I was reading an article on SEOmoz recently, which listed 5 reasons why it is better to be big and popular than small and niche. Obviously, as the majority of our travel clients work in niche travel markets and have received pretty good results from our SEO and PPC programmes, this initially irked me. Then I read on and discovered the article is more based around the technical issues of microsites rather than a general online business model. None the less, the defensive seeds had been planted in my mind and in no time at all I had compiled a list of 5 reasons why, from an SEO perspective, supplying a niche travel market can be cause for celebration!

1) The long tail of keywords and travel is virtually built for the niche market!

The concept of the near infinite number of holiday ideas and keywords used to search for them is perfect for niche sites. People are becoming amazingly specific in their hunt for the holiday tailored for them. If they’re looking for wine tour holidays in a specific region of France, and it’s a choice between you – who have optimised for the content you happen to specialise in – and a big company that happens to have one such package on their site, you will have a greater chance of being found first. You’ll also have a greater chance of being the one who wins the client simply because it’s your speciality, while it’s just another package for your larger, more generic rival.

2) It’s far easier to compete

The travel market on the internet is incredibly competitive and more and more people see the web as their first port of call when looking for holidays. Any startup company looking to sell holidays all over the world will need a lot of money and even more patience and know-how to stand any chance of competing with the big guys. But thanks to the aforementioned long-tail (of travel), you can appear for search enquiries that the big fish will miss out on, and you will have far less competition because your niche is, well – nichey! And if any of the big guys do appear for your keywords you can:

3) Beat the massive travel companies with your dazzling specialist knowledge

As touched upon earlier, there are websites which list holiday locations all over the globe. The sites are so big they list millions of pages full of hotels – it’s virtually impossible for sites of this size to provide in-depth detail about every holiday they offer. Yet that’s what people want more than anything when looking for and booking a holiday – good, solid information that makes them want to travel with you. With that in mind, your website devoted to holidays in Provence can provide everything your customers need (hotel information, where to shop, where the best places to eat are, etc.) while your bigger rivals generally only provide name of hotel, short description and offer a price. And if you seem the expert, appear trustworthy and exciting, then you may benefit because:

4) People are less price sensitive with niche holidays

The peace of mind, expertise and service offered by a niche holiday provider makes customers confident and comfortable enough that often price becomes a less important factor in their purchasing process. In clearly defined niches, for example Cuban Salsa dance holidays, people are often so pleased to have found a site that caters to their exact specifications that they quite often focus more on the experience than the price.

5) Niche travellers tend to be loyal, passionate and offer excellent word of mouth marketing

Niche travellers love their enthusiasm: be it scuba diving, overland adventures or wine tasting and they like to visits sites that match their enthusiasm and knowledge. If you can provide the right experience for them (and you should be able to if you provide plenty of details about each experience), there is every chance you will be their first port of call next time they are looking for a holiday. Niche travellers are often fiercely loyal.

But there’s another big advantage here, and that is that niche travel enthusiasts love to share their enthusiasm with others. So if you’ve given them the holiday of a lifetime, the chances are that they’re going to tell other people. And these days telling other people doesn’t just mean mentioning it in the pub or to family – it means online forums, online communities devoted to their hobby, Facebook groups full of your target audience and their blogging buddies. This is the kind of publicity the big guys rarely get because they can’t offer the same level of excellent service and expertise to a market so passionate about their enthusiasms!

So there we have it – 5 reasons to celebrate your niche. The loyalty inherent in this market also means that while many all-encompassing holiday companies will struggle to build a fan club, due to the vicious competition, you are likely to pass the test of time. So consider that next time you find yourself enviously eyeing the bigger internet travel companies – the niche is to be celebrated, not lamented.