Niche Keyword Research: How To Research Keywords For A Niche

Niche: A specialized market segment for a particular product or service. (Pronounced /niːʃ/ or /nɪtʃ/). In SEO, niche keyword research is an advanced content optimization technique that raises your rankings in competitive markets and/or helps you reach very targeted audiences.

Let’s see how you can effectively research keywords for your own niche, no matter your company size and type of service or product.

What Are Niche Keywords?

Niche keywords are highly specific search terms. These long-tail keywords appeal to a very specialized audience within a specific industry or target market. Unlike broad, competitive keywords, even a new website can rank for low search niche-specific terms, provided it is E-E-A-T and SEO ready.

Niche Keywords Examples

Brands selling specialized products/services, with few real-life competitors, can easily get a head start with niche SEO. The same applies to unique local services.

Niche Keywords For Services

For instance, if you install solar panel bird proofing in the small town of Lewiston, Maine, you probably have meager competition - if none at all.

But, if you are a solar panel installer across the US, optimizing your website for “solar panels” will have you competing for an 83 Keyword Difficulty score.

In this case, you’d be much better off finding niche keywords like: ‘solar energy systems new york’, or questions like: ‘are solar systems tax exempt new york state.’

Niche Keywords For E-Commerce

E-commerce stores usually compete in various sales channels and with merchants across the country or the world. They are thus much better off targeting search terms like ‘navy blue wrap top bright floral print ¾ sleeves,’ rather than just: ‘blue wrap top floral.'

But how can you know what your best niche search terms are?

Well, to discover the ideal ‘low-hanging’ searches for your niche, it’s worth taking the time to do some keyword brainstorming along with your team, including the sales department staff.

Then, you can conduct deeper SEO research and come up with the best keywords for your small target audience.

Let’s see the process.

How To Research Keywords For A Niche

Depending on the type and size of your company, there are different ways to start researching keywords for your niche. In any case, it’s always best to combine ‘hands-on ideas’ with actual data to create an initial list.

The basic steps to find niche keywords for SEO include:

Step 1: Determine Your Target Audience & Brainstorm

Meet up with your marketing and sales teams to compare data and reports from all marketing channels. Add ideas from real-life client interactions and include your company objectives for the next 6 to 12 months.

Gather Niche Keywords From All Your Channels

Once you have your niche audiences, extract the search terms and topics they use to land on your pages, click on your PPC ads, reach you on social media, etc.

Then, grow your keyword list further with questions, information, and concerns - as your prospects or clients communicate to your sales and support staff.

Finally, if you are soon launching new products/services or want to promote existing offerings, add relevant keywords to your list.

Quickly Assess Your Brainstorming List

Now, skim through your ‘brainstorming list’ and remove any terms that don’t quite seem to fit in (just store them separately for future reference if needed).

Step 2: Conduct Market Research

With your niche segments and initial keywords at hand, make thoughtful assessments to determine what interests your audience, what questions they would have, and what information they would need before purchasing or subscribing.

But remember: Do not merely include sales-oriented terms. You also need to build topical authority around your niche.

Aim For Topical Authority

What you should aim for is to optimize your content for low-volume keywords that can give you 1st-page rankings and even featured snippets for targeted searches.

This SEO strategy will eventually send valuable signals to Google and other search engines that your website is a trusted expert. It will also help users realize that you are a sound source of information and -thus- of services (or products).

Slowly, your brand name and authority will start to grow. Your content will reach higher places and attract qualified prospects and leads.

Search Everywhere

To make a long story short, try researching for trends and topics in industry magazines, competitor websites, niche forums, social media, and groups your audience interacts with - you name it.

This hands-on research will give you more niche-related keyword ideas and eventually remove some terms from your existing list.

Re-Evaluate Your Updated List

Finally, re-evaluate your updated niche keyword list and split it into small topical clusters to facilitate your next research steps.

Step 3: Use Niche Keyword Research Tools

Now, it’s time to get accurate usage statistics for each niche keyword cluster using SEO keyword research tools.

In the market, there are various tools that can help you find niche keywords for free. However, for faultless evaluation, additional keyword suggestions, and detailed analyses, you are better off using paid keyword research tools.

Tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush can show you actual search volumes for low-competition keywords and significantly enhance your niche-driven SEO strategy.

Investigate Your Niche Keywords In Detail

Start digging deeper into the selected keywords for your niche. First, analyze each ‘umbrella term’ from your niche list clusters. For instance: Shirts. Target one country at a time. For instance: United States.

From the tens of thousands of keyword combinations containing ‘shirts’ searches, you can eloquently narrow down your list to searches with low competition (let’s say a Search Volume between 100 and 1,000 avg. yearly searches) and some Traffic Potential (TP).

Then, compare your findings with your offerings. In this example, let’s say that your brand sells ‘matching family shirts.’ This is a targeted, long-tail search term that refers to a specialized audience. It has a mere 1 Keyword Difficulty (KD) score, accounting for 1K searches/year.

It translates to low competition and a good amount of searches, which qualifies it for a sound niche keyword you want to work on. Looking at the Traffic Potential, your top-ranking competitor for this keyword gets about 700 organic visits/year. Not bad, huh?

Add More Specialized Niche Keywords

So, if you do sell ‘matching family shirts’ online and service the entire 52, start looking deeper into this search term.

You’ll get even more targeted keywords like: ‘funny christmas shirts for family,’ ‘family birthday shirts,’ or even ‘humorous funny matching family christmas shirts’ and ‘grinch shirts for family’ - all with some not-too-low KD and TP.

Surprise Yourself With The Results

Wow! If we were optimizing an online shirt store here at Atropos Digital, we surely wouldn’t have considered targeting a long-tail keyword like: 'humorous funny matching family christmas shirts.'

That’s why, as SEOs, it’s always worth combining client feedback and advanced keyword research for niche audience keywords.

Step 4: Evaluate Your Competition

After thoroughly investigating your niche keyword options, you have most likely narrowed down your niche list even more.

Note that you can keep investigating deeper and deeper, but try to finalize your list at the end of Step 3. Set your SEO niche topics for the next 6 months. You can then re-evaluate and expand accordingly.

Having said that, it’s now time to take your chosen keywords and google them or look into your keyword explorer tools to identify your top 3-5 competitors. Then ask yourself: Which of these brands have a similar audience and/or sell similar products? What’s their size and marketing potential?

You can then identify niche keyword gaps among your competitors and make a realistic assessment of whether you can outrank them - or not.

Sometimes, you’d be surprised at how much ranking potential some niche keywords can offer your web pages.

Outrank Giant Brands With Niche Keywords

Let’s take the ‘grinch shirts for family’ query in the US. Surprisingly, you’ll see some relatively small brands coming up in organic results under e-commerce giants like Amazon & Etsy. Some SMEs also appear on the 1st page’s image and shopping results.

Equally, suppose you are a service provider with adequate topical authority and an SEO-optimized website. In that case, you can aim for paragraph and list featured snippets, or the “Sources across the web” feature.

Get That Featured Snippet

Google’s featured snippets tend to be ‘turnover-agnostic’ (for certain terms and types of services, that is).

As a result, even small companies can reach position zero with low-hanging keywords like: ‘what is a residential solar panel’ for solar system installers. It’s worth noting here that pages in position zero enjoy 42% better performance than regular search listings in Google results.

However, SEO analyzers see a gradual change, as Google tends to ‘reserve’ the coveted zero spots for organizations rather than commercial companies - especially in bigger markets like the US.

Nevertheless, there’s still good potential to win a featured snippet for specialized niche keywords. So why not grab the chance today?

Juicing The Low-Hanging Keywords To Boost Visibility

Optimizing low-hanging niche keywords boosts your SEO rankings. It also helps you reach very specific audiences you can capitalize on pretty fast.

To do it right, you need a sound SEO strategy with an opportunity-oriented approach.

Sounds daunting? At Atropos Digital, we analyze your niche and website to discover truly targeted searches: those that have the potential to rank you on top, right in front of your qualified audience.

So, whether you own a big company that wants to expand and rise above the competition or an SME looking for cost-effective ways to rank up, we can help you take advantage of your entire ranking potential.

And what are the results? Increased traffic, enhanced visibility, and stable ROI. Book your strategy call today.