Better to be an expert in one local marketing niche or jack of all trades?

DRP, thanks for your response. I understand your concerns & it can be frustrating but people claiming to be so-called "experts" isn't unique to this industry (I'll explain shortly why I feel I don't fall into this category) but it's not something I feel an actual professional should ever really concern themselves with.

I've been a full time software engineer in the medical industry for almost 15 years now, specializing in website development (scary to think it's been that long already). Throughout that time, I've always done additional websites on the side for small to mid-sized businesses. Early on however, just as you said, it was annoying and a little frightening to see all of these so called "expert" weekend crash-course developers building (imho, horrible) websites for clients. After a while though, I realized it was nothing to be concerned about. My professionalism & experience in the field helped me to stand out from these guys & allowed me to charge what I felt was a fair fee. When I quoted a price & a client said he had another "expert" willing to do it for half that fee, I told him no problem & to keep me in mind if he ever needs help in the future (which often times, they later did after getting burned).

And again, this isn't specific to this industry. A few years ago, I contacted a local home construction contractor to remodel my kitchen but even in my limited knowledge of home remodeling, I could tell this guy was VERY inexperienced...but cheap. I spoke to several other contractors who, while they were way more expensive, they validated my concerns about the first guys inexperience & you could see in some of their faces, the frustration of knowing another "expert" contractor told me this. I ultimately went with one of the experienced guys. I wanted it done right, not cheap. So this concern of so-called experts ruining the business, transcends industries.

As for me & my level of marketing experience, while I may not have the same level of marketing experience as I do in my 15 years of knowledge in website development, I have been doing this pretty regularly for a few years, plus I absolutely LOVE internet marketing, something I can no longer say about website development, which is why I didn't list web development as one of the options I want to pursue. If I were to shift my focus into a specific niche (all of which I have had some success with in the past) & sell myself as such, it wouldn't be an overnight shift. I would spend a great deal of time researching & experimenting until I felt comfortable calling myself the professional I claim to be. I would probably offer this service free of charge to current clients that I already have closer relationships with, just for gaining experience & ironing out kinks.

But thanks again, like I said, I do see where you're coming from but to my earlier point, even if I had posted this question but had ZERO marketing experience, I wouldn't be too concerned about it. Inexperience always shows through.