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Does the niche determine success?

Shawn Gossman

Shawn Gossman

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There are a lot of saturated niches out there when it comes to running a forum or a blog.

Does niche selection really setup and predict the overall success of the forum owner or blogger?

If you choose a saturated niche, are you just setting yourself up for harder work and less of a chance of success? Should folks be choosing niches that are less used on the internet but still have an audience or should people really be niching down more than they are now?

What do you all think?
 
I think so, however, it all boils down on what you can bring to the niche. For example, my forum is the only one in my particular niche. We had competitors in the past, but they're now dead in the water.

If a niche is saturated or small, you're able to set your own lane and league. It's all about providing value and knowledge for your niche.
 
I agree.

That's how my Hiking with Shawn niche is. I'm the only real player in my niche. I dominate it. I'm doing really well because of that.
 
There's a very good reason why so many people no longer prefer running a general discussion forums because it's the most saturated niche out there. Unique niches do a lot better as long you can find the right audience.
 
Heatman said:
There's a very good reason why so many people no longer prefer running a general discussion forums because it's the most saturated niche out there. Unique niches do a lot better as long you can find the right audience.
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General forums are not easy.

I have my www.offtopicforum.com and I mainly made it to experiment with vBulletin 6.

I've been keeping it around but, in all honesty, if I decide to close a forum, it will likely be the first one that gets cut.
 
Shawn Gossman said:
General forums are not easy.

I have my www.offtopicforum.com and I mainly made it to experiment with vBulletin 6.

I've been keeping it around but, in all honesty, if I decide to close a forum, it will likely be the first one that gets cut.
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You're absolutely right, it's not easy at all. A lot of them are selling to another board that absorbs everything. Recently, one of the biggest general discussion forums I know in www.disucssionhub.net was acquired by AJ.
 
Heatman said:
You're absolutely right, it's not easy at all. A lot of them are selling to another board that absorbs everything. Recently, one of the biggest general discussion forums I know in www.disucssionhub.net was acquired by AJ.
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So, I decided to change my strategy.

I merged Off Topic Forum to Talk Whatever to rebrand it and converted everything over to XenForo instead. I feel like it will do better with the rebrand and XF software as vB was just hard for me to work with!

I hate to let a forum go! I feel like I need to at least try to make it work.
 
Shawn Gossman said:
So, I decided to change my strategy.

I merged Off Topic Forum to Talk Whatever to rebrand it and converted everything over to XenForo instead. I feel like it will do better with the rebrand and XF software as vB was just hard for me to work with!

I hate to let a forum go! I feel like I need to at least try to make it work.
Click to expand...
I think you took the right decision. It's not worth beating a dead horse and with vB, it was a struggle for obvious reasons. XF platform offers more better features to make it easier to grow it. Hopefully, the merge will push it a little bit more.
 
Heatman said:
I think you took the right decision. It's not worth beating a dead horse and with vB, it was a struggle for obvious reasons. XF platform offers more better features to make it easier to grow it. Hopefully, the merge will push it a little bit more.
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So far, I've been way more motivated to keep the general forum going since the switch.

vBulletin was just not cutting it for me.
 
Picking a niche is one thing, but being able to keep it going is another. I believe that one can be able to do better in handling a forum that is niche-based forum as long as they devote time and stay committed to building such a forum. That is what makes everything work better at the end of the day in terms of running a forum that is focused on just a particular niche.
 
I think that online forums should even niche down more than they are currently doing. You want to run a general forum? How would you be able to compete with Reddit and the likes. The only chance to achieve success is niching down.
 
Kadi F said:
I think that online forums should even niche down more than they are currently doing. You want to run a general forum? How would you be able to compete with Reddit and the likes. The only chance to achieve success is niching down.
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You are right to a large extent. Being a niche-based forum can help forum owners understand what they want to achieve. This will also help to attract those who have similar interests in what is going on in that forum as well.
 
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