In this article, we’re gonna go over the question – – “should you select a niche for your SEO agency?”
If you’ve spent any time researching this topic, you might’ve come across the phrase “the riches are in the niches.”
But, I mean, is that really true?
It sounds catchy and nice, but is that the only good thing about this phrase?
I mean, are you gonna make more money catering to a specific market, instead of everyone that needs SEO services?
How can that be true?
Well, there are convincing arguments for both sides of the coin here.
We’ll dive into the pros and cons of niching down your SEO agency.
And, I will also go over some tips that’ll help you achieve success.
I’m gonna provide advice for people that don’t want to niche down, and want to cover the entire SEO market.
Let’s get started!
Section #1 — What Does Niching Mean and Is it a Good Approach?
Before we get into things, it might be a good idea for me to clarify what it means to niche down your agency.
Ok, so when starting an SEO agency, niching things down can basically mean three different things.
So, what are these three things?
#1 — Offer specific Services
Well, one way you can narrow down your SEO agency is by focusing on a specific kind of service.
Now, if you’re familiar with SEO, you’ll know that SEO isn’t this big singular thing, right.
Like, SEO is actually made up of several different moving parts, as shown by this graphic.
If you wanna narrow down your SEO agency, you can do so by just focusing on one of these broad elements of SEO, or just a specific element, within one of these broader options.
So, you could focus on off-page SEO in general…
…or you could focus on creating an agency that does a specific form of off-page SEO, such as link-building.
I mean, if you want to, you could even narrow things down a bit further here.
You could just create an agency that only does a specific kind of link building, such as HARO link building.
If you’re gonna go down this route, you might wanna focus on something you have experience with.
For example, if you’ve worked in the link-building department of an agency…
You already know how to build links. So specializing in this would be a good way to narrow things down.
Alternatively, if you’ve built your own projects, you might’ve found one particular task easy and enjoyable.
So, you might’ve enjoyed creating content, or something like that.
If that’s the case, you might want to specialize in this and focus your agency so that it only does this kind of work.
I just wanna make it clear that you don’t necessarily need to have experience with a certain kind of SEO, to start a specialist agency.
In fact, later on, in this blog, we actually cover how you can offer services you don’t really have any experience in.
However, that said, if you have relevant experience and knowledge, it’s definitely an advantage…
And, to be fair, if you’re just starting out, you need all the advantages you can get!
Anyway… That’s one way you can specialize your agency….
#2 — Focus on a Specific Industry
The other option here is to work within a specific industry.
So, you might just wanna offer SEO services for dentists or lawyers, or something like that.
This approach can work out great because, in the world of SEO, there are often certain tricks that tend to work well in specific niches.
If you focus on a certain niche, you’ll discover what these tricks are, and this will then make it easier for you to deliver results for your clients.
Plus, if you narrow down on a specific industry, you might find that it’s easier to win clients.
That’s because there’s gonna be a big overlap between potential, and past clients.
So, when you’re talking to potential clients, it won’t be that hard to convince them you can deliver results when you’re able to show them what you’ve done for other clients…
…who are in the same niche as them
…and essentially struggled with the same problems as them… until you came along.
Something I just wanna touch on here is that this approach tends to work better for local firms, rather than national businesses.
One of the reasons for this is that you don’t want to be in a position where you have two clients that are both going after the same keywords.
I mean, this is obviously gonna create a massive conflict of interest.
In fact, when working on SEO campaigns for national/international companies…
If you’re dealing with a local business, this isn’t an issue.
For the most part, a local law firm in New York isn’t going after the same clients as a law firm in LA…
…And so if you’re offering local SEO services to law firms…
You can get away with servicing two clients from the same niche.
So, yeah, this is something you definitely wanna keep in mind, when reviewing your approach here.
#3 — Overlap both of these approaches
The third option here is to basically overlap both of these approaches.
This basically means you could offer a specific service, for a specific industry.
So, you could just offer link-building services, for e-commerce stores.
Or technical SEO for SAAS businesses.
You’re basically free to overlap things as much as you want, and there are pretty much no rules when it comes to how much you can niche things down.
I guess the only thing that matters, is whether there’s any demand!
Where does local SEO fit in here?
Now, at this point, you might be wondering where local SEO fits into this whole situation…
For the sake of this blog, I think the easiest way to think about is by basically putting local SEO into its own category.
You can use the frameworks we’ve covered earlier, to figure out how niching works within the world of local SEO.
So, for example, you could offer local SEO services to a specific kind of local business.
Alternatively, you could offer a specific kind of local search engine optimization service such as citation building, to all kinds of local firms.
Anyhow, that’s basically a rough overview of how you can niching down works when it comes to SEO.
If you’re interested in the idea of niching down your agency, you might be looking for some advice on what is the best approach for you.
Unfortunately, I can’t really give you a concrete answer here, as it tends to depend on your experience, skills, and the kind of work you’re comfortable with doing.
That said, in the next section we’re gonna cover some of the pros and cons of niching down your agency.
Once we’ve finished, it might be easier for you to work out which direction you should go in, and whether you should narrow things down in the first place!
I mean, deciding if you should niche down is really only a small part of the process! There’s a ton of other stuff you still need to learn —
Section #2 — The Pros and Cons of Niching Down Your SEO Agency
Alright, now let’s go over some of the pros and cons of actually niching down your SEO agency.
Pros
Right, first let’s cover some of the pros of this approach.
#1 — It’s a bit easier
One of the main things that’s good about niching down your agency, is that it just kinda makes life easier.
You’ll need to handle content creation, links, on-page SEO…
…And even just general client/supplier communication/management stuff on top of all that too!
On the other hand, if you just concentrate on specific kinds of services, you won’t run into this problem.
You’re only being hired to do one specific task, and this then means your deliverables are much easier to manage.
Plus, if you’re just focusing on delivering one specific outcome…
It becomes easy for you to create SOPs, and basically just a machine/process in your agency, that helps you achieve these outcomes.
This then makes it a lot easier for you to deliver results for your clients.
All of which means happier clients, better retention, and perhaps more referrals!
Anyhow, I’ve actually found this to be true in my business.
For example, we focus on link building, and we’ve delivered amazing results for several clients in different industries.
For instance, we helped one company go from 0 to 145,000 visitors…
And another go from 0 to 17,000 visitors per month.
One of the main reasons we could deliver results like this is because we specialize in link-building, and we have a dialed-in process that we built after focusing on this form of SEO.
I know what you’re thinking — What if my agency focuses on a specific industry, instead of a specific service — will life still be easier compared to not niching down?
Well, in some ways, the answer is yes.
Why?
Because, if you’re working within a specific industry, you’ll be doing a lot of the same tasks for all your clients.
For example, if you’re dealing with dentists…
You’ll mostly be setting websites up in the same way
You’ll be targeting the same kinds of keywords/and creating the same kinds of content.
… And a lot of the time, you’ll also be building the same kinds of links.
So, as mentioned earlier, you’re essentially doing the same task, over and over again, for different clients…
… And so it isn’t that hard to develop SOPs that’ll help you navigate and streamline this process.
However, if you’re dealing with clients from a wide variety of industries…
It can be harder to create a streamlined process that you can just put your clients through.
After all, different strategies work for different industries.
Therefore, every time you take on a new client, you have to conduct a review to figure out how you should approach things.
Crafting a new strategy each and every time you take on a client can be difficult.
Plus, if you’re dealing with a client in an industry, you don’t have much experience with, you might not even be sure if your approach is gonna work as well as it should.
#2 — Marketing may be easier and more effective
Another pro when it comes to specializing in this approach, basically makes it easier to market your agency.
There’s not really much to say here.
I mean, if you specialize, it’s easier to figure out who you should actually target, and how you should craft your promotional material.
This will then help you generate more conversions because your marketing campaigns will be very relevant to the people that see them.
This basically means you’ll then achieve a better ROI on your marketing spend.
If you’re just starting out, and you have a limited marketing budget, this is obviously really helpful.
Cons
Ok, so that’s some of the pros associated with niching down your agency — now let’s cover some of the cons!
#1 – Smaller Market Size
Right, so one of the big cons of niching down your agency, is that you basically have to deal with smaller market size.
The SEO industry is absolutely massive, and between 2021 and 2025, it’s likely gonna double.
If you niche down too much, it might be limiting your ability to benefit from this massive growth in the industry.
Now, you might be thinking that there’s still tons of opportunity if you focus on a specific niche in SEO.
And while that’s true…
It’s hard to deny that you can make more money, if you just deal with pretty much every aspect of SEO, for nearly any industry.
Why?
Well, because by offering different services, you can often increase the lifetime value of a client.
Ok, so how does that work exactly?
Well, suppose someone comes to you for link-building services.
If you offer other services, you could then eventually sell them on…
Content creation
Or technical SEO
…or if you’re feeling brave…
Other kinds of digital services such as web dev work to improve the design/UX of their website.
If you’re doing this for all sorts of clients in different industries, you have lots of potential clients and revenue opportunities.
Now, after hearing this, you might be thinking that it’s an interesting idea to offer multiple services when launching your SEO agency.
However, you might have no idea how you’re gonna fulfill everything.
… After all, if you only know how to do something like content creation, how are you supposed to help clients with link building?
Well, perhaps the easiest solution here is to basically just outsource this part of your business to someone that can help you with fulfillment.
This is kinda like having the best of both worlds, because you can now offer more services to your clients…
Without having to worry about messing things up, and ruining the relationship you have with your clients.
Now, if you like the idea of doing this, you might wanna book a free consultation call with us at juliangoldie.com.
That’s because we actually offer certain kinds of SEO fulfillment services to people that run agencies.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help, get in touch!
#2 — It can be a bit boring
Another con associated with niching down your agency is that it can just be a bit boring.
This might sound like a small issue, but if you’re working on your business, day in, and day out, this might actually be a significant factor.
I mean, if you’re dealing with one specific niche, you’re basically gonna be encountering the same kinds of clients/challenges, time, and time again.
This might limit your ability to learn new things, and this could then lead to a little bit of burnout.
If you’re working on different aspects of SEO, or in different industries, the odds of you getting bored are a lot lower, as you’re gonna be dealing with new scenarios a lot of the time.
Conclusion
Hopefully, it’s answered any questions you might have when it comes to whether or not you should select a niche for your SEO agency.
Everyone has their own preferences here, and so ultimately, I can’t tell you which approach is gonna be right for you.
In fact, many people would actually say that this is better than listening to anything else that’s available online, non-SEO stuff included.