For a long time it was always prophesied: The money is in the niche. As many of the niches became almost mainstream by then, this had then quickly put into perspective again and especially the marketing and SEO for it was demanding and thus for many not so interesting. Now that can change, because for Google, for example, specific markets are quite interesting and who gets involved and fulfill Google’s wishes, can move a lot here.
Searchmetrics has been examined in a study how Google generally deals with niche websites and brands and what matters in the optimization of these pages. For this, the top 10 results for thousands of keywords were analyzed for the areas of e-commerce, travel, finance and health. Each of the areas listed above has been broken down into two subtopics that are more specific, so there were eight different sets of keywords available for analysis. The best news from this study: Google really likes niche topics. But that does not mean that one can lazily sit back as an operator of corresponding websites.
Of course, to work well with niche websites, some work is necessary. According to the Searchmetrics study, there are five main factors that make you want to appear at the top of the search results: images, videos, word counts, internal links, and spreadsheets. Those who keep an eye on these five areas and serve well will also be rewarded with good rankings in the SERPs. However, it must also be clearly stated that there is not one formula for success, because ultimately it still depends on the niche itself, which works well. But there are a few pointers which are negligible but can bring many benefits and what is negligible.
When it comes to pictures, there are few surprises. For many niche topics, these play a major role, and those who use them in a wide range, can send positive signals to Google. For more confusion, there is already the message that relevant videos on a website are not necessary to rank well. Most of the sites in the study use videos sparingly and still rank high on the charts. Much more important is the number of words on the pages. There are very text-hungry niches and others who manage with fewer words. In general, however, none of the niches studied accounted for less than 1000 words per page – in some, the average was even over 2500 words.
Of course, the internal linking is also important, which in the best case ensures easy navigation and fast retrieval of related content. Depending on the niche, there are of course differences in relevant internal links. In e-commerce, they are more common than in other niches – but they bring benefits everywhere. By the way, if you want to be one step ahead of the competition, you should bet on tables. They are rarely used, but bring many benefits. For example, they are great for comparisons and provide users with added value that is positively valued by Google.
