Does the niche determine success?

[Shawn Gossman]

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?

 

[Cpvr]

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.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

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.

 

[Heatman]

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.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

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.

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.

 

[Heatman]

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.

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.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

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.

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.