A common mis perception in search engine optimization is that if a website ranks high for a term that is currently getting low or no search volume at all, then it is all in vain. This is a huge problem in the industry because businesses are not getting the full picture. It’s not just about what’s getting search volume now, it’s also about what’s going to get search volume in the future! Think about it, Google is recording on average that each day 25% of search queries are new queries never before searched for. That’s a remarkably high number. This tells us two things:

  1. The searcher is getting smarter
  2. There are 25% new searches to compete for each day

Niche TermsA common example I give to people is this. We know that people search for the term Utah Real Estate. We all get that. And obviously the crowds are hording to compete for that term. But are the searchers? A quick evaluation using your Google Adwords keyword tool will tell you that there are more advertising competition volume then their is search volume. Why is this? Because the searcher is smarter then he/she used to be. They are now looking for terms like ‘Utah Valley Real Estate’ or ‘Sandy Real Estate’ or even ‘Sandy Utah Real Estate’ and so on. You get the picture.

Research also tells us that even though a more niche or defined term like ‘Sandy Real Estate’ may have considerably lower search volume than say ‘Utah Real Estate’ , the more niche term provides a much more qualified customer than the latter. Not to mention the fact that you can probably get a much higher organic placement for a niche term which means a higher percentage of clicks coming your way from the overall search volume.

So what does this mean to you? It means that you need to better refine your content strategy on your website and start competing for those more niche terms that best describe your service/product. You want to do this for 3 main reasons:

  1. A higher organic placement
  2. A higher percentage of clicks from the overall search volume
  3. A much more qualified customer
  4. A good friend of Google!

Compete for Niche Terms and Become a Friend of Google

That’s an interesting statement on my part. Why would competing for more niche terms organically make you a friend of Googles? Here’s a school of thought for you. Put yourself in the shoes of Google. Better yet, put yourself in the shoes of the owners of Google Sergei Brinn and Larry Page. Their goal with their search engine is to provide the best organic search results possible. Doing so gives them more and more of the search population, which means more money from Google Adwords and so on. If everybody were trying to compete organically for the same general terms, then searchers would never find what they were looking for. It’s our job as SEO’s to keep these websites up with the searchers. The more niche terms that Google can provide relevant results for the better for them. And for you.

Conclusion

Compete for 6-12 niche terms organically from your website. And to compete for a wider range of niche terms you can use a blog and write great articles. We will write about that later. Do so and watch your traffic increase and you start to get more qualified customers coming your way through the web.

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