Search Engine Optimization Tips Blog

Yesterday I went looking for a niche to fill with advertising for my fictitious pet clothing website. I found out that while there is a decent amount of search for the term ‘pet hoodies’, ‘puppy hoodie’ and ‘pet sweatshirts’, there is not any advertiser competition at all. I carry pet hoodies and sweatshirts on my site, but had not considered advertising them specifically. The CPC for these keyword phrases is ridiculously low, and I decided to divert a portion of my ad budget in this direction.

Perhaps it sounds ridiculous to concentrate on what is obviously such a small market. The numbers, however, support my decision – this is a risk, but a calculated risk. Google says there are indeed consumers who type in ‘pet hoodies’ as a search phrase, and you’ve got to kind of figure they that’s what they are looking for; not a lot of ambiguity when it comes to pet hoodies, is there?

Right now, if I type in ‘pet hoodies’, I get surprisingly sparse hits. ‘Dog hoodies’ comprises almost the first whole page, and my blog post from yesterday is halfway down page two. I plan to expand my stock, design a few landing pages, and prepare to launch my new campaign. I might even buy an extra domain name with ‘pet hoodies’ in it, and park it with a redirect to my new hoodie landing page.

Is all this worth it? There are no guarantees, but I feel it is a good risk for the following reasons.

For example, say there are 500,000 searches per month for ‘pet clothing’. If I shell out for my keywords, search optimize and build links like crazy, and fight my way up through the SERPs, I still manage to catch the attention of only one quarter of one percent of the market, or 1250 searches. My conversion rate is low, because there is a lot of shopping around!

With ‘pet hoodies’ there might only be 6,000 searches a month, but with strong SEO I estimate I can corner at least 25% of the traffic. That’s still 1500 visitors, but my conversion rate is way higher due to the narrowness of the search and my CPC costs are much, much lower. I’m not just looking for hoodie sales, remember, I am looking for traffic, and customers who will surf from the hoodie page through the rest of my site to see what else I offer for four legged companions. The pet hoodies probably won’t pay my overhead, but the increased traffic and sales from my site in general will hopefully show a greatly increased ROI.

This is all hypothetical. Different markets can vary widely, and I have no rock solid assurance that my plan will work. However, finding a niche market has proven successful over and over again, so why not me? The real test will be seeing if I have what it takes to commit.

Slapping together a landing page and putting up an add or two may not be enough; to do this right I will need to make sure I optimize just like I do my site in general, with content, advertising and linking to garner the most traffic and search engine interest I can. Then PetStyles might become home to the Pet Hoodie Depot, and what was an almost overlooked consumer need will be my personal moneymaker.

Look into finding exploiting little used keywords, and find a niche market for your site. It just might pay off in ways you can’t imagine.

 Subscribe in a reader

• Email Subscription by Feedburner