Niche SEO Companies, Are You Out There?

[incrediblehelp]

I recently stumbled upon Click Motive which is an SEO company that specifically targets car dealers

http://www.clickmotive.com/

Not a bad idea, plenty of car dealers out there. If you sell yourself as the SEO pro for them and them only I am sure sign up conversions would be higher, especially word of mouth. I am wondering are their are other SEO companies targeting niches ONLY? Does anyone know of any? I would suspect another great one would be for real estate agents.

[pdstein]

We at OurChurch.Com focus on SEO for Christian churches, schools, non-profit ministries, and businesses. We started out doing web hosting and design for Christian organizations. As more and more clients started asking us how to get registered and get a better rankings in search engines we lauched a marketing services division which provides search/directory registration, Christian search engine registration, and SEO. Since we offer design, hosting, domain registration, search marketing, and advertising services, we can offer them together in bundles, which makes it simpler and more cost-effective for our clients.

[SemAdvance]

Seo-guy stole the real estate marketing idea from someone and then banned him from the seo-guy.com forums

Small world.

[toprank]

Specializing in an industry niche for SEO can only work for so long. Eventually, you'll have conflict of interest issues.

It might be something better suited for a new SEO consultant of company to distinguish themselves from the crowd. Long term, it may be better to specialize horizontally. At least that's what we do with BtoB and it works quite well.

[toprank]

Niche SEO specialization would be a tough one to maintain since over time, you're going to have conflict of interest issues show up.

Better to start niche and then expand, possibly specializing horizontally, such as BtoB over BtoC or organic over PPC. Works well for me.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by pdstein

We at OurChurch.Com focus on SEO for Christian churches, schools, non-profit ministries, and businesses. We started out doing web hosting and design for Christian organizations. As more and more clients started asking us how to get registered and get a better rankings in search engines we lauched a marketing services division which provides search/directory registration, Christian search engine registration, and SEO. Since we offer design, hosting, domain registration, search marketing, and advertising services, we can offer them together in bundles, which makes it simpler and more cost-effective for our clients.

Now this is a good idea. Where else would word of mouth marketing and trust be bigger than within the church. Kudos pdstein this is a good idea and model to follow. Their has always been tons of "church, "Christian" traffic on the net and if you make a positive mark for yourself with your clients you should rock the house for years to come.

[JKomp]

This sort of thing is common place in all businesses. You do one site for a baker and he tells his baker friend about you, then you start getting invited to baker conventions and before you know it you are the official baker web developer in your area.

I agree there can be conflicts of interest. You need to be careful what you promise and to whom.

[Duncan Pollock]

There is a niche market as far as the real estate industry is concerned. However, there's more than one firm already with their "hooks" into it, SEOGuy not being the only one. In turn, the business is increasingly focused on large franchise operations such as RE/MAX, Coldwell Banker (and in Canada Royal LePage) etc. Moreover, these widespread organizations tend to provide agents with what amount to template sites, as well as having major corporate ones of their own (not to mention the money to spend on them).
Even so, I, for one, am not afraid to say that most agents have no (or at least little) idea of how to make the most of their sites, let alone the concept of Internet marketing. Thus, there is a need that, in many regards, isn't being met.
I do agree with incrediblehelp, though, that specializing is an idea that's well worth pursuing. As many gurus observe, one key to real success is to do what no one else is doing or to do it a whole lot better.

Duncan

[freehits]

I would guess with all of the offline marketing ideas that exist , localization would be the common first step in your niche. Word of mouth is easy to pass to your neighbors, and as you build a good cistomer base one site likely can compiment another since they all attract local searchers.

After writing in the post about how to charge a client, i dont think church is the client for me. hard enough to explain the benefits of seo and reasoning behind the somewhat steep costs of success, and even harder when the target niche doesnt have much of a marketing budget, and the finish product doesnt return a hard number to prove your net value with.

Car dealers I have seen done, real estate is great, and I have just put a toe in the mortgage keywords recently and know there is a long long road there for me.

[espectations]

The one thing specialzing in a certain market segment brings, is knowledge of both the customers and the business owners.

Yes, in my books it is not just important to understand the target market, but also the business owners as I found that the business owners at times are the biggest stumbling block in marketing.

It seems as if people have specific ideas about things and at times it could be difficult to change their minds and get them to do the right thing.

One such example is making material available for articles, another is allowing the consultant sufficient access to measure the response and sales from the site.

Anyway, by default I seem to be specializing in the industrial arena and in that market segment I mostly deal with Engineers and technical oriented people. I had quite a number of word-of-mouth referrals myself so it seems as if I will stick around in this market segment.

Regarding conflict of interest - fortunately at this stage I have not had more than one cleaning equipment company approaching me to market their services. As a matter of fact, the cleaning equipment company is now sending me to their distrubutors to do the marketing of their sites....

It saves a lot of time though if you already know the market. I think some more of this will take place in future.

Having said that one should never put all your eggs in one basket.

[sdrury]

Espectations is right on the mark - its about knowing your market.

I've recently digressed to conducting SEO for the niche in children's entertainment/party companys websites. Having researched and produced sites in this area already (see http://www.magicpuppettheatre.co.uk) and having 2 young kids myself Ive gotten to know this market quite well. This niche is not going to go away !

[MtraX]

I had the same problem of a client asking for exclusivity and losing out on a bigger fish with triple the budget. I always say however that if a client wants exclusivity they have to contractually be bound and the incentive must be good enough for you not to have to worry about lost business. I'm not keen on signing exclusivity deals in general.

Wrt niche, I agree that if you start making name in one industry it becomes easier and easier to market similar products, but you often start competiting with yourself doing PPC or SEO for similar clients.

I don't like working niche though since the whole reason I started a web oriented business is because of the diversity of different projects. It makes me learn more about what I do and what others do as each contract is approached differently (with some overlapping basics of course).

Finding the million dollar SEO answer to a niche becomes easier and easier in that case.

MtraX

[shaynorulz]

I work for a niche sef / sem that specializes in hotel industry only: www.secure-res.com , the internet marketing service side of things was started at clients requests for design, hosting, email, and to complementing there purchase of our online reservation services

There are issues with conflict of interests for properties in the same geographical area, though the services (spa, wedding, dining), location (airport, downtown), type of property (inn, resort, bnb, hotel, motel), and customer base (luxury, budget) for properties vary greatly in the same geo-area, if you understand your client thoroughly, one can target phrases specific to that properties features and thus avoid search term over lap and yield a better conversion ratio.

Word of mouth within the hospitality industry is huge, if you take on an a branded hotel that has developed there own vanity site independent of the corporate portal and make them considerable revenue, then you know who’ll defiantly be looking closer at your services – corporate brand.

Niche SEO is the way to go, understand your clients to the tenth degree and you’ll be very successful.

[everett sizemor]

I had to register for an account so I could reply to this. For those of you who say niche SEO is not sustainable because eventual conflicts of interest, have you not considered the fact that clients are more likely to stay on month-to-month even after their contract is finished just so you don't have the opportunity to get another client in that market and geographical location? What a great way to increase client retention...

First Page Fitness ( www.firstpagefitness.com )will only accept one client in any vertical per area. But just in North, South, East and West Chicago, that means, four chiropractors, four fitness centers, four sports therapy doctors, four anti aging clinics, four health spas... not to mention the national fitness equipment manufacturers, national supplement distribution companies, global health and fitness web sites...

Page 1 Solutions ( www.page1solutions.com ) has been working in the same three niche markets for seven years with NO SIGN of slowing down whatsoever. Their clients know they are The BEST in their particular market, and wouldn't dream of going to an SEO who has no idea where all of the market's niche blogs, directories, article libraries, trade publications, etcetera are.

And what about years and years of keyword research? Even the sales guys know whether people on the East coast search for "plastic surgeon" or "cosmetic surgeon", or whether the people on the West coast are more likely to convert on searches for "cosmetic dentist" than they are on searches for "cosmetic dentistry". Years of research have gone into every aspect of search marketing for this niche and the clients know that.

Market segmentation is a sign of a maturing industry. Just look at manufacturing, traditional marketing and PR, logistics...

Just something to think about.

[gene02]

Seo for niche market is best for me I will do other type sites but Real Estate and Trucking is my niche. I have done some others but very few. My clients understand that if I don't get them results they just pack up a go some where else because I don't do contracts I charge a setup fee and month to month with the understanding that they probably will not see any results to talk about for at least 3 months. My oldest client has been with me for over 1 ½ years and is my best advertiser for real estate agents out side of her area. I tell clients I will not take on another site in the same industry for a 100 mile radius that seems to keep everyone happy.