Dominating the keyword rankings in your niche is a difficult yet rewarding strategy in SEO. It allows your website to quietly seize the top spots for low-hanging and surprisingly valuable keywords, while your competitors are busy fighting over more popular and broad ones.
Easier said than done, though. It can be difficult to find a niche to target, much less become an authority in it.
But if you’re here, you’ve taken the right first step. I have a guide on the best strategies for dominating keyword rankings in your niche that I and other SEOs on my team use often.
Ranking relevant keywords that match your business is a big deal in SEO. The more you rank for, the more traffic you get, and the more potential conversions you generate.
The higher you rank, the more eyes on your page.
But that’s only in theory. If you rank for the wrong keywords, it won’t lead to all those benefits. So understanding the “what” as well as “how” to rank for keywords is essential.
So how do search engines actually rank keywords that will influence the position of your website in the SERPs?
When ranking keywords, search engines rely on specific algorithms that evaluate multiple factors:
Relevance of the keywords used. This is determined by how the content of your page closely connects to the keyword.
Authority of the website. This is assessed based on backlinks from reputable sources and social signals.
User experience. This involves aspects like the design of the website, its mobile compatibility, as well as the page loading speed.
User engagement metrics. Things like click-through rates and average time spent on the page still matter to Google.
Search engines always refine their algorithms to provide the best user experience. What these updates focus on is how we get the best strategies to target any niche.
Webmaster’s Note: This post is part of our advanced guides to Keyword Research and Optimization, and Content Strategy, where I cover everything you need to know about picking the right keywords for your website, and ranking for them in Google. I also cover strategies for winning SERP features, building topical authority, using long-tail keywords, and more in this series.
Now we move on to the “what.”
Keywords act as bridges that connect users and their search queries to relevant content on a website. But how do you find the proper keywords that will align with the users you want to target?
In creating targeted and effective strategies that will help in dominating keyword rankings in your niche, the first step is determining your target market for SEO. Only then can you begin to understand the unique demands, patterns, and habits of your niche market.
Find that segment of the market that you can satisfy with the products and services that you offer. For example, if you’re trying to sell shoes, you can’t just target people who need shoes. Narrow it down. Are they shoes for men or women? Adults or children?
And go beyond the usual demographic factors, such as their interests, what problems they might be facing, or why they’d want to even consider the product that you’re offering.
These kinds of questions will help you create a very detailed customer profile or persona. I suggest coming up with at least three of them so you can target your key customer segments. Each one will generate a keyword list, though there may be some overlap between profiles.
If you think about it, it is actually much easier to dominate your niche if you use highly specific terms as keywords.
These highly specific terms refer to long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are very specific search phrases with low search volumes and competition – but with higher and stronger intent. This means that these keywords clearly state what the users are looking for.
I have an in-depth guide on how to find and target long-tail keywords you can follow, but the gist of it is: to use the customer profiles you made and put yourself in your target audience’s shoes.
What kind of problems are they facing, and what kinds of questions might they have when they’re looking for solutions for those problems? There are two ways I find answers to these.
One way I study this is by diving into forums. They’re a treasure trove of users looking for insights and recommendations for specific problems. It’s easy to explore, too.
Just type your niche, plus “forums” on Google search, and you’ll see a list of forum posts where you can get insights.
Creating valuable pages and other content targeting these keywords and providing a quick answer for those looking at these pages, can help you get more qualified leads down your sales pipeline.
In short, targeting long-tail keywords is the easiest trick to enhancing your visibility as quickly as possible, and upping your chance of turning clicks into customers.
There are a ton of SEO tools that you can use to generate broad and related keyword suggestions to the ones you have in mind. I have a list of options for you to try out in my SEO toolbox.
If you’re looking for some free tools to test out, there’s Answer the Public. It takes the keyword you give it, uses autocomplete data from search engines, and then provides a list of phrases and questions (i.e., long-tail keywords) centered around that keyword. A goldmine of untapped content ideas.
Wordstream is another free tool you can use if you’re looking for things like search volume and CPC (useful if you’re also planning an SEM campaign on top of your SEO). That said, free tools are pretty limited. This tool, for example, currently only has suggestions for the Google US database, and has limited searches per user.
If you’re planning on doing SEO seriously for your website, I strongly suggest investing in a good, all-around tool you can use for keyword research.
Now that you’ve started to list down potential long-tail keywords for you to target, it’s time to roll out different techniques for dominating keyword rankings in your niche.
These tactics pull in website traffic, boost visibility on search engines, and can even spike conversion rates.
With the latest Google updates, the search algorithm now favors user intent, content relevance, and a great overall experience.
This highlights the need for keyword strategies that align with these aspects, emphasizing high-quality, value-driven content that speaks to users’ needs and queries.
Here are some advanced strategies to apply to dominate keyword rankings in your niche:
First, figure out where you’re going to insert your keywords. You will need to put them under two categories.
Generally, broader keywords with more search volume should be put into cornerstone content, which are long-form, extremely thorough content pieces on your website. This might be informational, commercial, transactional, or a mix of either two, depending on the intent behind the keyword. Use this to create content silos.
Long-tail keywords should be put into supportive content, such as blog posts or articles. Once these are made, internal links from supportive content to related cornerstone content must be built. This is a key step in building the topical authority of your website.
For your long-tail keywords, I also suggest making a content calendar and using topic clusters. This will help you create highly valuable, conceptually related content for your website regularly, which is another important factor for your SEO.
Providing new and relevant information to your audience signals to Google that your website is consistently maintained with fresh and up-to-date content – factors that these search engines highly value. This also shows how your website stays active and provides up-to-date resources in your niche.
However, these content updates are not just about producing and editing existing content on a page. It is also about optimizing it for the right keywords that resonate with your audience – which is where the process of tracking keywords comes along.
This helps you gauge how well your current content matches specific and relevant searches. By tracking keywords and monitoring the trends such as checking search volumes and shifts in competition, you can adjust your content strategy to fit accordingly.
That said, some updates don’t have to be too time-consuming or bloody. Skip rewrites when you can.
Instead, try creating guides or listicles you can update every year. Minor tweaks to make sure your title tag and heading display the current year, plus that each point or product listed is up-to-date, is a quick and easy way of staying relevant in your niche.
With the growth in mobile device usage, search engines like Google now prioritize mobile-friendly websites in their rankings. Why? It’s where a majority of users use Google now.
So designing and optimizing your pages for mobile view is a must. It’s a ranking factor, a user experience factor, plus it’s just plain common sense to meet users where they’re at.
If your website is on the older side and you’re seeing stagnating (or even falling) rankings over the last few months, consider revamping and improving your site speed and site architecture for mobile users. I’m 100% sure you’ll see positive returns on your rankings for that if you do it right.
For most people, when they want to find businesses near them, they go to search engines using “near me” searches.
This makes it important for businesses to use a local SEO strategy, which allows pages to appear for these kinds of searches, and attract nearby users searching for certain products and services.
Optimizing your online presence to draw in local customers of a specific geographic area is another effective strategy that pushes your website further to the top of your niche – allowing Google to present the most relevant and localized search results to users.
This advanced strategy involves practices like Google My Business optimization, local keyword targeting—also known as geotagging keywords—, customer reviews, and consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone numbers) citations across different online directories.
When doing local SEO, remember to create localized content while strategically placing the location-based keywords within, as this helps to contribute to higher rankings in location-specific search results.
But then, to make this strategy really work, it is essential to grasp how local customers behave and what trends they follow – highlighting the need for human input and expertise, along with advanced technological advancements, to truly unleash its potential.
Keeping your keyword game strong is key to staying ahead in this competitive industry. Therefore, you must keep an eye on how your keywords are doing, spot trends, and roll with changes in how people search and algorithms work.
For instance, if you notice a drop in keyword rankings, it is a signal to tweak and refine your strategy. Investigate why this dip happened – perhaps your competitors emerged, or user behavior shifted. As you dive into the analytics and understand the changes, you will know how you will be adjusting your strategies.
This ongoing process is what helps you sustain your dominance in your niche. It is all about staying agile – ensuring that your website and the content you put out remain relevant amidst the constant digital changes in the industry.
Websites in different business industries are progressing more and more in today’s digital landscape. Adopting a solid SEO strategy will push you forward and help you sustain your keyword rankings.
It’ll take some work, but with good planning and implementation, you will hold a competitive edge in the industry – helping you soar to digital success within your niche.
