Whats a niche site?

[Mahoney1]

I see alot of people here talking about niche sites, what are they and what does niche mean? could someone sicky mail me a couple of examples of niche sites?

Thanks

[mep00]

A niche is a small hole (French?). In business it means either offering something different than your competition, and thereby setting you apart, or in the case of a "niche market," a small, often dedicated, target audiance.

In other words, a small hole in the exsisting market(s).

[choster]

A niche is literally a small crevice or recess, as in a rock or a wall. The metaphor in commerce is of a narrowly focused or specialized business or market which might be underserved, as opposed to the mass market. One might not be able to compete with Amazon or Borders selling books to the mass market, but might be able to excel at serving the particular niche of "discount Danish language graduate level paperback rural sociology textbooks."

A niche can be defined by its customer base, product list, even service area, so sometimes its status as such is in the eye of the beholder. Your home improvement warehouse chain may be a virtual monopoly in North Elbonia. But nationally, you have only three locations as opposed to Home Depot's 1500. To a national supplier, you're a niche vendor serving the outlying provinces where Home Depot can't make a profit. To the local resident, however, you're the universe. So being a niche player can be a self-identified strategy, or an insult :-).

[progex]

Read the responses, although detailed, they are a bit confusing.

So in layman's terms, in terms of "history", a niche would be "american history", "chinese history", etc.

[mep00]

progex-
As niches are relative and subjective, yes. While many Americans might not agree that American History is a niche, even though it is technicly a niche of World History, most would agree that the History of The City of New York (a class I took back in HS) is.

For another example, the Grand Canyon is a niche in the surface of the Earth, but if you're standing in the canyon you probably wouldn't concider it a niche, while a small hole in it's wall, even if you were standing inside the hole, you likly would.

[Bayou_Gal]

The wonderful thing about a niche site is that with a very specific subject, you have a very specific audience. Your audience WANTS that information and wants to use your site. Therefore, if you can match your audience's wants with very targeted advertising, you can do very well even with a small amount of traffic. It's so nice to be able to give them exactly what they are looking for. :)

Bayou Gal

P.S. This is my first post at WebmasterWorld. I hope I'm doing it right! I love this place, and it's about time I got my foot wet.

[g1smd]

* splash *

Consider it done!

[2oddSox]

although your original post was a week ago, here's [webmasterworld.com] a useful thread I've had flagged from the WW library. An interesting discussion on what is, or isn't, a niche.

2odd...