Helpful Tips for Doing Search in a Low-Volume Niche

Low-Volume Niche: SEO, right? That special something that makes your site show up all over the web. It seems straightforward, doesn’t it? You’ve likely come across requests like, “Can you SEO this page for us?” or “There’s a webinar on the horizon. Could you work some of your SEO magic on it?” These kinds of tasks, often loaded with pressure from bosses or clients, are pretty common. Especially if you’re working with an SEO company in India, where the market is bustling with opportunity. Imagine you’re in a field brimming with search volume, snippets to snatch up, and loads of queries to address. But then, think about the other side of the coin: what if your niche has low search volume, or your product is so new that people aren’t even aware they should be looking for it?

This post is for you, the digital marketer in the trenches, trying to boost visibility where it seems like there’s none. Ready to dive in?

Let’s talk about search – and I mean both the paid kind and organic. They might not be your main go-to channels, but stick with me, and let’s see how they perform. Plus, there are other methods to draw in users, you know? We’ll look at SEO, paid search, and CRO. These are just a few tricks in the digital marketing bag, especially handy for those with less search traffic. This might be particularly relevant for those offering ecommerce services in India. Whether you’re new to digital marketing or you’ve been at it for a while, I’ve got some tips that could help.

1. SEO

When I think about SEO, I often picture it like a skyscraper. Maybe that’s because of all the tall buildings around our Obiyan Infotech Delhi office. But hear me out – to reach new heights in SEO, your foundation needs to be rock-solid. And by “foundation,” I’m talking about your website’s technical structure. Let’s run through a quick checklist:

First off, how’s your link profile looking? Is it clean and tidy?
What about internal linking? Are your pages well-connected, or do some just vanish into a black hole?
Can search engines easily crawl through your site? Watch out for things like noindex tags, robots.txt files, canonical tags – stuff that might accidentally hide your content from search engines.
Another big question: has your site ever been hacked? That’s a red flag right there.
Don’t forget about those title tags and meta descriptions. They need to be descriptive and unique.
Got your tracking set up right? Like, is Google Analytics doing its thing properly?
And finally, does your site give off that trustworthy, authoritative vibe?

It’s all about getting these basics right before you aim for the SEO stars.

Targeting transactional queries

Once your site’s foundation is solid, it’s time to dive into keyword research. You gotta figure out which queries matter most to your organization, check their search volume, and identify the ones that are most likely to bring in conversions. With your base all set, you can match these key queries to existing pages on your site, like the homepage or main product/services pages. Sometimes, you might find that the queries you need to target don’t even have a page yet. No biggie – just create them. A handy tip: target shorter-tail queries (think two or three words) mainly with your product or service pages. The longer ones can be handled by those pages too, or maybe by a Q&A section or a blog. This helps keep your site navigation clean and not overloaded with long-tail queries and content.

Targeting higher-funnel queries

Now, let’s talk about those higher-funnel queries. After nailing down the key ones and sketching out your content plan, it’s time to tackle the more informational stuff. These higher-up-the-funnel queries usually need less sales-y, more informational content. Think less about immediate conversions like sign-ups and more about building strong content that answers questions and positions your organization as a leader and expert in your niche.

For example, say we’re driving traffic for a company that lets people invest in solar energy. Investing in solar isn’t as common as stocks or real estate, right? So, the transactional-type queries, the ones that really bring in customers, might not be searched a ton. But that’s where your SEO strategy really plays a crucial role.

Alright, let’s shift our focus to those longer-tail queries that are somewhat connected to our main product or service. These are the ones that aren’t directly about what we offer, but they’re still related in a way.

So, these longer-tail queries we’re looking at? They’ve got more people searching for them, but they’re mostly looking for info. Take “CSR” for instance. Most times, it stands for “corporate social responsibility.” That’s a big deal in impact investing, where it’s not just about making money, but also doing some good in the world. By diving into these queries, we can show off to both users and search engines that we really know our stuff when it comes to solar energy and investing. Our target audience might come to us for different reasons at first, but we can guide them down the path that leads to them becoming our clients.

Alright, as we’ll get into more detail later in this post, the main idea here is to pull in traffic the organic way, even if that traffic might not convert right away. What we’re gonna do is tweak our content a bit so we can grab some emails and nudge those visitors further down the funnel. But before we dive into that, our first job is to boost our visibility and bring in more traffic without having to pay for it.

Here are some quick tips:

When you’re dealing with transactional queries, make sure your pages are fine-tuned for the best kind of conversion. You want those pages to be spot-on for what your audience is looking to do.
For informational queries, tweak your pages a bit so they gently guide users deeper into the funnel, leading them towards your more transactional pages. And hey, if you think a blog is just eating up resources and not really pulling its weight, chances are, it’s not being used to its full potential.

2. PAID Search

Paid search, let’s chat about that. Often, companies use both SEO and paid search for getting users, but they keep them in separate corners, which isn’t the best move. Combining your Google or Bing Adwords efforts with your SEO? That’s a smart play for your bottom line.

Get your tracking right

Setting up tracking right from the start in a paid campaign is super important. Don’t skip this. If you don’t get tracking right, you won’t be able to link back conversions to paid and organic and see how they’re playing together. And if you’ve already got paid tracking going, double-check it. You don’t want any double counting from multiple Google Analytics snippets or missing tracking on platforms like Unbounce or HubSpot.

Bid on your money keywords

Next, focus on your big-money keywords. These are the transactional ones that might cost a bit but are worth it. Waiting for organic results or for everything to sync up might take too long for your bosses’ liking, so a strong start in traditional paid search is key.

The magic of RLSA

Then there’s the magic of RLSAs – Remarketing Lists for Search Ads. They let you target folks who’ve visited certain pages on your site. You can use them to bid on different keywords or adjust your bids. This isn’t about getting new traffic; it’s about re-engaging folks who’ve been to your site before. When you do it right, it can mean lower costs per click and better conversions since these people already know your brand.

Let’s say we’re talking about creating content like “what are alternative investments?” These are informational queries people want to dig into. Ideally, we’d want everyone to invest with us right off the bat, but that’s not usually how it goes. So, we use organic search to pull in traffic from these less competitive queries and then hit them with RLSA on more competitive terms, like “investing.” By remarketing to visitors of our “what are alternative investments” page, we know they’re a bit familiar with us, and we can aim for broader queries that might have been too pricey or unlikely to convert before. This familiarity can lead to better click-through and conversion rates.

Advanced remarketing

Let’s talk advanced remarketing. It’s like making lemonade out of lemons. You’ve got content that’s not super competitive, maybe some blog stuff that doesn’t exactly scream “convert me now.” Imagine your blog scoops up email addresses – through forms, popups, you name it. With those emails, you can whip up an email list for Adwords, and then target folks on Google Search, Gmail, YouTube. You’re aiming at people who match those emails or others who just kinda act like them online. It’s a neat way to broaden your audience.

Now, if you just throw broad-match search ads at everyone, your wallet’s going to feel it, and fast. And don’t expect a ton of conversions. But, use broad match with RLSAs? That’s a savvy move. It keeps you from burning through cash on people who probably won’t convert, and it’s a gold mine for figuring out what people are actually searching for.

With broad search and RLSAs, you find out what people want faster. If a keyword is costing you but not doing much, throw it into your negative keyword filter. But if it’s working, put it on exact match, and maybe even think about creating content for it. That way, you get the traffic without paying for every click.

Here are your takeaways:

Get that tracking set up right.
Don’t forget to bid on those transactional queries.
Your landing pages? They need one clear goal and to be optimized for the conversion you want.
And RLSAs – they’re not just for retargeting; they’re great for finding those juicy keywords and might even let you bid on the more competitive, transactional ones.

3. CRO

Dealing with low-search volume niches often means you’re also dealing with long sales cycles. The main thing we’re trying to do here is shift people from just looking for information to actually wanting to buy. Since we’re assuming there aren’t many searches for what we’re selling, we’ve got to be a bit sneaky. We’re going to use informational content as a backdoor to guide people to our conversion pages.

Now, getting that final conversion on our site doesn’t always mean sending someone straight to a product page. Sometimes, they might get interested in our end goal after landing on a page that’s only kinda related.

Hunting Microconversions

For example, think about a company that lets people invest in solar energy. Our big goal is to get people to open an account and invest in something like a power purchase agreement. Convincing someone to link their bank account and actually spend money? That’s not easy. There’s a lot of friction. People need to feel secure that their money’s safe, their info’s protected, and their investment is going where it’s supposed to. That means we’ll probably need to engage with potential clients multiple times, providing the right information and trust signals along the way.

So, our first step is to create awesome landing pages for those searching “solar energy investment.” That’s the easy part. Then, we move on to related queries, like “what are the advantages of solar energy?” On this page, we talk up the benefits of solar energy and use calls-to-action or banners to nudge people towards learning how to invest. It’s possible that someone searching for the advantages of solar energy isn’t thinking about investing at all and might leave once they’ve got their answer. Heck, they might not even get to our page if Google’s already answered their question in the search results.

Just because Google shows off content right in the search results doesn’t mean we should shy away from this tactic. Featured snippets still get a lot of clicks, and who knows which queries will trigger them in the future? Our job? Just make the best content for user queries.

For those curious about solar energy investment, there are a couple of ways to keep them around:

Email Capture Popups
- You can use time-elapsed or exit intent popups to snag those email addresses.
Static or Sticky Calls-to-Action
- These can be for products, demos, or more email captures, placed within or next to the content.

CRO and Organic Traffic: It’s All Good

So, for pages getting organic traffic, it’s not a huge deal if someone doesn’t do anything. We’re not paying for these visits. Just by dropping by our page, we can cookie them and later, hit them up with remarketing on search or paid channels like Facebook and Twitter. We’re getting value from these visits, and the visitors don’t even realize it.

Paid Search Visitors: Time to Shine

Now, when someone comes in through paid search, it’s a whole different ball game. We’ve got to pull out all the stops to get them to do what we want. Whether that’s swapping an email for a download, setting up a consultation, buying something, or just giving us some info – it’s crucial. Remember, if you’re paying for those clicks and your landing page isn’t built to push people towards that action, you’re basically throwing money away.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here. Maybe a gated landing page works for one client, while a simple form is better for another. The trick is to test and see how your users respond.

Key Takeaways for CRO

Don’t be afraid of going after those smaller wins, the microconversions, especially if the big conversion seems tough.
If you’ve got traffic that’s not converting, think about how you can re-engage those users. What might they be willing to give you at their current interest level?
And remember, AMP pages need their own Google Analytics tracking and don’t allow popups.

Tying Everything Together

Alright, let’s wrap this up. When you’re in a niche without a ton of search volume, you’ve gotta get creative with blending organic and paid search. This is crucial for growth, especially in those quieter niches.

So, imagine your product or service isn’t exactly the talk of the town. You need to dive into those informational queries – the stuff people look up before they even know they need what you’re offering.

Identify those transactional queries sharpish and build pages that answer the user’s questions. And don’t forget a call-to-action for folks ready to jump in.

But we’re aiming for growth, right? So, we think bigger. We cater to those who show interest in our niche but might not know they need our product yet. We fill those pages with content and resources, making sure to slip in those calls-to-action to snag emails or guide them further down the funnel. Remember, the hard sell isn’t always the way to go, especially for folks who don’t know they want your product yet. An email address can be a softer, more effective ask.

You Must Read: Top 15 Skills an SEO Expert Should Have to Be Successful

If you’re playing with AMP pages for better visibility, double-check your Google Analytics setup. And scatter those email form captures throughout your content, not just at the end – most readers won’t get that far. Depending on your game plan, start cookie-ing users for some savvy remarketing.

For paid search, target those transactional queries hard. And with RLSAs, you can safely bid on broader, short-tail queries that might not have done so well with the general internet crowd but could hit the jackpot with folks who’ve visited your site.

Remember, traffic for the sake of traffic is kind of pointless. If your visitors aren’t doing what you want, all that effort in content might start looking like a waste. But if you set up microconversions like email capture, you’re way ahead. You can re-engage with your visitors, find new ones, and ramp up those conversions. Seen it happen. Traffic doesn’t need to convert on the first visit, but those microconversions? They’re your secret weapon.