Stay on Top of Your Niche

If you’re a niche writer, it’s your job to know what’s going on in your area. It’s not enough to know just the basics. If that’s the case, you’re just a generic web writer and don’t have much to offer your clients. It’s important - imperative, even - that you’re always aware of latest developments in your niche.

I’m a personal finance writer, so I’m always reading news and press releases to figure out what’s happening in the financial world. Not only that, I talk to people about what they’re experiencing with their finances. And I visit personal finance forums on a frequent basis. I even take a look at competing websites to see if they’re covering a topic I might have missed.

To get news, I’ve signed up for Google Alerts to notify me once daily about news for certain keywords. I also visit some of the top news sites like MSNBC, USA Today, US News, Newsweek, Business Week, CNN Money, and the NYTimes. Those are some examples, you might have different news sources for your niche. You could find news in your niche by doing a search for “your niche keywords+ news.”

Press releases are harder for me to find and I tend to stumble upon them. I do visit the press section for some of the service providers in my niche, like the credit bureaus and top banks. Another great source of information for me has been some of the government sites like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Federal Reserve Board (FRB).

Sometimes I find out about news quicker from visiting forums than I do from visiting news sites. It works for me. I found the forums I frequent by doing a Google search for “niche + forums.”

What do you do to stay abreast of what’s going on in your niche?