Are niche pages wrong?

[betteri]

Hi there!

Asking on as general level as possible.
I'm an aff in betting field in a pretty small market. It's so hard to compete on the most competitive main KWs so I've studied more niche KWs people are using, say "trustworthy betting sites", "betting sites from *mycountry*" etc. I can tell that none of my competitors, even the big ones, have subpages for those. I mean they're not even that niche, and have a decent amount of monthly searches! However, I'm not getting very good results after like 1-1,5 years. On some less commercial KWs I'm doing fine though, but with these it seems impossible.

An example: I found out that people are googling for "trustworthy bookers" (in my language), so I made a subpage /bookers/trustworthy-bookers/, that has the term in meta data and titles and in the content. Literally no one else has a page called that. However, the first top 20-30 results on Google are still my competitors main /bookers/ pages. Of course those pages have mentioned a KW "trustworthy bookers" in them, but it's not on their focus. And please note this is just an example KW.

First of all, why is that? Is there are a reason no one else is writing about those? It can't be that they are too lazy or wouldn't know how to use SEO tools So am I doing something wrong having these "niche" pages that others don't? I thought it would be brilliant tbh. Naturally there's some overlap content-wise between these subpages, but not really too much, as I've really put thought into the pages and tried to find angles. Is this like "too optimized" and Google sees right through me?

[content]

I may not be the best person to answer, as I do not have as much experience as some members, though I have seen a similar thing.

I have made a large number of pages for *specific localized geo kw*/*other specific kw*/*general kw* after researching and seeing very few competitors with exact match in titles show up. Yet, my articles still not showing up for those searches, even though my pages are a better match for the search wording. For me, it may be partially possible that it's just not enough time that has passed.

But it seems rather than exact matches, google will still put general pages that are about the topic, but not the specific wording in the title. I'm assuming it's because the sites have more topical authority and domain authority. Content quality/EEAT may be another factor, though it still may not be enough.

For my campaign I was working on, I still hope to have some success, as it's specific somewhat more unique topic kws, though for yours, another problem is that for general descriptive words like "trustworthy" google may accept a number of different synonyms as topical. It seems general adjectives may not be treated as unique just because other sites aren't using the exact same wording in the title. (just for example, "pink plaid" would be very unique, where as "best pretty" would not be a have many synonyms, and competing for the latter may be nearly as difficult as competing for the main stand alone kw you are describing).

I'm assuming you've installed google search console and have ensured your pages are actually indexed, yes?

Again, this is just my educated guess, though I have not been doing it long enough to know for sure. Though maybe it could help to make additional pages with different gambling topics for that country, a page about topics regarding trustworthiness about good and bad practices, and a few other pages with some interlinking, and that may gain you some topic authority. (edit, also, this is assuming you've already have a good amount of general bookie content, with pages covering different topics not necessarily country specific) For now I'm not worrying about my short term success and trying to just keep building, as it will take time to get more topical coverage, and hoping in the longer run there will be enough synergy. Haven't even had the time to implement all of my own suggestions yet.

Also, I would go even more specific. Country name + bookie + plus specifics like specific sport, bet types, payment methods, promotions, comparisons, special features of a bookie, etc.

For better(hoping it pays off in the long run, and authority will be achievable through persistent hard work, and difficulty of achieving such wards off future competitors when said success is achieved) or for worse (a lot of damn work that may never pay off), some of those keyword combos with general adjectives are deceptively competitive. Optimization for a general positive description adjective may not be as effective of optimization for much more specified kws(in all reality, the suggestions for "best" "good" "trustworthy" "fair" etc are likely going to be all similar content and I think googles algo sorta realizes that).

[PaulEchere]

Answering your main questions about terms like "trustworthy betting sites", "{country name} betting sites", etc. - I wouldn't call these search terms niche.

From a betting affiliate's perspective it's as general as it gets. Unless you have enough resources to pour into your off-page SEO , there's really no point in competing with the websites that hold top positions with those KWs.

If we're talking about country specific stuff, as a smaller and newer website, it would be much more productive to target smaller volume KWs. In my experience, the right small volume KW (say 100-200 searches) can bring in pretty good returns (and usually are less competitive) as long as the right search intent is there.

[betteri]

Hello guys,

thanks for your answers. While hearing you, I guess this is also a country-specific thing. In my market KWs such as "trustworthy betting sites" and "country name betting sites" are pretty niche, with legitimitely like 100-200 searches a month, believe it or not That's what I meant by niche, not really comparable to English market for sure! Could've explained it better.

Going more niche wouldn't be an issue for me but there are simply no KWs to try. Maybe some micro micro KWs with like 10 searches a month.

However my initial question was someting else. It was basically, is there are a reason no one else is really targeting "trustworthy betting sites" and still are on top results with their main "betting sites" pages?

[chaumi]

Are you assuming 'no one' is targeting 'trustworthy betting sites' purely on the basis you are not seeing a /trustworthy-betting-sites/ page in your searches? Or have I misinterpreted?

[betteri]

Are you assuming 'no one' is targeting 'trustworthy betting sites' purely on the basis you are not seeing a /trustworthy-betting-sites/ page in your searches? Or have I misinterpreted?

Thanks for your reply.

Well, why wouldn't that be 'trustworthy' () observation if say 20 top results are not pagrs targeting directly to that KW? Of course I also visit on my main competitors' sites a lot and haven't seen them really doing it. They have mentioned the term 'trustworthy betting sites' on their sites of course, and that is targeting too, I'm just... targeting more, with a dedicated page.

You guys that work in an English market (?) need to understand that this market is very different. I know like every one of my competitors by name and know a lot about their content. Casino field would be different, but when it comes to betting content it's really not that much (and yet I'm complaining about how hard it is lmfao).

If some even smaller players than me are doing it then I'm not aware of that either and... don't really care at this point as my question stands: why isn't this more specific targeting working on Google.

[chaumi]

(part) Reason for the Q...




I'll go out on a shakyish limb (because I'm not absolutely certain)...and suggest that searches for 'trustworthy' are limited. And this will hopefully start to tackle the last part of the question above 'why isn't this more specific targeting working on Google'.



The main (volume of) searches are for best, top, top-rated. And maybe 'safest'. Where trustworthiness is a factor.


Google know it's a factor. And they know that anyone's intent in searching for it is highly likely to be met by a list of best x, top x, etc.


You and I know that's not necessarily right (although it will be in many cases). But the robot doesn't, and all it's trying to do is meet the most likely search intent.

*************

Go and run the search on US, as a example. ( yes, there may be nuances across different countries).

I got almost exactly what I'd expect. The usual names, trusted/authoritative (for whatever reason, yes some debatable). Many would answer my 'I want a list of trustworthy sites' intent.

[chaumi]

...and although these sites don't have a /trustworthy-betting-sites page (because they don't have to), how do you know that they don't have 1 million hidden links with variations of trustworthy betting sites anchors.

[betteri]

Thanks for your thoughts

[chaumi]

Don't get me wrong. The theory behind your thoughts makes absolute sense. In theory, you should get some sort of a shot at, let's say, a 'somewhere in the top 20-30' position...with a /trustworthy-betting-sites page, carefully constructed so that it's better than or at least equivalent to the quality of all those above it (and, ofc, that means the entire construct of the content + other authority signals). Content's excellent response above made some strong points about this.

The problem (and I'll suggest it's a problem for many of us), is that the inherent 'authority' of some sites (or Google's perception of it) will always put then higher in the pecking order.

Just naming the page isn't a strong enough approach. Certainly for competitive terms with a long history now. G will have data that shows that 99 out of every 100 who search for 'trustworthy', and land on a 'best of' page, end up interacting with that page, clicking to another 'best of' page and interacting etc. And most likely very few go back to the search bar and amend their search term in some way.

OFC, they really are perpetuating that, too. By showing the 'best of' pages all the time, no one even sees a 'trustworthy' page. So the loop doesn't get broken (unless a core update does it, or the site targeting 'trustworthy' breaks through whatever threshold it's 'stuck' at).

Edit** Bottom line, consider the word 'cost'.

Why would G accept the cost of crawling, analyzing, storing, retrieving, and then showing 'trustworthy-focused' pages, when they can very likely meet the searchers intent at lower cost with pages they 'know' answer the query.

And therein lies a potential answer. Find the way/the ways to make that cost palatable (and please let me know what it is/they are!)

[thai slots]

According to what you said, I would focus on my off-page, just keep in mind most of your competetion has very big pockets