Unless you operate an e-commerce site, your internet success is partly based on the tone of your site. Your site’s tone will partly determine what kind of users you attract, how long they will stay, what they will do, and what reputation your business will have around the net. Most businesses leave their site’s tone up to chance, relying on their business personality to inform their online work. A much better plan is to take control.

On the surface, there are as many tones for a site as there are sites on the net. Every business is individual, and will express an individual personality through its website. When all of the elements of these sites are boiled down, two types of site emerge: the broad-market sites and the niche sites.

The first path: appeal to the masses

This is the path that most businesses choose to take. Angling your site to appeal to a wide number of groups gives you a better chance of netting high rates of traffic. It’s basic statistics. If you restrict your target user base, the opportunities for your site are also restricted. Opening up your target user groups also opens up opportunity.

For example, you might operate a business selling dog toys. Your initial product range might be more suited to young dogs and puppies, but you know that your chances of getting return customers are better if you stock toys for all kinds of dogs, all ages. This means that every time someone searches for a dog toy on the net, you have an opportunity to make a sale.

Appealing to a broad market has significant consequences for your search engine optimisation campaign. If you want to appeal to lots of different people, you may have to optimise a number of pages. Your keyword list will be bigger, but your target market will be bigger as well. You can talk to our experts at SEO Consult about optimisation for large markets.

The alternate path: become your industry’s guru

On the other hand, many sites have become successful beyond their wildest dreams simply because they’ve chosen the right speciality. With the dog toy business above, you might decide that having to allow for such a broad group of dog owners just isn’t worth it. Instead, you could decide to focus on dog toys for young dogs. This is a niche.

Niche markets apply to all kinds of industries. Even the search engine optimisation community has its own niches, which smart SEO pros have exploited to develop a reputation for themselves. The development of reputation is the key to niche success. As you’ve chosen an area with a lower level of competition, sometimes all it takes is a little knowledge to establish yourself as an influential entity. This influence attracts a high number of users in your niche, and can sometimes even be exerted outside of your niche.

The path you choose for your site will have a big influence on your SEO plan. Your SEO consultant can be a big help in using your site’s tone for your SEO.

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