Make Your Blog Invaluable To Readers By Being a ‘One Stop Shop’
Supermarkets, back in the day, were limited to selling only food items, and some toiletries. There were separate, dedicated shops for other items, and buyers had to scurry all around town to get the items that they needed. Inconvenient and a waste of time.
Spread all over your niche.Find all there is to your niche and then write on it. Break news first!
Today, supermarkets are all in one. Large supermarkets, nowadays, sell everything from food items to toys and PlayStations. In effect, they are all in one. Buyers can now get all they need from one place. Very convenient and time effective.
Suppose you were given a list of household items to buy. You have two choices: either travel all around the city to separate shops, like the first scenario, or go to one large supermarket that sells it all. No surprise, you’ll choose the second option, right?
Why? Because it is very convenient and saves you time and energy, and money too. These large supermarkets have become household names, simply because of the value and convenience they offer to shoppers.
In other words, they are a one stop shop.
A Case Study
Almost every website that turns up at the top (or near it) of Google or Yahoo (or any other reliable search engine) is a one stop shop in that particular niche.
For example, search Google for ‘cricket’ and you will see CricInfo at the top, which currently is the top site for cricket. Why? Because CricInfo offers so many things to its readers. Cricket news, scores, rankings, online games, reports, scandals, and on and on. Anyone who needs some information on cricket will find CricInfo heaven, and will bookmark it.
Your goal is to make your blog a one stop shop too, so that your blog becomes a household name too, so that your blog becomes an indispensable tool. What more could you want?
Make Your Blog A One Stop Shop
By now you must have guessed that if you make your blog a one stop shop too, you’ll have a greater chance of landing higher in the search engines.
Given the niche-ical nature of blogs, it is very difficult, if not impossible to make a blog that covers everything there is. Brick and mortar supermarkets have only so much goods. However, in the blogosphere, ‘information’ is the goods. And the amount of information is enormous(everything in the world, and beyond). So, it would be very difficult to cover everything there is, in a blog.
The sensible choice would be to become a one stop shop in your niche. For example, ProBlogger is a one stop shop in the blogging tips niche.
Spread all over your niche. Find all there is to your niche and then write on it. Provide tutorials on new stuff and news on things going on in your niche. Break news first.
If you cover it all, readers will definitely appreciate it and love you for doing so. They will flock to your blog, because they know your blog will provide them the information they need.
Prime Examples of ‘One Stop Shops’
Yahoo, is the biggest portal in the internet. It provides everything from topical news(on sports, politics, celebrities…), video, gossip, weather, online games, a directory, search, email, online radio, and the list goes on and on. In effect, it’s got all that average internet user needs to get his work done. It saves people from going here and there to get stuff done. That is the reason why it is very popular.
Google, the master of search. It too like Yahoo, is a portal, and offers many things. Mail, an RSS reader, a directory, a personalised homepage, internet search, and the list goes on and on and on.
Think about it. Offering readers all they need in one place is THE best way to gain respect, credibility and recognition.
Have you ever thought about it before?
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great post.. now if we could only excel in all aspects of blogging tips
well, dimaks, why not try?
There is something in what you say; basically pick a niche, and then cover as many sub-niches as possible.
We started out writing about our personal home renovation activities. This lead to our home energy conservation efforts as well as energy conservation sites. This was followed by home maintenance activities. We may be expanding to home safety.
One sub-niche leads to another within the same niche. One stop shopping.
Dan
DailyHomeRenoTips.com
Dan- you nailed it!
I don’t go to Walmart. Know why? Bad business practices, poor atmosphere, etc. When I want food, I go to the grocery store. When I want clothes, I go to JC Penny and Pacsun. And when I want games, I go to Gamestop.
While there are various benefits to covering everything, (diversified audience, more freedom in regards to posting) I think it’s all about quality. If you cover, say, the entire ‘knitting’ niche and then go to talking about cricket, I might not want to hear about it. If your sub-niches don’t inter-relate, then they’ll undervalue your blog and make you seem like you don’t know what you’re doing.
Corey – You’re have some points too. sometimes, it can backfire being a one-stop-shop, like your distaste of Walmart.
Your second point, concerns the blogger him/herself. If they’ve chosen to blog about knitting, but instead do so about cricket, then it’s their plan or mindset that’s flawed
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It is very handy to find a bit of additional information for renovating (or thinking about it). If you need some top notch tips, I also recommend checking out Masterrenovator.com, he has awesome information for things that can help a lot.