Niching is a term talked about quite a lot, but is it really true that you can boost your dog business marketing by narrowing your audience?
The power of niching is indeed real, and in this blog, I’m going to dig into how it works, why it works, and how to choose your dog business niche.
Let’s dive in!
How Niching Works
Choosing your niche might be a little tricky at first. It can feel counterproductive to narrow in on a specific audience, but in fact, the second you niche, all your content marketing becomes a zillion times easier.
When you’re creating content for your pet business, you will achieve the best results if you know exactly who you’re talking to. By creating content that is clearly targeted at a specific audience, you stop trying to talk to everyone and suddenly have a crystal clear picture of who your target client is. This makes it much simpler to discover what your target audience is interested in and what their pain points are.
It also makes the dream goal of attracting organic traffic to your website a smidge easier. You’re no longer targeting incredibly competitive keywords and searching page after page of Google searches to find where you rank.
Your niche helps you target less competitive keywords which are more likely to convert into organic traffic.
Let’s look at the power of niching in action
Welovedoodles.com receives a whopping estimated 1,337,030 visitors a month through organic traffic. Woah – that would be incredible, wouldn’t it?
The below screenshot from Ubersuggest also tells us that their domain authority is 22. Domain authority is essentially an indicator of how valuable a website is deemed and can influence how likely it is to rank on Google.
Websites are ranked from 1 to 100, so while 22 is not teeny, it’s not considered particularly high either.
Like any website that is winning in the organic traffic race, there will be many factors at play. But in terms of a relatively modest domain authority receiving whopping traffic each month, the power of niching is undoubtedly a winning element.
In the image above, you can see welovedoodles.com’s highest-ranking pages (as of April 2021). We can see that they target information not just at Doodle owners but at specific Doodle breeds for maximum impact.
They’ve picked fairly popular breeds. Poodle mixes seem to be almost everywhere these days.
According to Trending Breeds, the Labradoodle is the most popular doodle mix, followed by the Goldendoodle. So it makes complete sense that blogs about these two breeds are generating a lot of organic traffic for We Love Doodles.
In an interview with Influencive, the founder of We Love Doodles, Garrett Yamasaki, said that in the last year, they published 600 articles. He told Influencive that they are focusing on creating content mainly about Labradoodles, Golden Doodles, and Bernadoodles.
Guess what? Bernadoodles are the third most popular Doodle breed in the US.
Is it starting to become a little clearer why niching works and how it makes your content marketing soooooo much easier?
Why choosing a dog niche works
Sometimes choosing a niche comes naturally, and sometimes it can feel painstakingly difficult to niche down. The broader your audience, the harder gaining organic traffic will be.
With a broad audience and a low domain authority, you’re likely to need to pay for advertising and put an awful lot of work into getting eyes on your business.
That’s not to say that niching will make it all a walk in the park, you still have to put the work in, and it takes time to see the results. But you’re more focused and can put the work in where it will land well, rather than trying to be everything to everyone, and thus trying to be everywhere too.
For Michelle at Scruffy Little Terrier, this is working really well.
Michelle’s online gift shop for dog lovers started as a blog about her Border Terrier and is now a fully-fledged online shop selling dog-themed clothing, dog bandanas, treats, and dog inspired homewares. Scruffy Little Terrier is a one-stop-shop for gifts for terrier lovers.
With a Domain Authority of 22 and clever content creation, 80% of the traffic to her website is organic.
Michelle recently hosted the first-ever National Terrier Day on the 27th of March, and we saw terriers trending on Twitter. It was incredible and increased visits to her website by 110% on the day.
By niching, Michelle has identified a very clear target market, and she is producing content created to meet their interests, which in turn helps her show her products to them! Clever, isn’t it?!
How to find a niche for your dog business
You want to find a niche in an area that isn’t highly competitive but one that still has enough of an audience that you can make it successful.
It can feel a little like Goldilocks syndrome, a niche that is not too broad or popular but not so narrow that you’d run out of steam or content. But it really is possible. You just have to put a bit of time, research and thought into it.
- Brainstorm the things you are passionate about. What do you know about? What do you enjoy? You will be creating a lot of content about this subject, so make sure it’s something that really lights you up. Or else you’ll get very tired of it, very quickly.
- Research your topics. See how much content exists around it. Size up the competition and the interest in the subject. Google Trends, Forums, and Facebook Groups are a good starting place to see if there’s interest in your topics. Or a way you can bring some together.
- Keyword Research around your topic. What does the competition look like? Is there already a ton of quality information, products, and services from big players? Can you do something different, approach it from a different angle? Or do you need to go back to your passion list and try again?
- Feel the pain. Both yours in going through this process and your potential client’s pain points. What pain points can you tackle, how can you help your clients solve them?
- Test it. You don’t have to go all out immediately and declare yourself the superhero of your niche. Create some content around it on your existing socials and maybe a couple of blogs. Does it land? Is your existing audience interested in the niche you’re pondering? Does it have legs?
- Review. Are you passionate enough about this topic to completely immerse yourself in it? Are you able to deliver something different or better than the competition? Is there an audience who is interested in your niche.
Get inspiration from other dog businesses who’ve niched and nailed it here.
Why did I niche into dog copywriting?
For me, I love dogs and spend a colossal amount of time learning about them. I love copywriting, and I’m pretty good at it. 😉
And I happily consume all of the content I can find on digital marketing, SEO, and copywriting to continually improve my craft.
I want to help dog owners find good quality and helpful information, and I want to help dog brands like yours to thrive. So writing content for dog businesses was the perfect niche for me.
My clients generally either hate writing, don’t have time for it, hate selling themselves, or have no idea what to write about or what to focus on. Those are the client pain points that I solve.
For some, my free content helps to get over the hurdles, and for others, they hire me to take the problem off their plate. Either way, I am adding value to people in my target market.
Conclusion: Is niching worth the risk for your dog business?
I think so, but you have to do the research and put the time in.
I’ve done the no research, just follow your gut method myself with a previous project, and it was really hard to get off the ground. I was targeting a topic way too broad to get anywhere.
I didn’t put the time into finding out whether my idea had legs before storming full steam ahead.
Get specific, spend time unearthing your passions, and research to find how you can turn these into a dog product or service that people want. And that you’re able to get in front of.
Once you’ve got an idea, ask yourself these questions to unwrap the gold and see if it’s got legs!
It’s well worth the initial investment of time. Imagine working on something that fills you with enthusiasm, does the same for your customers, and actually makes you a living.
That’s the dream. And it is within reach.
Get inspiration from other dog businesses who’ve niched and nailed it here.
Do you have a niche? How did you choose yours? Let me know in the comments below 👇
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