Broad Niche or Narrow Niche?

You can have the multiple categories, but focus on one "main" category to begin with. That way, the search engines will "notice" a targeted theme. Then you can gradually expand out to other sections over time.

first start off small then grow out to the other categories.
Maybe go with graphic design first and then slowly add content relating to architecture and interior design.

I've tried both and had most success with a fairly broad topic. If you have good content to start you'll get picked up by the search engines, and this will carry over to your more specialized pages.

As far as social media goes, you're better off with a separate page for each topic.

Thank you all for your replies, it is genuinely appreciated. I am going to create the site to how I want it to look in a years time (So all categories). I'm going to try populate each category with a few posts then focus on one or two categories. If I do start to generate income I can then hire writers to help populate the other sections.

It was mentioned and I think it is a major factor, do you think I should have separate social media accounts and pages for each of the main categories or one main one?

Often when you try to cover lots of topics and cater to "everyone" you usually end up catering to no one.

Lots of mismatched content that really doesn't 'connect' with any one type of person.

By focusing on ONE quite specific topic you can aim to be the very best site on the net about it and really nail it.

This can lead to finding a captivating audience who your site really appeals to.

I don't like going too niche these days, i.e. I'd never create a site around 1 product for example, but I don't like going too wide either.

For example there's thousands of internet marketing blogs mostly offering general IM advice on everything from blogging to traffic to social media to whatever.

So to stand out I focus on delivering niche ideas, how to find / research niches and so on with some other more general IM stuff every now and then to keep it interesting.

But my core content is the niche stuff. And that's what makes me different from other blogs in the market.

So if I was you I would pick one and position yourself as the authority on that particular subject.

No; it's a very poor idea and will significantly stack the deck against you, in my opinion. (Not everyone will necessarily agree, though!).

Narrow. For countless reasons. You'll probably get better targeted and more easily monetizable traffic that way, and it'll all be a lot easier.

The relationship between niche-development and income is a non-linear one. In the early stages, you do the most work for the least money. The wider your "niche"/"market" is, the longer that takes to surpass.

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Stick to 1 niche/idea. People will think you're not *truly* the "go to" site for their interests.

Dominating a niche is

a) easier
b) often more profitable

For instance I do recruitment (hence the name) and in theory I could go after "all recruitment in the UK" (though my company would argue with me instantly). But I would be spread thin, end up with no specialist knowledge and rather than calling on existing contacts I would be starting form scratch each time.

Instead I specialise in environmental recruitment (and actually only a very narrow band within that, about 4 job titles in total). Because of that I can pitch myself as an expert, because I am. It's a small sector and I know a huge number of the good people within those job titles. I speak to them on a frequent to semi frequent basis, clients and candidates know to come to me, I know all the lingo, the terms, etc.

Now we're growing our niche, and so I'm adding some more job titles to target with a view to adding more team members. We're building from a very narrow niche to a slightly broader one, but we can do that because we have a solid client base to grow from.

In this instance you could be looking at growing a solid following in ONE niche, where you know the news, the lingo, can interview good people and give an interesting slant. And then, when you are a go to source for people in that sector, you can slowly add logical additional sectors. For instance going into garden design from interior design, or going into mechanical design from product design.

Make yourself a go to source in one sector, get an income from that, then diversify from there. Remember advertisers will come to an expert if you have a defined audience. They will want to target your audience with new offers, adverts, etc. If your audience is generic and not well defined it won't be as valuable to an advertiser.

Oh, and the standard WF advice - make sure you're building a list

Focus on one or maybe two topics first. Build up a small readership. The issue I see with going all over at once is that you won't have enough content for one part to get returning visitors so it's better to build one category up and then branch out from there.

Narrowing niche is easier for marketing, I'd say that if you are marketing for everyone, you are marketing for nobody. Narrowing the market you focus well, and you can identify the specific segment more easily. You know who your customers are.

In my opinion I think you should focus on the narrower niche. The reason being is because you want to check and see if it is a niche worth investing time or money into. If you want to create other niche blogs then you should keep them seperate so that you can monitor the analytics.