Think Small for Big Ideas
Today many people have the mindset of globalization and trying to captivate the entire world as their audience. When you are just starting off its good to have such big aspirations but by thinking like this, you may be overlooking one of the most powerful niche’s right at your fingertips. Your local community.
Before you start to think about scaling your blog you should know what makes you the best and why will people prefer to come to your site vs. a competitor. Sure you may be an exceptional writer with new and fresh ideas, but are you better than the Wall-Street Journal? Probably not.
I started to think about this after reading this article on Mashable:How To Launch Your Own Indie Journalism Site. In summary its about how recently laid off workers have started their own niche news blogs and becoming very well known.
So could I compete with the Wall-Street Journal…No, but it did get me thinking. In my local area there is a Big 10 school and only one official local news source. After checking out all of online local authorities I realized that me and 2 other people could absolutely crush all the competition in this area. Not just the news, but in almost any niche. Mostly because there is 0 competition.
6 Reasons For Blogging Locally
1. Its easy as pie to promote
While you may run into some dead ends trying to promote your fashion blog to the people in France. When you are thinking local, advertising is as simple printing off some fliers, walking down the street, and putting in places your niche crowd hangs out. Coffee blog? Try going to the coffee shops. Got a business card printed up, leave those around too.
With a budget you could even take out regular print and radio ads for not that much. Easily 100 times easier than building a thousand backlinks.
2. It’s win-win for you and business owners
If you do a positive review of a restaurant then the owner will likely welcome the possible exposure to new customers. Most of the time people are more than happy to let you hang fliers in the window. Sometimes reviewing local businesses comes with perks. Free meals, VIP status, or even free drinks. Everyone likes a person who is good for business.
3. You can create real first hand news reports.
When you are dealing with things nationally or globally most of the time you are getting press releases or dealing with second hand knowledge. If you are the local source for XYZ then all you have to do is pickup your flip cam and walk outside to report the breaking news. Usually when you are the source of information then you get alot more attention than the people second and third on down the line.
4. Less competition
Unless you live in New York, LA, Washington DC, or some other really big city. There is not going to be nearly as much competition as there would be if you were competing across the whole country for the same niche.
5. Face to face interaction
When you are dealing with people in person then its just that, more personal. People will get to know you and you will build a more loyal following than relying on google regurgitate your articles all over the web. Also who knows you could become a locally known celebrity.
5. The market is there
If a local newspaper can sell 40,000 copies a day they why couldn’t those same people visit your website. I’ll take 40k unique hits everyday, how about you?
6. No matter what, you’re still online
So you will still have every opportunity to grab global attention even though you are focused primarily in your local area. In many instances I found people would come to local newspapers that used to live in the town, or were thinking about moving here in the future. There will always be people searching.
Reach for things that are right within your grasp.
Summary:
Don’t overlook the huge untapped markets that lie right outside your windows, and don’t forget there is a whole real world too.
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Less competition is definitely the best point if someone wants to go local. However, it may be difficult later on when you try to expand blog/website. Also, it is easy to start but audience are limited and in long term, that may not be good!
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