Niche Topic Advertising
Example: Toronto Personal Trainers
By Charles Moffat - January 2013.
Let us pretend for a moment that your business is in a very competitive field. In this example we shall be using the fitness industry (which is highly competitive) and in particular the topic of personal trainers in Toronto.
Trainers are very macho "gotta be the best" group of people so its really no surprise that they compete online as well. Its good for their business if they have the appearance of being the best.
RESEARCH
We start by doing some research to see what the competition is doing, so we do a Google search for toronto personal trainer and we discover there are currently 4.36 million webpages containing those keywords. Then we narrow it down a bit by putting parentheses around the words "personal trainer" and do a search for that instead to see what kind of results we get: 2.17 million.
So we know this is going to be very difficult to get up there in the search rankings with that many webpages out there on the same topic. But it can be done if you are smart about it.
Next we look to see what the top 10 results are. We look for the following information:
#1. Google PageRank, so we have an idea of how much advertising they've done.
#2. Alexa Ranking, so we get an idea of how much traffic they are getting.
#3. How many pages of content does their site have? This way we know how much more our website needs to be competitive.
We can ignore certain results like directory websites, craigslist, blogto, toronto.com, etc. We don't need to beat those websites, although it would be nice if we did.
The top site may not even have that many pages, but they may have done a really good job with their SEO and been around for many years and that is why they are currently #1.
When visiting Alexa.com check out their results and see how many links are going to their site. If they have 60 links going to their website your goal should be to get 25% more than they have and get 75 links to your website. Also check out which sites are actually linking to them, because those are websites you could potentially advertise on / get links from.
Pay special attention to which websites they got links from which contain the keywords, in this case Toronto Personal Trainer. Preferably those words together, although not necessarily in that order. It could be Personal Trainer Toronto instead.
BUILD CONTENT FIRST
Build up the quality content on your website. You will want to make certain your website has unique, quality writing on topics pertaining to what your chosen market is. If your website is a niche market try to stay close to that topic as much as you can and use those keywords regularly - but avoid going over 3% - which is why websites like wordcounter.net are handy to use. Going over 3% is risky because it means you are using those words too much. Some SEO experts say you can go as high as 5%, but why risk it? Stick to 3%.
Aim to have 25% more quality content than your highest page rival. Don't worry about who is the #1 spot so much, worry about everyone in the top 10 and try to beat them in every category that will boost your popularity. Thus having lots of content is great to have and remember it has to be unique, freshly written and on topic.
When possible try to include images and video as well. Extra variety is good and be sure to label the files correctly.
Keep building content on a regular basis. If you have the spare time to be writing 10 new articles for your site on a monthly basis, then keep doing that. Even 1 article per month is better than nothing.
Don't worry about how popular their sites are. If you write lots of good reading material and get lots of quality links then the customers will come on their own and while popularity waxes and wanes, they will keep coming if you keep adding more things to read and do on your site.
START LINK BUILDING
Building quality linkages is very time consuming, too much for a busy trainer to be doing themselves. That is where SEO companies like designSEO.ca come in. We build the quality links so you don't have to.
How do we do it? We do the necessary research for you, as explained above, and then we write fresh content on blogs and magazines which include keyword links to your website. All of the writing will be geared towards getting the correct keywords going to your webpage for your specific niche topic.
As such a page like that will be chock full of handy keywords and phrases like fitness, exercise, diet, weight loss, losing weight, fitness instructor, boxing lessons, cardio, weight lifting and so forth.
The pages linking to your site have a PageRank of 2 to 4 and we create new content specific to your business so that when Google's bots search those websites, they find the links going to your website using the correct keywords. Those links are then analyzed for quality and Google boosts or downgrades your business site based on the quality of those links.
Note: And this is why you should never use Black Hat SEO, because the quality is so poor your website is more likely to be downgraded. Stick to White Hat SEO, yes, it takes longer and is more expensive, buts its guaranteed results.
Now you might think oh, you could get advertising on PageRank 5 or 6 sites, but that really isn't going to happen unless you have a huge advertising budget. A PageRank 6 page is something the equivalent of the main index page for General Electric or some other big name manufacturer or celebrity. Getting a link from a site like that isn't possible without a much bigger budget.
ANALYZING RESULTS
Don't start looking for immediate results. Google only updates PageRanks once every 6 months roughly and their search bots only check higher PageRank websites for changes on a regular basis. Low PageRank (zero and one) websites are checked only once per month or less. PageRank 2 sites are checked roughly every 2 weeks and PageRank 3 sites about once per week. PageRank 4 sites are checked every couple of days or even daily depending on its level of popularity and how often its being updated.
Thus don't expect huge changes immediately. Especially if you haven't beat out the competition in terms of amount of quality content and SEO you have linking to your Toronto Personal Training site (or whatever business site you are promoting).
Beat the competition by getting 25% more content, 25% more quality advertising and then wait a month after its completed to see changes. Keep building more content and getting more online advertising while you wait, but after a month then check your results.
Find out where you are in the search ranking. If its a highly competitive field, like real estate, you might not even be in top 100 results yet. That means you need to keep working on it, continue to write more and keep getting more advertising. Its a situation where you have to keep working on it, but the rewards of beating out the competition means you will be getting a lot more customers than your currently are and can even raise your prices if the demand gets really high.
If you can beat your competition in overall traffic, PageRank and so forth then the SEO and content has done its job.
BUDGET AND RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Your primary worry in this will be ROI (Return on Investment), but the thing about SEO is that its effects really depend on you getting to the top 10, the top 5 and hopefully the top spot for your chosen industry. Its a situation where if you only spend a tiny amount on advertising then you will get a tiny ROI. If you want to get a huge ROI, then you really do need to advertise like crazy and spend a lot.
Advertising is always a risk. Some products just don't sell that easily. For example, if you are a personal trainer in Toronto then there are some important factors like: Are you certified? Do you have past client testimonials? Does your website look professional? After all you might do a really good job with the writing and marketing, but if your website is an un-certified person who has never had a single client and looks unprofessional, well then getting clients may be a real challenge.
A personal trainer in that position would be wise to start offering a discount to get a few clients to sign up just so they can gain the necessary testimonials. Especially in a city like Toronto which has an abundance of personal trainers, gyms, parks and outdoor activities.
With SEO you aren't going to be able to track your Return on Investment immediately. You have to be patient. A small amount of advertising will glean slow results. If you're impatient then you need to open your wallet more and start advertising like crazy, the same as you would with traditional print media.
It would be easier if you were a trainer in a city smaller than Toronto too. If you were the only personal trainer in an entire town (and it was a town of wealthy yuppies) then you would have virtually no competition and be able to pick and choose which clients you want to work for.
But if you're reading this then you probably live in the GTA because I've used the T-word 9 times in this article (3%) which has a length of 1698 words. Proof that I know what I am doing when it comes to niche SEO.
If you are looking for more SEO advice please browse designSEO.ca or you can set up a meeting with us to discuss how to improve your website and get your online marketing back on the right track!
