist. How thrilling! Freelancers get especially snippy about…*drum roll*… niching. It’s interesting (really boring) how strongly they feel. I think most have misunderstood what it means to niche. If we thought about it for longer than a few minutes, we’d realise we’re often specialising and generalising.
Here’s what we’re covering:
We’re all niching nowadays.
Maureen sells healing crystal pendants. She knows Dave the bookie is unlikely to want restorative agate. He’s welcome to it, but he’s not her ideal client.
Cheryl is a virtual assistant. She provides general admin services to educators. The work’s pretty loosely-goosey, but she keeps the industry tight.
Wayne runs a paid ads agency. “Paid ads. That’s it” is the business slogan. He works in different industries because he likes the variety.
Cast out ‘the industry is the niche’ demon. It’s bollocks. Your niche can be anything. However, Karen won’t have it. She offers an array of services to everyone. She’s a generalist in every conceivable way. How exhausting! And how does she do it? Have you tried pleasing everyone? Have you tried pleasing even a fraction of everyone? Spoiler: it doesn’t work.
You’re niching unknowingly.
If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool generalist who assumes the industry is where to niche (or not to, as the case may be), I’ll wager there’s still a commonality linking your clients. That thing is unwittingly your niche. You may be working with different sectors, but not everyone in those sectors is hot for you. There must be something that attracts and conversely repels. It doesn’t matter how universal you think your business is, gurl, some folks ain’t feelin’ you.
Niching and SEO.
Being a generalist is fine; it’s totally cool to keep things free and easy, but SEO will be difficult. If you don’t nail ONE of the following: your industry, your service, your product, or your demographic, you’ll struggle to be found on the internet. Building a website with the idea that anyone and everyone is a potential prospect is a nightmare. You can’t tailor content to a broad audience. In SEO terms (and sales terms), a broad audience is no audience.
Refusing to niche only leaves broad keywords on the table. These are notoriously difficult to rank for because bigger fish than you are gunning for them. Also, broad keywords don’t convert well coz prospects tend to get specific when they’re looking to buy.
“You know what it’s like, you’ve decided to spend some money, so you google a detailed phrase, for example, ‘brown leather bomber jacket’ or ‘black rubber inflatable gimp suit’. Those search terms would be regarded as long-tail keywords.”
I offer SEO writing services to freelancers and SMEs. My tone (brand voice *vomits forcefully*) appeals mostly to sarcastic Brits. So, my ideal clients are sarcastic British business owners. That’s how I’m niching. I didn’t come out in hives when I decided that. I just chose people I’d most enjoy working with.
There’s no debate.
Embrace not being all things to all people. And perhaps ponder what might be an unrecognised niche. It could be your business’s non-negotiables. For example, I don’t do free calls. That non-negotiable repels the cheap-ass chatterboxes (YESSSSSSS!). Your fluffy unicorn vibe could be the niche——it’s attracting other fluffy unicorns (YESSSSSSS!). Applying a little focus doesn’t stop you from being flexible. You can change things at any time. Have a play with it and see what happens.
First published, 9th April 2024.
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