What Exactly is a Niche Term
A Niche term is a particular keyword or phrase that fits a particular set of characterisitcs and is very desireable in SEO and online marketing in general.
A Niche Term must fill the following requirements
- A Good Amount of Searches
- Low Amount of Competing Pages
- Low PPC Click Value
- A Good Conversion Rate
- Good Profit per conversion
A Good Amount of Searches
This is perhaps obvious but needs clarification. A common mistake is to target a keyword that is too generic. Yes it probably has a very high amount of searches but it is not specific and it almost certainly has a lot of competition.
When I say a good amount of traffic I mean a value that is worth working for. For example a term that gets 100 searches per month is worth investing time in if you will make a reaonable amount from 1 sale. If there are less than 100 searches per month then it is unlikely that the keyword will be worth targeting. Although that siad, having 500 #1 rankings for terms with only 1 search per month is as good if not better than having 1 #1 ranking with 500 searches per month.
Low Amount of Competing Pages
You can determine the number of competing pages by using either a keyword research tool or by searching for the keyword in Google with Quotes around the keyword. This will give you the number of competing pages.
This is perhaps the most important factor in finding a Niche term. It means you have found a gap in the market. You have to make sure that the gap exists because it hasn't been discovered yet and not because it isn't worth spending time in. Thats why you need to make sure it fullfills all of the afore mentioned criteria.
Low PPC Click Value
A good measure of commercial value is the Maximum PPC (Pay Per Click) and the number of people bidding for that keyword. If you have foiund a term with only one bid or even none then you may well have found a decent Niche Term. This means that there is little commercial competition for the keyword.
A Good Conversion Rate
In order for the Niche Term to be successful it needs to convert traffic into sales or any other metric that you use for a conversion (eg news letter sign up or filling out an enquiry form). This is where some common sense comes into play. If you have PPC data on the term you can see what CTR (Click Through Rate) and Conversion Rate you get with it (if you are using Goal Conversion Tracking in your Analytics and PPC Campaigns). This is very useful.
One thing you need to make sure of is that it isn't just an acedemic term that is searched for out of research. Again, you can use your analytics software to determine who is searching for what.
Good Profit per conversion
From a business prospective you need to make sure that targeting a keyword is profitable. How much profit will you make from a sale of the product you are advertising? You need to make sure that time spent and money spent on PPC is going to provide ROI (Return On Investment).