Niche sites: how to optimize them?
-
Dear SEOmozzers,
I am focusing on those keywords I find using the "Keyword Analysis" tool that are not too competitive (among 20%-30% competitiveness). I then buy domains that include those keywords. The sites are in Italian and targeting the Italian search engines, so the competition is lower than it would be in the US. Basically, I'd like to build niche sites and I'd like to ask a few questions that I hope somebody with a good experience in this field can answer:
-
How do I optimize a niche site. Specifically, how do I go about link building? How many backlinks should I get to see some results?
-
How long does it take for a typical niche site to start appearing in the search engines for a certain keyword, after launching an effective link building campaign?
-
Please kindly provide any recommendations you believe to be important when building niche sites. For example, is there a company/professional you know that specializes in this field and who is trustworthy/reliable?
Thank you very much for your help.
All best,
- Sal
-
-
I do however agree with what Ryan wrote - in that domains with keywords (unless a valid part of a brand) is not a worthwhile focus. Google particularly likes brands, so build a reputation based on quality content in your niches and you should be okay.
There's no harm in building a good niche sites, i.e. filling a gap the main competition aren't in, but do it genuinely and do it well - remember you're building a quality site and everything affects your reputation - oh and finally, remember there are no short cuts
-
Hi Martin,
Thank you for the great reply. I'll follow your recommendations.
Cheers,
- Sal
-
Hi Ryan,
Thank you for your feedback and honesty. My idea is to build sites in fields that I am interested in, so that I can write good content about and try to earn links. I would like to create them focusing on keywords that are not too competitive, otherwise I will not stand a change to compete against the big guys.
Al best,
- Sal
-
Hi there,
You don't have to do much differently for 'niche' sites in terms of SEO than any non-niche site, to be honest. You will still need to choose your keywords, put together some great content, manage your site structure and on-page optimisation well and ensure a great user experience.
After that your link building efforts are fairly simliar in that you'll need to look for good linking opportunities. Look at your competitors for the keywords you're targeting and then maybe look at some advanced search queries:-
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/9-actionable-tips-for-link-prospecting
Niche Communities The thing I would suggest is getting involved in communities based around your niche - maybe hook into some blogs or forums, or other community types and be of use to the people there - get to know people well (don't just see it as 'link building'). If you're in a niche then you want to get known in that niche.
Social Media Look up some communities through social media or do keyword searches in those site to identify people you could get involved with or get to know.
Backlinks How many links it takes to get you noticed? How long is a piece of string? It depends on the quality of the sites linking to you and what your competitors are up to - that will change niche-to-niche.
Web Designer You should be able to get any web designer to create your niche site but I would suggest you go with a designer who understands SEO in order to get the site structure and content right before the site goes live. Ensure you get an Italian Copywriter to look over the content so that keywords are inserted in a natural, linguistically acceptable way - i.e. it reads well.
Hope this is of use to you
-
Sal, if I may be blunt that is a horrible plan from a SEO perspective.
Search engines have matured. They are far from perfect, but they are getting better at filtering out sites like the ones you mentioned. The sites which make it to the first page of results (i.e. receive traffic from search engines) are increasingly becoming the authentic, legitimate sites to which companies or individuals focus their full attention. The idea of throwing up a bunch of sites and receiving traffic to all of them is dying. Why?
The penguin update is focused on eliminating sites which "built" links. Going forward you need to EARN links. The best guide on doing such is here: http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/future-of-link-building.
The idea of ranking with your domain name (i.e. buy-viagra.com) has also taken a hit. It is less effective and will likely continue to decline.
If you want to earn a living online my recommendation is to pick a single niche you love and throw all your focus, time and energy into it. If you pursue the path you are on, I predict a fiery burnout in a short amount of time.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Site Redesign Performance
Hi, I am looking for a bit of advice if possible. In October 2018 we did a site redesign for a website that we had acquired (www.drainageonline.co.uk) but we have lost SO much organic traffic since Oct (-40/50% each month). I have amended any crawl errors including broken redirects ensuring all 301's that we put in place are working correctly, ensured 404 pages working OK, implemented canonical onto all pages along with other bits but we don't really seem to be seeing any improvements in our organic traffic. Can anyone offer any advice on the above? Thanks, Lea
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GAP_Digital_Marketing0 -
When Mobile and Desktop sites have the same page URLs, how should I handle the 'View Desktop Site' link on a mobile site to ensure a smooth crawl?
We're about to roll out a mobile site. The mobile and desktop URLs are the same. User Agent determines whether you see the desktop or mobile version of the site. At the bottom of the page is a 'View Desktop Site' link that will present the desktop version of the site to mobile user agents when clicked. I'm concerned that when the mobile crawler crawls our site it will crawl both our entire mobile site, then click 'View Desktop Site' and crawl our entire desktop site as well. Since mobile and desktop URLs are the same, the mobile crawler will end up crawling both mobile and desktop versions of each URL. Any tips on what we can do to make sure the mobile crawler either doesn't access the desktop site, or that we can let it know what is the mobile version of the page? We could simply not show the 'View Desktop Site' to the mobile crawler, but I'm interested to hear if others have encountered this issue and have any other recommended ways for handling it. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | merch_zzounds0 -
SEO Site Analysis
I am looking for a company doing a SEO analysis on our website www.interelectronix.com and write a optimization proposal incl. a budgetary quote for performing those optimizations.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | interelectronix0 -
Baffled why my site is not improving in rankings.
Site shows up in the Map results when ever Google shows them. But for all other organic terms site ranks way back. Have lots of unique content and one page grade of an A. The site is http://alexpadillabailbonds.com The main page is optimized for "sacramento bail bonds" with a Moz grade of A yet its not included in the search results. It was before. Any insight from any one will greatly help. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andreyzolnikov0 -
Focusing on Multiple Niches for one site: good or bad?
Is it wise to focus on multiple niches for one site, rather than zoning in one or two different niches? On one hand, you can target many more topics and go after tons of keywords, but on the other hand doesn't google get confused of what your site is really about? Won't google just focus on one of the niches that you provide more than all others? Any input would be great!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
How to remove an entire site from Google?
Hi people, I have a site with around 2.000 urls indexed in google, and 10 subdomains indexed too, which I want to remove entirely, to set up a new web. Which is the best way to do it? Regards!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoExpertos0 -
Load balanced Site
Our client ecommerce site load from 3 different servers using load balancing. abc.com : IP: 222.222.222 Abc.com: IP: 111.111.111 For testing purpose 111.111.111 also point to beta.abc.com Now google crawling site beta.abc.com If we block beta.abc.com using robots.txt it will block google bot also , since beta.abc.com is really abc.com I know its confusing but I been trying to figure out. Ofcourse I can ask my dev to remove beta.abc.com make a seperate code and block it using .htaccess
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tpt.com0 -
Canonical and optimization
Hi, I was thinking: If I had 4 pages, each of them optimized for an especific keyword, but set a canonical url to another page, would this another page rank for the 5 specific keywords? Ex: Page 1- Shoes
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PedroVillalobos
Page 2- Snickers
Page 3- Socks
Page 4- Feet
All set the canonical url to Page 5 Page 5 will rank for all this four keywords?0