Extreme Niche Research! Moab, UT?!
September 29, 2009 by: JHenry
Moab, UT - Serenity Valley
Maybe you heard of this remote city out in the middle of nowhere, UT; bordering BFE, Colorado; close to Where?, NM….
Sure, I’ve heard of it- but have nothing in my mind to associate it with. If it were Albequerque, NM I’d think of Breaking Bad
.
So, what’s up with Moab, UT? Eventslisted.com, that’s what. Moab has nothing to do with that web site, but it’s a great Web 2.0 property for Internet Marketers to add to their infrastructures and use to their advantage.
what caught my eye was the floating text ads on top as well as the comments to the right. The ad for Moab, UT was simple- “Plan your Meetings and Events in Moab, UT”. WTF? Since I’m so damn curious about niche markets and how we, as Internet Marketers, infiltrate those markets- this ad grabbed my attention. Who would ever think to promote something like that, and, more importantly, is there a profit in it?
Clicking on that link takes you to a rather drab profile page, but that’s consistent with eventslisted.com. The power of this web 2.0 property is the fact that it’s one more page of backlinks you can use for your infrastructure while providing the opportunity to brand yourself further as an expert in that particular niche.
If you dig around that link, you’ll see a bevy of valuable links associated to (one of) the main keywords this Internet Marketer has chosen: “Visit Moab Utah”. Even the gmail account listed in the author bio is visit.moab.utah@gmail.com! Props to this marketer! After you dig around, you’ll see one POC on the main site listed, Michelle Hill. She’s using some extreme tactics, so you might want to check her style out.
Moab, UT sunset
If you do some quick analysis on google, you’ll notice that Michelle is ranking in top SERP’s. Moabutah.info is in the top spots for the broad keywords:
‘moab ut meetings’ : 1 – 10 of about 204,000results
‘moab ut meeting’ : 1 – 10 of about 168,000results
‘moab utah meetings’ : 1 – 10 of about 120,000results
‘moab utah meeting’ : 1 – 10 of about 95,900results
‘moab ut event planning’ : 1 – 10 of about 24,400results
Mix and match the above keywords with ‘event’, and you’ll get another site, suspiciously resembling moabutah.info…both are run by the ‘Moab Area Travel Council’.
‘moab utah event’ : 1 – 10 of about 266,000results
‘moab utah events’ : 1 – 10 of about 1,620,000results
Good work Michelle!
She’s obviously built an infrastructure around some solid keywords and refers elements of her silo structure to other elements, building what Goolge will analyze as extremely contextual and amazingly relevant backlinks. Try doing your own keyword research using keyword modifiers like ‘planning’, ‘event calendar’, ‘trip cooridantor’, and you’ll see that Michelle is dominating most of them. She clearly owns this niche (#1 ranked site in a field of competitors 1.6 million strong?) and with her continued efforts will continue to dominate it. She’s using all the right tricks, like incorporating video marketing, using twitter, and providing voluminous amounts of free information.
She’s beating the pants off of the local .gov’s (http://www.moabcity.state.ut.us/) also trying to promote Moab as destination for events and meetings.
It doesn’t matter which site of hers does “better”, it’s about the enhanced performance each site will get as a result of staying on target for their keywords and delivering relevant, useful (and value-added) content to people. This is the essence of Organic Marketing. Being the conduit of relevant information to people seeking it. Once you can do this, your sales and conversions will do nothing but take off! Study what Michelle has done- and incorporate it into your own marketing campaigns. You’ll do nothing but succeed.
J.
