Today Mike Essex from Koozai tackles boring niches, and more specifically how you can create awesome content for them. By the end of this video you’ll be able to see that there’s no such thing as a boring niche, and that by changing your mindset it’s easy to find fantastic content ideas.
We’re going to go through five types of content that you can create in a “boring” niche and show how these are going to help you create amazing content that will be really fun and interesting and will get shared and linked.
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Transcript
Howdy SEOmoz fans, and welcome to another whiteboard takeover from the Koozai team. One of the most common questions I get asked is, “How can I make content in a boring niche?” And hopefully by the end of this video you’ll be able to see that there’s no such thing as a boring niche. Often, all you have to change is your perception of the industry and to learn a little bit more about it. Let’s remember that to most of our friends and family SEO is a boring niche, and there are hundreds of blog posts and videos about SEO. So saying something is a boring niche isn’t always true for those who live and breathe it every day.
T-Rex Content
The first type of content is T-Rex content. T-Rexes are of course huge, one of the biggest predators out there, or at least they were. The giant size of the T-Rex is what we’re looking at here or in other words BIG DATA, the bigger the data, the better. Now a really boring niche can suddenly become very interesting if you look at data that is big. So, if I had a client who had a power reactor website and I told someone about power reactors, they’re not going to be very interested. If I said to them that this power reactor uses as much power in one day as the entire city of Birmingham does in a year, then they would become interested in power reactors. Then I could lead that on with more data or an explanation of why that is.
So the best thing to do with really technical niches is to look for big points of information. If you don’t have any, then do a survey of people in that industry to gather percentage based information on their activities or ask your client for fuller information on the product itself. Often this will be really boring technical manuals that say dull product numbers, and exactly how the product works. But if you can compare that to another product that everyone knows and loves and uses in the public sphere, most people would use this product and be aware of it, then your data has meaning, and that’s when you can create really interesting content.
Elephant Content
The second type is the elephant, and this comes from the saying “the elephant in the room”. Now this occurs when there are things people don’t talk about but which everyone can clearly see. So the Stop Online Piracy Act was originally an elephant in the room, and no one really talked about it initially. Then a few people started talking about it and then more and more, and it grew from there. The first people who started talking about it, as well as those who took a stand against the Act, are those who got the most coverage and links out of it. Therefore, if you see something that’s wrong in your industry or the client’s industry, speak out about it.
I can’t say that strongly enough.
Don’t just sit there and hope that things will get better. Because if you’re the first people to talk about the issue, you will most likely find that other people agree with you and join your cause. You may even be able to make your industry better, which is a fantastic thing.
So if there’s new laws and legislation, taxation changes, anything changes with suppliers, or if a new competitor has entered the market who is doing really bad things, speak out about it and don’t be afraid to say what you think. It can really help build your company’s reputation if you’re not afraid to say what’s wrong. And if people agree with you, they’re going to link to you and join in the conversation.
Baby Content
Point number three, baby content. This is the simplest way you could describe the product. So if you were down at the pub with your friends, how would you explain that particular product? So strip away all the boringness and the technicalities of the product and just explain what it is and how it works. You can look at this as trying to inject fun into boring content. I’ve got a client who makes I’ve got a client who makes fiber lasers, which are really, really technical, and hard to talk about. So I did an article which is the “Top Ten Movie Scenes with Lasers.” So you’ve got obviously a James Bond scene and various other ones as well. That made the content interesting. That made lasers interesting to a wider audience. If I just said the Top Ten Fiber Lasers, everyone would fall asleep, right? So you’ve got to look for the fun way of explaining it to someone who’s got no knowledge of that industry, a baby almost.
Robot Content
Number four, the robot. Robots love interactive things. So try and make the content interactive. If you’ve got big data in the T-Rex model, this works great. If you can have sliders that let people change the information to see how it changes, then that works well. There is a Forex trading website where you can put in what you earn, and it will tell you how quickly one of the best Forex traders will make that same amount of money, which makes you feel bad, but at the same time makes you want to try Forex trading. So it’s a great piece of content, and it also encourages you to sign on for their service. It’s a double win.
Gentleman Content
Last of all, you’ve got the gentleman. Content in a boring niche doesn’t just have to be fun. You can talk about the niche from time to time. If you do want to write a very technical, informative piece on the niche itself, then look for industry publications within that niche. Now it doesn’t matter how weird the niche is, generally there will be someone who writes about that niche on a regular basis for a magazine or a website. Now if you think the niche is boring, they’re the ones who have to come up with content every week and every day about that niche. Chances are they too will want ideas and will want content.
So look for industry publications. I use the Writer’s Handbook, Brad, Gorkana, and a few other sources to find ones in my niche. But realistically you can just search for the niche and the word “magazine” or “website” or “news” and that will help you find something to get you started. Then see what content gets the most shares and likes for them and try to write something similar, or get in touch with a journalist and say that you want to create some content for them and what are they interested in right now? Do they have any gaps that they can’t write about that they’d like someone else to write about? And surprisingly that often works, and you’re generating free content for them.
By following these five different content types, I hope you’ll agree that there is no such thing as a boring niche.
For more information on what we do, visit Koozai.com, catch us on Twitter or subscribe to our videos on YouTube. I’ll be looking at the comments as well, so if you like this video or you’ve got any questions, please leave a comment below. Thanks for watching.
