What's my niche?

[Jools]

Hi!
I'm still working on the painstaking process of making sure that my html is acceptable before I ask for a full review, but I do have a couple of questions.

First off, what is the optimum number of keywords, in anyone's opinion. I'm trying to make sure that my keywords actually help the search engines find my site, which brings me to my second question...

I can't seem to find my niche. I was shooting for the goth community, but I think I get more business outside that community, however I don't know who to aim my keywords and links to. Judging by the items that I offer, how should I be representing my site? I'm shooting for morbid humor and just random really strange things. I know this can work because the people that I have on my newsletter list (somewhere betwenn 2000 and 3000 now) really enjoy what I offer, I just think that there is a lot more potential if I can reach the right audience.

Any ideas or input would be greatly appreciated!

[thrashmangler]

My advice is to go with 3 to 5 words searches to start when you are starting your SEO program. If you have an older URL, try for 3 and 4 word searches. I go for between 300 and 500 words per page. Don't go crazy putting alot on the homepage it can only do some much. Use content based text links to link to other optimized pages with in the website, DO NOT stuff your homepage.

I would use the Overture data to get an IDEA of good searches but remember, these numbers show traffic not purchases. Thats why niche is so good. These searches are at the level of specificity that they are buying not just searching.

Example - Portland Oregon real estate - the numbers say that 10's of thousands search that on Yahoo. OK, sounds good. why do I not want to just optimize for that search or put all my apples in that basket. Well the fact is that endusers are searching that string but using it to gain more detail for another search. They are checking neighborhoods, prices areas and then taking that information re-searching with more speciifity based on areas or services.

Making your site come up for all the neighborhoods in Portland is far more advantages then one big search. Also search recognition will get you search revognition. Endusers are seeing you more than your competition. In otherwords getting up for Niche searches will help you get into the bigger more competitve searches and knock someone out that has been intrenched there for awhile.

Good Luck

[imvain2]

Was your website down for awhile, a few months ago? I tried to access your website and nothing came back, so I figured your website was done.

In regards to putting keywords for non goths. In my opinion, people who are not gothic, but are looking for merchandise that would be considered gothic probaby qualify their searches with "gothic".

In my area we have what we refer to as "Mall Goths". These are kids that aren't really goths, but "embrace" the goth style as they are fallers. And if they were looking for gothic merchandise, they would probably qualify it like: Gothic Jewelery and Gothic Merchandise.

Here is the link to Overture's Keyword results for gothic. Of course there are many other searches on there that are adult related.

inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/?term=gothic&mkt=us&lang=en_US

[Irishjim]

Well, Jools, I have no idea where you might fit but I do know you are a perfect fit for my "Sites that Scare Us" page on TourClare.

http://www.tourclare.com/scare.html

So I've added you.

This has been a top-ten listed site on Google for a few years now (with the keyword phrase, "scary sites") but it slipped to #12 this week because I suspect Google is shape shifting again.

Anyway, the page makes us no money but it's lots of fun for folks, I suspect.

Welcome aboard.

[frogmanandy]

Here are a few others I might target if I were you.

metal
heavy metal
vampire
fantasy
renaissance
horror
fetish

Nice site idea btw

[orangemike]

Originally Posted by Jools

Hi!
I'm still working on the painstaking process of making sure that my html is acceptable before I ask for a full review, but I do have a couple of questions.

First off, what is the optimum number of keywords, in anyone's opinion. I'm trying to make sure that my keywords actually help the search engines find my site, which brings me to my second question...

I can't seem to find my niche. I was shooting for the goth community, but I think I get more business outside that community, however I don't know who to aim my keywords and links to. Judging by the items that I offer, how should I be representing my site? I'm shooting for morbid humor and just random really strange things. I know this can work because the people that I have on my newsletter list (somewhere betwenn 2000 and 3000 now) really enjoy what I offer, I just think that there is a lot more potential if I can reach the right audience.

Any ideas or input would be greatly appreciated!

I'd drop words like "metaphysical" in favor of "wacky" "fannish" "eccentric" and perhaps "deviant"! The real goth is going to disdain you as aimed at the Mall Goth market (especially with "hot topic" as keywords), so you could possibly drop a couple more of the pretentious/portentous words like "vampyre" as well. You're at that awkward middle ground between Archie McFee and Hot Topic, and it sounds like the McFee folks are buying your pitch more.

[mauinick]

What if you used a free program like GoodKeywords or a paid subsciption to WordTracker.com to generate a list of keywords.

Some of them will be totally off the wall but I'd be willing to wager that you'd find quite a number of usable key phrases.

MauiNick

eCOMpal - A shopping cart on steroids

[orangemike]

Originally Posted by frogmanandy

Here are a few others I might target if I were you.

vampire
horror

She's already got both of those in her keywords; and "renaissance" does not apply here.

[Jools]

Originally Posted by Irishjim

Well, Jools, I have no idea where you might fit but I do know you are a perfect fit for my "Sites that Scare Us" page on TourClare.

http://www.tourclare.com/scare.html

So I've added you.

That's great! Thanks so much for the ad. If I'm not mistaken, we get most of our customers from links just like that. A couple of "worst web sites" type sites brought us quite a bit of traffic as well LOL.

Thanks so much for all of the input, it's helping me greatly. Any more ideas or input would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, and to the person that couldn't find my site, it hasn't been down at all, so I don't know why you couldn't access it. I've been lazy, but not dead *grin*.

Thanks again!

[orangemike]

Originally Posted by Jools

Thanks so much for all of the input, it's helping me greatly. Any more ideas or input would be greatly appreciated.

You might consider buying ads in the program books of your local science fiction conventions, such as Potlatch in Portland. (There used to be one in Moscow, but I don't know if it's still going.)

[espectations]

There is one thing I see nobody mention here....your current stats....

If you have a good statistics program you should look into your current searches. People have a way of telling you what they are looking for.

Use your existing search terms (you will most likely see that it is not single keywords anymore but rather search phrases) and incorporate that into your marketing and SEO strategy.

With marketing I mean blogging about the most searched for terms etc.

It is all about content - your should use a combination of your existing search terms and the results from keyword research.

[AjiNIMC]

First off, what is the optimum number of keywords, in anyone's opinion. I'm trying to make sure that my keywords actually help the search engines find my site, which brings me to my second question...

Do a keyword analysis, treat each keyword as a product and do a product management analysis.

I have already written an guide on Keyword analysis,
http://www.webmasterworld.com/libraryv4.cgi?viewforum=8 (see the first link)

Let me know if more help is needed.

[Clint1]

Jools I don't see where anyone actually mentioned anything about the keywords metatag. The leading SE's don't even bother with them anymore. They give precedence to the title and description tags. The keyword metatag not withstanding, there is no optimum number of key words, just use as many as you can in those two tags and be sure they also appear in the body of the webpages.

As for the actual keywords metatag, I guess I'd still use one, but you have to be sure that much of what's in the title and description tags should also show up in the keywords tag and its words should also be in the page body.

As for size, just do some searches on that and come up with the average of what you see because each site you go to, each answer you get, is going to be different. Just remember to use as FEW as you can while still covering all the words, because the fewer you use the higher value is given to each word. This is true with all of the tags.

[debase23]

On top of what everyone else has advised, consider adding typos in your keywords to catch all the poor spellers out there - for one of my sites I use both "mask" and "msak".

[Jools]

Thanks! So many great ideas.

But now I feel silly, I'm trying to print this page so I can keep the ideas and impliment them, but alas, I can't seem to figure out how to print just the comments without the navigation on the left, and if I print the whole thing, the right side of the comments are cut off. Help!

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by debase23

On top of what everyone else has advised, consider adding typos in your keywords to catch all the poor spellers out there - for one of my sites I use both "mask" and "msak".

That's definitely an awesome idea. It's amazing how many people misspell those "ie" and "ei" words, and maybe even "gothci" (and many others) in this case due to typing too fast.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by Jools

Thanks! So many great ideas.

But now I feel silly, I'm trying to print this page so I can keep the ideas and impliment them, but alas, I can't seem to figure out how to print just the comments without the navigation on the left, and if I print the whole thing, the right side of the comments are cut off. Help!

Just drag your mouse over the posts to highlight them, copy 'n paste it into Notepad or Wordpad and remove what you don't want. Save that, or print that. Or, paste it into an HTML format blank email, save that or print that.

Or highlight it like I said, then print it, but print "selection" in the printer dialog box.

[ahilton]

I love it!

where in the world do you find your products?

[frogmanandy]

Originally Posted by orangemike

She's already got both of those in her keywords; and "renaissance" does not apply here.

I don't think having them in your keywords list if they are not in use on the page does any good. There is plenty of room to add more content especially on the index page.

You might also consider adding pages like "what is an anch?" or "significance of a pentagram" you could also relist your items for sale on these pages and it would give you an opportunity to beef up your content dramatically.

I also think renaissance or even "renny" definitely apply. I think that ren people are a little more open to the "dark" side of things.

[Jools]

Originally Posted by ahilton

I love it!

where in the world do you find your products?

I get my items from A LOT of different vendors, you should see the actual store! *grin*

I'm just always searching...

Thanks so much for the kind words!

[nametaginc]

A lot of great recommendations -- one thing that hasn't been suggested is using a social networking service like Myspace to create exposure for your site. While Myspace might not work well for all businesses, in your case I believe it can. I am not quite sure of the TOS for Myspace -- I don't believe you can have a business profile/account -- but I assume that having a personal account could be very beneficial.

When I think of Gothics, I see it more of a lifestyle, rather than clothing, accessories, etc. If you create an account and demonstrate your knowledge and love for not only your products but what it means to be Gothic then you could potentially attract a lot of visitors and/or customers.

Myspace can work wonders on getting your website public and is fantastic for networking opportunities. You could create a page about yourself, your interests, and your devotion to your spiffy Gothic-focused website; furthermore, you could use the blog feature to create a lot of interesting posts and conversations to further the interaction between you and your targetted audience.

Customers generally purchase more frequently from stores/sites that they are comfortable and/or familiar with -- the interactive nature of Myspace could not only help you appear more personable and gain you and your site trust/e-friends/customers, it could also be a very nice source for marketing information and feedback as well.

[imkaydee]

I agree that myspace would be a great place to get people familiar with your site. I have a site that offers surreal art, fine art, etc. and we get lots of traffic from the artists personal blog on myspace, recently we've been getting more hits from myspace than from Google.
My children are teenagers and young adults and another keyword you may want to add is "emo". I think it's a fairly new name, a.k.a. goth wanna be or the new generation of goths.
Good luck!

[lunartcorp]

Jools:

Pleople do not use to write too many words at the first time when searching, so starting with 3 to 4 words searches is going to be enough. If you see there is too much competence for that combination try using another combination of three. You may select three combination of three. For Example, I sell hand painted clothing for women men and children but a person will not ever look for all those words at the same time, so I had to select the following three combination of four words:

Hand Painted Clothing Women
Hand Painted Clothing Men
Hand Painted Clothing Children

With time, it brought the website up for "Hand Painted Clothing"

Although I do not belong to the community of people who would like your product, I tried using "Gothic Products" (assuming these are the first words they would use) and I got about 10 Millions of pages. This number is not to be scary. I put my page from nothing to positions between 30 to 50 in Google among 9 Million pages; between 70 to 100 in Yahoo among 5 Million pages and between 70 to 100 among 800 thousands pages in MSN for "Hand Painted Clothing".

If you want to try it, look for "lunartcorp" after the search engine brings the result.

I know we need to be in the first 30 pages to get the traffic but these are already privileged positions considering I am compiting with millions of pages.

To suggest some other words, they might be:

Darkness
Naughty
Accessories

Do not forget recomendations about using MySpace to get traffic. I have seen many people that would like to know about these products there. Also, you could check Cafepress, if you have some designs to stick on shirt, mugs, caps or some other items. You can use those items, not only to make money there but also to get traffic to your website.