Niche Websites and the Zulu Principle

You may be forgiven for thinking .. What do Zulus have to do with niche website?

In the preface to his investment book Jim Slater writes:

Jim’s book was all about making money in the stock market by specialising in particular types of shares and situations. In essence it is about finding a niche and exploiting it.

What is true in the investment world is also true on the Internet. To build a successful business on the Internet you need to specialise.

Specialization has many advantages the main ones are:

• You can quickly become an expert
• You know exactly where to concentrate your efforts
• Search engines know exactly what your site is about
• Site visitors are very targeted

Of course the other site of specialization is being too specialized such that your target market is too small. So your niche must be as Goldilocks would like it

not too big, and not too small, but just right

Theme or Niche?

Although theme and niche can be used interchangeably I tend to consider a theme as being a broad area and a niche as a narrow one. Once you start to narrow a theme down at some point it becomes a niche. When is just a matter of personal preference.