Generating content for your website or blog is an important way to connect with your audience. However, to ensure that your content stands out and is actually found online, you often need to do more than just ensure that it’s well-written.
Keyword research is an essential element of all Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns. When you layer in the right keywords or phrases into your content, it helps search engines more accurately index your pages so they rank well on search engine results pages (SERPs).
However, when competing for attention in highly saturated industry markets, “niche” keyword analysis can be even more critical.
What Are Niche Keywords and Why Do They Matter?
Niche keywords are highly specific words or phrases that users commonly enter into search queries to find the information they’re looking for online. These are typically used when someone already knows the specific product or piece of information they’re looking for.
From a business’s perspective, niche keywords give a clear signal as to the type of things being searched for and can provide much more initial detail related to their intent. An example of a niche keyword would be “plant-based vitamins” as opposed to a simple generic term like “vitamins.”
Niche keywords are often referred to as “long-tail” keywords, since they wrap a main idea up and surround it with descriptive text. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that long-tail keywords have to be much longer in their format, they do usually contain three or more words.
Benefits of Using Niche Keywords
- Easier to Get Noticed - When you target niche keywords in your content marketing initiatives, it makes it much easier to rank for that content in SERPs. While niche keywords may have less search volume than more generic terms, they’re also typically a faster way of getting content noticed.
- Find People Closer to Making a Purchase - If someone uses niche keywords in their searches, this typically means they have a specific need they’re looking to fill. When this happens, it’s much easier to generate warm leads for your business, with visitors on your site being much closer to making a purchase than others.
- Better on Your Budget - Focusing on using niche keywords in your marketing efforts can be a much more cost-effective way to manage paid advertising campaigns. Because these terms typically have less search volume, they also have less competition, keeping the costs to run pay-per-click (PPC) ads much more affordable.
Step-by-Step Process to Find Niche Keywords
To find the niche keywords that are right for your site, there are certain strategies you’ll want to implement. Below is a step-by-step process you can follow to make sure you’re finding the best niche keywords for your site:
Step 1 – Define Your Target Audience
The first step you’ll want to take when looking for the right niche keywords for your business is to define your audience. This means you’ll need to get clear information on the industry you’re in, the type of products or services you offer, and what type of problems you’re looking to solve for your readers.
To achieve this, try to ask yourself what your audience is actually looking for that could guide them to your site or interest them in your offerings. Many times, these questions are related to solving a certain problem, completing a task, or making some type of improvement in their lives.
A great way to discover each of these customer personas is to use tools like Google Analytics (GA4). This free webmaster tool allows you to divide your website audience into different categories while tracking the type of pages they visit, the keywords they use to get there, and other helpful customer journey metrics.
Step 2 – Brainstorm Initial Keyword Ideas
When starting to brainstorm new niche keyword ideas, you’ll first want to start coming up with seed keywords. These are the main terms you’ll use to start building a list of niche words and phrases later on.
For example, while the main topic you might be thinking of could be “motorcycle,” try to think of more distinct subtopics you could focus on surrounding that main subject. This could be “riding lessons,” “repair tips,” “manuals,” or “parts.”
Once you’ve identified some support keyword ideas, you can use other methods to construct them together:
- Come Up With Common Questions - You can use platforms like Reddit, Quora, and Google’s People Also Ask feature to identify the common phrases people are using or questions they’re asking to find relevant information.
- Think of How People Naturally Talk - Consider how most people naturally talk when they’re trying to ask for something or explain something to someone they’ve never met before. This usually contains many more descriptive keywords or phrases.
- Be Specific About Product Use Cases - Think of the different use cases of products or services and the supporting keywords used to describe them.
Step 3 – Use Niche Keyword Research Tools
With your audience clearly defined and your seed words figured out, you can now start to brainstorm your different keywords and expand on your ideas. To do this effectively, there are several free and paid keyword tools you can use.
- Ahrefs and Semrush - Offers comprehensive tools that can give you extensive lists of keyword variations, including longer, more specific phrases.
- Google Keyword Planner - A feature of Google Ads that makes it easier to discover new keyword ideas while also looking at general competition levels for each.
- Google Trends - Identifies commonly used words and phrases and how their search volumes have changed over time across different regions.
- WordStream Free Keyword Tool - A free tool used to suggest relevant keywords, especially longer variations, along with their competition levels and estimated CPCs.
- Search Console (Performance > Queries) - Provides real-time data on what people are searching for and what terms are already bringing visitors to your site.
As you start using these keyword tools to narrow down your ideas, it’s essential to be mindful of specific metrics. Filter down your results by keyword scores (targeting a difficult rating of 30-45), monthly search volumes of less than 1,000, and low to mid CPC ranges. These will give you good results while still not being overly competitive.
Step 4 – Analyze Search Intent and SERPs
With all of your relevant keywords in hand and sorted by their difficulty, you’ll want to start getting a better understanding of the “intent” surrounding each of these terms. This means associating each keyword or phrase with what a user is actually looking for. Is it informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional?
The intent will help you identify whether a user is simply looking for new information or actually wants to make a purchase. Once this is figured out, you should review the SERPs for those terms to see which websites are ranking the highest. Analyze those websites and assess the type of content they publish. This will give you a blueprint to work from when constructing your site pages.
Step 5 – Refine and Prioritize Your Keyword List
Once you’ve finalized your niche keyword list, it's time to refine it so that it’s impactful for your SEO campaigns. Review each keyword and remove any that don’t really align with your website. You should also remove any overly competitive or duplicate terms and ensure that your webpages are inadvertently targeting the same keywords.
To keep your keywords more specific, try to make strategic use of midifiers like “best” or “for X.” This helps to turn basic terms like “walking shoes” into “best walking shoes for travel.”
Group all your keywords by their topic and user intent, which will help you create content hubs. Then, prioritize the keywords that maintain a good balance of search volume, lower difficulty, and high business value.
Step 6 – Monitor Performance and Iterate
After you implement your chosen keywords into your SEO campaigns, you’ll want to review their performance regularly. Track important metrics like search rankings, organic traffic volumes, and conversion rates.
You can leverage tools like Google Search Console, Semrush, or Ahrefs to monitor your site’s performance and identify technical SEO issues that may need to be addressed.
Always be willing to adapt your strategies as needed. As users' preferences change and their search behavior changes, certain niche keywords may no longer be as impactful, and you may need to target new phrases.
Final Thoughts
Focusing on niche keywords is a great way to ensure that your SEO campaigns are more impactful in bringing more qualified traffic to your website. When you take the time to get more specific with your keyword research, you can create much more targeted content that really addresses what your target audience is looking for.
As technology continues to advance and new AI-powered search features change how search engines index webpages, having a more targeted keyword strategy will be critical for staying relevant to both human audiences and search engine crawlers. By following the steps provided in this guide, you’ll be able to find highly profitable keywords you can focus on to improve the visibility and effectiveness of your web presence.