Niche Marketing: Newbie Asks “Is ‘Dogs’ A Good Niche?”

Choosing a Marketing Niche Without Keyword Research is a Huge Mistake

Here’s a situation that is all too common with newcomers to the internet marketing world. But in the following instance, the question was being asked of me by an individual that claims to have a web development business! I don’t know about you, but if I had hired this company to help develop my website’s online presence, and I became aware that the owner was asking a question like this one, well … his company wouldn’t be involved with my website anymore!

I digress, so back to the subject at hand. Here is a very common situation that arises AFTER a new internet marketer jumps on the band wagon. Let me share the gist of what this individual was asking me:

Hi: I am new to the affiliate marketing business. I presently own and operate a small web development company. We recently developed a website targeted to people who are interested in and/or related to all areas relating to dogs. They could be dog owners, breeders, groomers, trainers, etc.

Here is my question: Is “dogs” a good niche?

Is “Dogs” a Good Niche?

Sigh … OK, so this individual has already purchased a domain name; has started to build out a site around the HUGE category of dogs; has probably taken time to write content; taken time to place the content and other information onto this new site … but he’s asking NOW “is ‘dogs’ a good niche”??

Did he put the cart before the horse? Yes, most definitely. My suggestion to him was to STOP what they were doing right now and do some keyword research using a tool like Wordtracker or the Google Keyword Tool.

I told him that the niche pertaining to dogs was huge! (But “dogs” is not what you’d call a niche. Poodles would be a niche, or puppy training would be a niche.) I advised “dogs” was way too broad for them to achieve any online marketing success. That they needed to narrow it down!

I told him I’d make a 200% wager that they hadn’t done any keyword research, based on the question. I told him if they expected to attract targeted traffic, then keyword research was a must.

In addition, I advised that not only would the keyword research help them discover smaller niches within the broad category of dogs, they’d also get a grasp on what people were REALLY typing into the search engines to find out information about dogs.

If you know what people are searching for, then you’ll know what content topics to write about in order to try and grab some of that traffic via your organic search engine rankings!

As an example of what I am talking about, I entered “dogs” into Wordtracker, set it to give me the top 100 results, and here’s an example of those results.

Here’s the top ten (actual term being used with projected 24 hour searches made in the USA):

1. dogs 36,052
2. dogsrule.com 7,241
3. who let the dogs out 1,417
4. funny dogs 1,130
5. dogs for sale 1,058
6. hot dogs 831
7. cute dogs 798
8. boxer dogs 753
9. small dogs 693
10. mummy dogs 622

All the way down to:

93. herbs for dogs 123
94. teacup dogs 122
95. seizures in dogs 120
96. english bull dogs 120; and lastly …
100. havanese dogs 115

So, the moral of this story is to do your keyword research before you even purchase a domain name! You have to know the niche(s) you will be targeting within the broad category you’ve chosen.

Plus, you must get an idea of what people are searching for! If you build out a website that contains information that only 2 people a day are interested in, it’s going to be terribly difficult to make any money as an online marketer!

Don’t want to do keyword research yourself? No problem.
I provide custom keyword research reports.
I’ll tailor the report to the niche and your internet marketing goals.

Keyword Strategy For Beginners: Understanding Keyword Competition Levels

How Search Engine Ranking Competition Affects Visitor Traffic

Just the other day I received an email from someone complimenting one of my websites and saying that she was adding a link to it on her site. She also shared how she wanted to make money from her site, but was struggling to understand how in the heck to “get found” online in order to get lots of visitor traffic.

I clicked over to check it out and oh dear … it was pretty much what I expected to see.  Sadly, though I saw a website that was built around excellent efforts and perhaps a pretty good niche, I saw blunder after blunder in every aspect one could imagine IF INDEED one wishes to not only appear in the search engine results which brings the visitors, but more importantly wishes to make some serious money from that site.

So … why are some people smiling about their search engine rankings and the levels of traffic they receive, and others are bemoaning about trying to figure out how to get traffic? My best assumption is easy to make.  If anyone is wondering how to “get visitors”, then right there I know that the individual is unaware of even the most basic of SEO and keyword strategy fundamentals.

I’ve got lots of great posts about keyword research and such in the Keyword category, so please check it out and read the posts to educate yourself.  But today I want to touch upon a very important aspect that needs to be considered when doing your keyword research.

Keyword Strategy – Research the Competitiveness Level

Let’s define what competitiveness of a keyword phrase is.  It means how many other websites on the internet are using that exact keyword phrase – such as “vegetarian recipes” – that you want to target in the content of your web page.

There  are a number of ways to perform keyword phrase research, and this post isn’t attempting to tackle all of them, rather I want to easily show one way that beginners can use to help figure out what keywords they should target.

Remember now, I said this is but one of many ways to help determine keyword strategy. But it can give good insight to those of you starting out.

As a very general rule, when you type your search term into Google a page of results will be returned.  You will see this (click image for full size):

**Note the areas I’ve circled at the top of this image.  You see the SERP (search engine result pages) result for the keyword phrase.

On the following chart, let’s look at some numbers:

• If there are less than 100,000 SERPs returned for a keyword phrase that phrase can be considered low competition.
• If you find between 100,000 and 1,000,000 SERPs for a keyword phrase, that phrase is considered a medium level of competition.
• If you see SERPs over 1 million … I’d recommend you not try to go after that keyword phrase until you’ve got a good sized site that utilizes lots of medium to low competition phrases.

SERPs In Google	Competition Level
< 100,000	Low
100,000 – 1,000,000	Medium
1,000,000 >	High

 

However, if you’re entering into a highly competitive niche – such as “computer equipment”, a keyword phrase with 50,000 results can most likely be considered highly competitive. Much does hinge upon the niche and the other websites attention to SEO and other factors.

It is necessary to formulate keyword strategy on a site-by-site, niche-by-niche basis. Everyone wants their website to achieve top rankings for targeted traffic. One must come up with a well researched and thought-out list of keywords to target, whether you’re a beginner or expert. In the case of most online marketers who are just starting out, keyword strategy means they should start building content around slightly less competitive phrases, and then work their way up to including web page content on higher competition phrases.

Good traffic boils down to proper keyword research coupled with effective keyword strategy coupled with great content.

Research Those ‘Most Searched’ Keywords

If You Don’t Keep Three Steps Ahead of Your Competition …

You’ll Get Trampled in the Search Engine Rankings & Miss Out on Better Visitor Traffic

I’m sure you know that people use different word combinations, known as keyword phrases, when they search for your products or services online. In order for your potential customers to find your site when they search, it’s important to use these keywords in your website or blog’s copy.

You can stab in the dark, and try to guess at the keyword phrases you think people are using to find you … or you can do intensive research, just like I do in my capacity as a professional SEO consultant. You know what, though? I always seem to get a chuckle when I perform my keyword research for my clients. Why? Well I’ll tell you …

I ask my clients many questions to get a handle on their marketing niche. One of the questions I ask is, “What words do you think your customers would use to find you via an internet search?” Like I just said, I am usually amused at the words they give me … and then normally even MORE amused when I get down to the real nitty-gritty of researching and determining the keywords they’ll need to be focusing on.

The reason I normally get a chuckle is that the words they give me are often NOT the words you’d necessarily want to target in the hopes of capturing a broader spectrum of potential visitors/customers. Sometimes I find that the words they think would be good to bring them traffic aren’t even used by searchers. And ultimately, after I tell them of my findings, they say something to the effect of “… no wonder my site isn’t making me any money!!”

The bottom line is you cannot “guess” at the keyword phrases you use in your Title tag, Description meta tag or each page or post of content. You CAN’T! Even though most internet marketers still have no knowledge of the importance of SEO and keyword research, you can’t take it for granted that YOU can squeak by without tending to these very important and vital components to your online success.

Two free-to-use online tools that you can use for your keyword research are the Google Adwords tool and WordTracker’s free version. So … stop guessing and start researching!  You’ll be very glad you did.

Does It Cost Money To Have A Domain & Website?

Stay-At-Home Mom Says “I Need to Make Money to Help Support My Family”

I always try my best to offer SEO help to internet newbies. I fully understand how daunting it can be to get your first website up and running and I don’t mean just the technical aspects, either. Choosing a domain name, which host to sign up with and such is very confusing too, to say the least. Anyway … I received an email the other day from a young stay-at-home-mom asking for some SEO help and affiliate marketing advice. I thought this might be of help to others, so here it is, in an abbreviated version:

QUESTION:
I have never had a website or domain name. Does it cost money to have one? I was thinking about appealing to moms and family since I have some experience being a mother and homemaker. I will think of a domain name and find all of the products I want to promote. I haven’t quite pinned a theme down yet though because I haven’t seen anything that just pops out at me.

MY ANSWER:
Yes, ‘moms & families’ would be a great niche to target marketing-wise. There is lots of competition, but with research and such, you should be able to find a less competitive area within the niche of ‘moms & families’ that you could probably do very well in.

My biggest suggestion is this: don’t jump in and register a domain name without doing keyword research into the niche that interests you. Because of the online success I have personally experienced and because professionally I am an SEO consultant, I will tell you that you HAVE to know what you want to target, meaning what niche you want to market to, before you jump in and buy a domain name.

Do you know what “niche” means? Do you understand that you have to find a smaller area of the great big theme of ‘moms & families’ to try to sell to? Have you entered all sorts of different keyword ideas into Google to see what kind of other websites are out there, what they offer and such? These sites might very well be your competition.

Let me steer you to some FREE tools you can use to investigate further. To research what keywords people are using, here is a free version of the professional tool many SEO’s and website owners use: Wordtracker Free Trial. You can also use Google’s free keyword tool.

In addition, to get a really good idea of why keyword research is so important … from the choice of your new domain name on to how you will structure your website’s theme, here is another FREE tutorial from Wordtracker that will really help you: Keyword Research Guide. Please make a point to read this. You’ll learn from it. I think this is enough for you now.

Then, I personally use and recommend either GoDaddy or Namecheap for checking domain name availability and for purchasing the domain names I decide to make mine; and I have been using hosting services for years from IX Web Hosting.  They have great prices, great customer service and wonderful reliability.

Remember, read the Keyword Research Guide and use the free keyword tool BEFORE you jump in and buy up a domain name and get hosting, etc.

Have more questions?? Contact me for a free consultation.

You CAN do this, but let’s make sure you do it RIGHT!!! You’ll never regret taking your time in the beginning.

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