Niche Site Keyword and Niche Selection

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Posted on: 20th Oct 2013

Niche Site Keyword and Niche Selection

When starting a brand new website, choosing the right topic for your site is the most important part of the process. Everything about your website � the name of it, what it looks like, what we publish � is determined by the topic or niche that you choose, so it�s important that we spend some time thinking about this before we actually begin.

When building a niche site, specifically, the target keyword that you choose to build a website around can mean the difference between success and failure.

I personally believe that anyone can compete with any keyword. Yep � any keyword. Even 1-word keywords. The question is, how much time and money do you want to spend to outrank the existing competition?

High volume search terms combined with high levels of competition means that you�re typically going to spend a lot more time and money on your campaign before you see any results. That, or you�re going to have to be incredibly creative, which can work, but you also have to assume that the existing sites in those competitive markets are already heavily competing with each other as well.

This is why, at least if you have a limited budget, and perhaps a limited amount of time as well, it is better and makes more sense to try to dominate a niche where domination seems feasible and reasonable.

It�s not because there is more money flowing in smaller markets � markets within existing markets � that�s obviously not true. Get to the top of Google for a keyword like �laptop computers� and you�re golden, but the fact is that getting there is going to be difficult. Very difficult.

Niche down, and you�re more likely to land higher in the search engines. Yes, you�ll be higher for keywords with less search volume�but also for keywords with less competition.

I�d rather be on the 1st page of Google for a keyword that gets 3,000 exact searches per month, than on the 5th page for a keyword that gets 300,000 searches per month. Nobody visits the 5th page. Well nobody visits the 2nd page either!

If you�re doing a search and you don�t find what you�re looking for on the first page, what do you do?

You refine your search.

You �niche down� and get more specific with the words that you write in the search field. This is the advantage building a niche site has over building a more general website � you and the site you build are there to serve specific queries from people looking for specific answers. If you can become the ultimate resource for that topic, to serve those answers, naturally your website is going to (eventually) rank higher, but beyond what happens in the search engines, you�re actually helping people.

1. Search Volume [Exact]: min. 3,000 Local Searches Per Month

Search volume is the number of times a particular keyword is searched for in Google, and it�s typically reported on a per monthly basis, although daily is also common. It�s a decent indicator of how much potential traffic you could get to your website (from that one keyword) if you sat in the #1 position in Google for that keyword.

There are three types of searches: broad match, phrase match, and exact match.

Without getting too detailed about what means what, just know that most keyword research tools, the free Google Adwords Keyword Tool default on broad match, which is dangerous because the data can be terribly skewed. Make sure you conduct your keyword research using exact match at all times.

One more time: Make sure you conduct your keyword research using exact match.

This will give you true data for how many times a keyword (and that keyword only), in that particular order has been searched for in Google.

2. SEO Competition � Is there room in the Top 10 of Google?

After finding keywords that meet the search criteria above, the next most important thing to look at is what the existing competition for that keyword looks like in Google. Specifically, how difficult would it be to get on the first page? How about the very top?

As much as we can see the exact information related to specific websites that we�re competing against, determining whether or not it might be possible to get on the first page or to the top of Google is a skill that doesn�t come easy, and it doesn�t come right away. Some may even call it an art.

Only through experience and learning from the example of others can we make wiser decisions about where to focus our time and effort when building niche websites.

Is the keyword used in the URL of the pages listed in the top 10 of Google for that keyword?

Is the keyword used in the Title of the page, and the description?

The number of incoming links to those pages, and the quality of those links.

With so many things to look at when it comes to competition, it can sometimes be difficult to put exact numbers on everything. A set of competing pages, for example, may look great for us except for 1 or 2 of the above. Does that mean we have to move on to another keyword?

Not necessarily.

Again, there�s sort of an �art� that comes when it comes to SEO competition, so I�ll hopefully give you some things to think about when I�m going through the process.

3. The Grandma Test

This is an easy, but important test � at least to me.

Once I find a keyword with decent search volume and relatively low competition, I�ll ask myself the following question:

If I created a website in this niche and it became incredibly successful, would I be comfortable sharing my success with my grandma?

If the answer is no, then I may have to think twice about getting into this particular niche.

4. Can I EARN Money in this Niche?

So you�ve found a niche with decent search volume and low competition, and your grandma approves too � the next most important question is, can you earn money from it?

As much as people build niche websites in order to generate an income, relatively little care and research goes into the possibility of monetization. Isn�t that absurd? That�s why sometimes you hear about people who have websites ranking high in Google, maybe even in the top position, who are making little to no money at all.

Researching monetization is just as important as doing keyword research for search volume and competition. You don�t want to put in all that work and get to the top of Google only to then realize that you�re in a niche with little or no earning potential.

Note the specific use of the term earn. It�s not make money in or generate profit from, but earn � meaning: you�re able to contribute something to the niche and get paid back in return.

When it comes to earning potential, the idea here is to understand if there is money flowing within that market, and if there are specific ways for people to pay you back for something that you provide. Here are some specific tests and metrics you can use to see if there�s earning potential within the niche that you�ve selected:

The Average Cost-Per-Click (CPC) in Google Adwords. The average CPC is a metric that can be found in the free Google Adwords Keyword tool, and in most paid keyword research software as well. The average CPC is the average amount that advertisers who are using Google Adwords are paying every time someone clicks on an ad relevant to that specific keyword. This is not how much money we�ll earn on our website for each click if we were to use Google Adsense. If you publish ads using Google Adsense, you will earn a percentage of the overall CPC per click. A higher CPC means that advertisers are competing and bidding against each other, which is often a good sign that there�s money flowing within that specific market. More advertisers also means that there are potentially more products, tools and services that you could promote on your website.

What Advertisements Show Up in a Google Search? This one is easy. Type in your target keyword in Google and see what ads, if any, show up at the top and/or side of the resulting page. If there are a lot of advertisers, this is another good sign that there is some earning potential here. Advertisers are willing to pay for premium spots in Google search, which means they might be willing to pay you, or work with you as a partner. If there are few or no results, than that�s something to take note of and the niche requires further investigation. Don�t completely scratch the keyword off the list just yet � not all markets have companies that advertise using Google Adwords.

Are There Books or Products that Show Up in an Amazon.com Search? Amazon.com is a search engine. It�s not just any search engine though, it�s a search engine where we know the people doing the searching are buyers. They aren�t looking for free information like many people do on Google � they are there to buy stuff. If there�s a decent quantity and quality of products and/or books that show up relevant to your target keyword, then that�s a good sign that there are people willing to pay for information or products within that specific niche. Plus, you�ll be able to see if there�s anything worth promoting as an affiliate too.

Are Other Sites Promoting Stuff, and if so, What? Do a quick search for websites related to your potential target keyword and see what comes up. Click around and see if any of the resulting websites or blogs are selling anything � either stuff that they�ve created on their own, or products or services that belong to someone else. Be sure to note the difference between an automatically generated advertisement (like a Google Adsense ad, which usually has a little tag on the ad itself that says �Ad Choices� or �Ads by Google�) and a real partnership or promotion. The ads are still useful, but the partnerships and affiliate promotions tell us an even better story of what�s available for us. Make note of the promotions and websites that you find. If you wanted to find blogs, specifically, type �blogs:target keyword� (without quotations) in Google, and you�ll get a list of blogs in your search result. These are good sites to include in a database for potential outreach later.

Search for �Money� Keywords. Here another fun trick. To discover if there are potentially things that you could promote and sell on your website, run the following Google search queries (with quotations):

�target keyword� �on sale�

�target keyword� �for sale�

�target keyword� �price�

�target keyword� �affiliate�

�target keyword� �partners�

�target keyword� �media kit�

�target keyword� �product description�

�target keyword� �equipment�

�target keyword� �services�

�target keyword� �products�

�target keyword� �customer review�

�target keyword� �testimonial�

�target keyword� �now available�

There are a lot of other potential keywords to use here, but you get the idea. Not all of the above will produce resulting products or items that prove this is a market with money in it, but a lot of them will, and you should obviously keep track of the ones that seem legit. If you get nothing from the above searches � then you may need to think again about the specific niche that you�re targeting.

Passing the above tests for earning potential won�t necessarily mean that you�re 100% going to earn an income if you build a website in that niche. Of course, there are a lot of other factors involved, many based on you and your website�s performance, but at least you�ll know there�s potential here and you�re not blindly throwing darts at the wall.

5. The 50-Post Test

The 50-post test is a particular criterion that addresses something else that a lot of people, including myself, tend to forget sometimes because we�re so enthralled with search volume and SEO competition.

Once we select a niche and put up an optimized website, we�re going to need to put some content on it. The 50-post test ensures that we have the ability to write a decent amount of content for our website, or at least hire someone to write for if it we wanted to.

Sure, you can choose to have a 5-page website about a particular topic if you want, and if that content is great then you can make something happen with it, but personally I�m shooting for a bigger niche site, one where there�s enough content to get even more traffic from the long tail keyword searches that people type in related to the topic.

I had mentioned that security guard training gets 5,400 exact match searches per month. What you may not realize is that less than 10% of my traffic comes from that one keyword.that people are using to find me in Google, which comes as a result of the amount of content I�ve published on the site, which at this point is about 200 posts.

(I climbed to #1 in Google in with less than 50 total posts, I�ve just continued to add content and grow over time)

Here�s how the 50-post test is going to go down:

After finding a potential keyword, I�m going to create a spreadsheet for that particular keyword and begin to write down blog post ideas. I�ll start with as many as I can think of off the top of my head, approaching the topic as a complete beginner or someone trying to understand that topic. If I run out of ideas before 50, which is always the case, I�ll use the following strategies to fill in the holes:

I�ll use the primary keyword to find related keywords that I could (and should) write about.

I�ll do a Google search to see what other sites are talking about related to the niche. I�ll use that as inspiration for new blog post ideas. I may discover other topics that relate to the primary keyword that I can branch off of too.

I�ll go onto Amazon.com and type in my keyword to find books on the topic. If there are any, I�ll �look inside the cover� to view the table of contents to make sure I hit all of the important points related to the niche. I�ll also make note of the book as well because that�s something I could promote as as affiliate down the road. If anything, it at least it shows me who else I might need to connect with.

I�ll search for problems or issues people are having related to the topic in discussion forums or social media.

The nice thing about this strategy is that once you have this list of 50 potential posts, you already know exactly what to publish. If you�re hiring somebody to write for you, then you can just hand them this list, or a part of it when you begin working together. These topics can also turn into videos and other forms of media as well.

If I struggle getting to 50 posts, then I have to reassess whether or not it�s a topic that I really want to get into.

6. The Ability to Create a �Best Resource�

One of these strategies was the use of a massive guide or resource � an extensive, noteworthy and epic publication or tool that solves a specific problem or educates people in such great detail, that it can�t go unnoticed.

But an �all you need to know� guide published on a website, as opposed to that same content put in an eBook or something, which is less likely to be shared or found in the search engines, or promoted on other people�s websites is smart, and it�s going to be the core strategy during the launch of whatever website I choose to create.

For whatever keywords fit the criteria so far, I�m going to determine if there is a way to create a �best resource� that can�t go unnoticed. It doesn�t necessarily have to be a written guide either, but it could be something different and unique that is extremely useful for people who are looking for information within a specific niche.

Marketing and launching the website with this resource is a topic for another discussion, which we�ll get into in the near future once I start building that resource.

The purpose of this post was to share my thinking process when it comes to the niche that you will be selecting.

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Niche Site Keyword and Niche Selection

Niche Site Keyword and Niche Selection

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