After writing my post about getting your boss to fund your niche site project, I got a few emails from small business owners asking about why they should have a niche site when only working in a local market. I wanted to answer those questions, and share my philosophy with 3 simple reasons why they need them. I don’t want you to stop reading if you don’t own a local business. There is still good information for your niche sites, you can benefit from the same principles being applied to taking a niche site to an authority site.
#1. Niche Sites Improve SEO
The first and most important reason that a local business should build niche sites is for SEO purposes. Just like a niche site builder, the goal of the niche site is to make money. For a business to make money, they need to get customers. One of the best ways for a local business to get customers these days, is to rank well in the search engines. While a site builder uses multiple niche topics to grow their business, the local biz should build all their niche sites around the same topic… their business. They should build a niche site for each and every one of their services, and they should build one for each of the geographic areas that they target. Having all these sites not only gives them more opportunities to rank for their type of business, but all of those niche sites should also link back to their main website to provide more information about their business. Building all of these links is obviously helpful for the main website, but the main goal is that you can now potentially rank well for each of the services and each of the geographies. These can all still be monetized, but likely they should be used as lead generators. Not every business can operate like Walmart, so they usually specialize their services/product. Building more sites will help them to rank better in each of those topic keywords.
#2. Niche Sites Can Provide More Specifics On Your Services
I mentioned earlier that the content of the sites should be built around specific services and geographies. Well, the purpose of building out a specific niche on your services is to make sure people know about all your capabilities, have pictures of your work, testimonials, etc. For example, a car dealer could build a niche for each model they have. A landscaper could focus niches on lawnmowing, mulching, or commercial versus residential. A dentist could build niches for veneers, implants, crowns, family plans, etc. Hopefully you get the point about niche topic options. But the reason you want to have these be more specific is because having too much detail about a specific service or product on your main site might keep the buyer from seeing all of the services you offer. This way, you drill down on a specific service and hopefully you rank well too!
#3. Niche Sites Increase Conversions
The third reason is my personal favorite. The only difference between me and a local biz, is that I want people clicking on my ads, submitting leads, or buying products. The small business owner wants to get online prospects offline through either a call, form submission, or a visit. Either way, the goal is getting people to convert. When I build websites, my goal is to not make people think about what I want them to do. If I want them to click an ad, I try to avoid putting up a banner in the header or the footer… studies show that putting your ad in your content increases click throughs immensely. So, dont make them think! Make your call to action stand out. For the local owner, the goal for him/her is to get people offline… Their main website might not be able to use up as much screen real estate with an offer, or phone number or form submission, as they need to make sure that each visitor captures their full range of capabilities. But with a niche site, you can focus solely on the conversion on your home page if you choose… as that is what this site is for. Get people to visit your main site, or engage you immediately with a phone call or whatever. Make it crystal clear what you want, and don’t worry about saving screen real estate… its just a niche site!
So those are just 3 of the many reasons that a small local business should invest in building niche sites. Improving SEO, providing more specific information about products and services, and increasing conversions are fundamental goals for all businesses, especially those on in a local market.
Thanks for visiting, please comment below with your feedback.
Adam
