A growing ecommerce market means your online business will have plenty of new opportunities to reach customers. It also means additional opportunities for competition. As online businesses increase in number, setting yourself apart is becoming an indispensable part of creating an online presence. Here, we'll talk about how you can find and capitalize on your niche in order to stand out among your competitors.
The best and easiest way to capitalize on your niche is to offer products others simply don't have. Since keywords are a critical component of online marketing, the more long-tailed and specific your keywords are for these unique products you’re offering, the more likely you are to capture an audience shopping a low-competition market. You can easily test the efficacy of niche, long-tailed keywords versus broad short-tailed ones by Googling the terms you're interested in targeting and noting the results. Broad keywords will yield more results from highly competitive sites while niche keywords tend to produce results that your business is able to compete with.
If you don't sell completely unique products, don't despair; there are still other ways in which you can set yourself apart.
1. Consider Your Selling Points
A competitive price point, free or flat rate shipping, easy returns, remarkable customer service and rewards are all attractive selling points for prospective customers in the process of comparison shopping. Your business' community or environmental impact is a marketing and selling point as well. If you're actively donating to charity, engaging in recycling or are devoted to being 100-percent cruelty-free, consider how you can incorporate these points across your site and into your marketing strategy, whether via blog or social media.2. Know Your Audience
Once you've nailed down your niche selling points, take some time to explore the group or groups these points speak to. This step is especially important when utilizing paid marketing since it will allow you to target a highly specific audience, ensuring your time and money aren't wasted. Knowing your audience will also help you establish an accurate brand voice, a crucial factor when creating on and off-page content, marketing ads, social posts and newsletters.3. Be an Authority
A niche product, unique selling point and proper marketing aren’t all you'll need in order to ensure your business' success. Becoming an authority in your industry isn't easy, but is absolutely essential. Setting yourself apart as a leader by providing relevant and trustworthy content, engaging with your audience online, offering easy ways to review your product and finding a brand ambassador or two are all effective ways of becoming an authority online.Ensure you update your blog or on-page resource library regularly and frequently with robust and meaningful content, answer all Facebook, Twitter or review comments and ask your existing audience to advocate for your product by generating original social or YouTube content.
If you’re struggling to find a starting point, we recommend researching your competition to locate where the gap exists. Aim for topics that have not yet been addressed or, if you choose to address topics that have previously been targeted, ensure your content is better, more robust, more trustworthy and more informative.
Capitalizing on your niche can be as easy as offering a product that’s completely unique, but oftentimes, creating your niche is simply a matter of realizing where the competition gap exists. By exploiting your selling points, targeting your audience appropriately and aiming to become a leader within your industry, you’ll be well on your way to finding online success.