The Blog on Branding

SEO Advice – Finding Your Niche One Bug at a Time

We’re all born with a talent for something. (At least, that’s what our moms tell us.) But sometimes it’s hard to find your niche. What if you are a prodigy at polka dancing but have never been near an accordion? It’s a harsh world out there and trying to find your talent can be a daunting task.

“Could playing the accordion be your unknown destiny?”

Well I’m here to tell you that there is a niche out there just waiting for you to scratch (get it? niche, itch?). Read on to find out more.

• Finding your Niche
• EcoSMART: Cornering the Organic Insecticide Market
• Keywords: Beat Out the Competition
• Making Your Content #1

Finding Your Niche

So you might not be the world’s next Olympic polka dancer (if that even exists). Sad, I know, but it’s time to move on to bigger, better and more accessible things. The best place to find your niche? Why, the Internet, of course!

The Internet is a vast web of crazy and/or useful content just waiting for you to spin a new thread. While there is a never ending stream of information flooding the World Wide Web, it is easier than you think to become an expert people turn to. The secret?

• Find a specialty.

Not just any specialty, but the right one. Trying to specialize in say, a Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus fan site might not be the best way to go. There are millions of crazed teenagers (and sadly, slightly older people) who constantly declare their admiration and/or creepy love for Hannah/Miley. You might be one such fan (if so, sorry for the last comment, though you may want to re-evaluate your priorities), or you might just be a jaded person with a yearning to corner the extremely profitable market that is the teen idol.

“Specializing in a Miley Cyrus fan site may not be the best way to go.”

Unfortunately, there are millions of people with the same idea. Google “Hannah Montana” and you get 18,200,000 results. Yes, 18 million results. There’s just no way to compete with that! So it’s time to move on from that dream and float (or if you’re that crazed fan, crash) back to reality. The best way to gain a following on the Internet? Become an expert in a VERY specialized market.

EcoSMART: Cornering the Organic Insecticide Market

Let’s use one of Branding Brand’s clients, EcoSMART, to illustrate my point. EcoSMART is a company that produces organic insecticides, a very specific product with a specialized market. They have the edge right off the bat as one of the few organic insecticides out there that is University-tested and proven effective, as well as FDA approved.

But with Branding Brand’s help, they’ve also started to corner the market on insect information and extermination tips (which, in turn, leads to more sales). How, you ask? By utilizing one of the Internet’s most potent forces: the blog.

Blogging has quickly become the new, hot medium for trading tips, information and downright strange content. Even CNN has blogs, the most popular of which is called the “CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time.” EcoSMART’s blog is a plethora of information about insects and how to get rid of them (or in the case of crickets, how to make a tasty chocolate treat. Yum?)

Writing content users will find useful is a great way to gain a following for a product, because EcoSMART isn’t just plugging their insecticides – they’re educating. They are using a blog to help consumers identify and control different types of pests.

Unfortunately, just having great content won’t make you #1 in search engines (or in people’s hearts). To do that, you have to know how to attract readers and keep them on your blog. How do you do this? Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Most Internet users rely on search engines to navigate the World Wide Web. So to become visible to those users, you need to first become visible to search engines.

There are many factors that go into a search engine’s categorization. One way to lure the search engines to your site? Keywords.

“Just having great content won’t make you #1 in Google’s heart.”

Keywords: Beat Out the Competition

Search engines index websites and pages to make finding the right web page easier for users. But once those pages are indexed, they are only retrieved when a person types in a word or phrase that elicits those responses. So a great way to make sure your website is visible?

• Use keywords in your titles.

Your article/web page title should reflect the keywords associated with your topic that people are most likely to type in. Using the EcoSMART example, say someone wants to write about bed bugs. They need to know what keywords associated with bed bugs are typed into Google the most. How on earth can they figure out such a precise fact?

Luckily for them (and you!), there is Google AdWords Keyword Tool. By typing in “bed bugs,” it is possible to see how many times “bed bugs” is searched for a month (368,000 times) and related searches like “bed bugs extermination” (1,300 times) and “bed bug spray” (6,600 times). The keyword tool allows you to see what possible keywords/phrases should be included in the title to reach people interested in bed bugs.

“Check out how many people search for ‘bed bugs’ a month.”

So to reach the most number of people, the writer should definitely include “bed bugs” in their title.

But even better, by including “bed bugs extermination,” they appeal to a more specialized group of searchers. And you know what that means? Their web page and article are more likely to be number one in search results for “bed bugs extermination.”

Making Your Content #1

Using the right keywords is a great step toward making your content number 1. By using specific and targeted keywords, people are more likely to find your web page. But using well chosen keywords is only the first step toward making your website number 1.

There are many factors that go into indexing websites, so be sure to keep reading the Branding Brand blog to find out more tips. But for you impatient people out there, I’ll briefly scratch the surface of this very complex process.

• Google and other search engines prioritize web sites by sending “spiders” to “crawl” the Internet looking for web pages.
• Searches are found and prioritized based on PageRank (a number out of 10 that ranks the importance of a page) and how frequently content is updated.
• PageRank will increase when other people start linking to your site, so this can take a while. Making sure your content is useful and interesting will help increase links to your site.
• Only you can control how often you update your site. The more you update your site and add new, useful content, the better.

“Now it’s your turn, grasshopper…”



I’ve given you some of the tools to make your site number 1. Now it’s your responsibility to make it happen, grasshopper. Wax on, wax off.

Carrie Milford Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Hit us up, whether you want national SEO, Global SEO, or even Pittsburgh SEO.