5 Challenges Niche Brands Face in Being Discovered Online (Pt. 1)

Discover the unique hurdles niche brands must overcome to be found by customers online.

While the internet is abundant with visibility and engagement opportunities for brands, the digital playing field is by no means level. Niche brands face certain challenges that can make it more difficult for them to reach customers than their enterprise counterparts, especially when it comes to search.

Think of sports leagues. A Major League Baseball team like the Houston Astros has the resources, media coverage, and name recognition needed to grow a large fan base. On the other hand, a Minor League Baseball team like the Sugar Land Space Cowboys might have a smaller dedicated fan base, but they don’t draw the same crowds, merch sales, or brand sponsorships. 

That doesn’t mean minor league teams can’t be successful, though. They just have to approach games and promotions with a different strategy. The same goes for niche brands — it’s all about adjusting your strategy to address the unique problems of having a smaller brand.

To address those problems, you first need to know what they are. In part one of this series, we break down the five biggest hurdles niche brands face online, so you know where to target your efforts. In part two, releasing next month, we’ll give you our top tips for overcoming these hurdles and hitting SEO home runs. 

What Is a Niche Brand?

When we talk about niche brands at GPO, we’re referring to specialized brands that meet one or more of the following criteria: 

• A small geographic footprint (regional brands or brands only serving one city)
• Unique, exclusive brands catering to a specific skill or interest (like violin bows)
• Brands with a knowledge barrier to entry or discovery

Your favorite locally owned and operated burrito restaurant is a niche brand (a specialized brand with a small geographic footprint), while Chipotle is the enterprise equivalent.  

1. Fewer Authoritative Backlinks

Backlinks, links from other websites to yours, are critical to SEO content. These links help prove your website is valuable and influence your domain authority (see next problem). But not all backlinks are the same. A backlink from a reputable, trustworthy site will improve your domain authority, while links from spammy websites can harm it.

Backlinks need to come from sites with traffic and authority, but these sites are more likely to link to a Big Name than a niche brand. Let’s say someone runs a popular car advice blog. When linking out to a resource on brake problems, do you think they’ll link to Firestone Complete Auto Care or Bob’s Express Brakes in Oshkosh, Wisconsin? 

Without a constant stream of high-quality backlinks, niche brands must work harder to increase their domain authority and rank higher in search.

2. Low Domain Authority

Domain/site authority is a score SEO platforms like Semrush and Moz assign to your website. This score predicts how likely your website is to rank in search results. Domain authority is based on several factors, including the number of authoritative backlinks to your site. The higher your score, the more likely you are to rank.

Many SEO professionals have taken domain authority scores seriously despite Google’s claims they don’t measure authority. However, with the May 2024 Google leak, we can now confirm that authority does play a role in ranking. The Google leak uncovered a “siteAuthority” attribute, showing that Google does consider website authority in its ranking algorithm. While Google’s official site authority might not align exactly with Semrush’s or Moz’s score, it’s still something digital marketers should keep in mind.

Niche brands naturally tend to have lower domain authority scores. Because their websites lack quality backlinks and have lower content volumes, Google doesn’t trust them much. These low authority scores make it more difficult for niche brands to appear in search and get discovered. 

If you’re curious about your site’s domain authority, Semrush offers a free Website Authority Checker to provide insight. 

3. Fewer Offline and Online Mentions

Mentions are another area where smaller brands struggle. Niche brands naturally get fewer mentions online because there are fewer mentions of them offline. Taking it back to the baseball example from earlier, what team are you more likely to hear folks chatting about in a sports bar — the Astros or the Space Cowboys? 

But what do mentions have to do with SEO? The Google Leak we mentioned in the previous section also stressed the importance of entity mentions. Mentions of entities (people, brands, organizations, etc.) can influence search rankings, similar to backlinks. Google is looking for mentions of your brand on authoritative, relevant websites. If your local burrito restaurant is mentioned by name in an article on Bon Appétit, that could be a huge SEO boost. 

While your online presence is essential, your offline presence also influences it. Folks still frequently discover brands through commercials, billboards, and other traditional marketing channels. They see your restaurant’s print ad in the newspaper, decide to try it, and write a review on their food blog. However, niche brands are limited in offline mention opportunities because they don’t have the budget or resources to buy offline advertising that would trigger online activity. 

Niche brands also need to rely more heavily on non-branded keywords for their SEO strategy since they don’t have those offline mentions to drive searches containing their brand name. 

4. Young or New Website 

Niche brands tend to have younger websites than their enterprise counterparts, whether they are entirely new brands or just new to the online game. Google likes to see experience, and domain age is a ranking factor. The older your website is, the more likely you are to have a robust backlink profile and a higher content volume. 

A niche brand with a younger website will struggle to get higher rankings, especially early on. Think of it like starting kindergarten while other brands are about to receive their doctorate degrees. It’ll take a lot of hard work and time, but with a constant stream of high-quality, optimized content, you’ll be graduating and flying through grade levels. 

5. Fewer or No Content Resources

Planning, writing, editing, and optimizing website content like blogs, product descriptions, and landing pages takes a lot of time and resources. Niche brands are small, which means they have smaller budgets and teams. Sometimes, the marketing team is just a one-person show. It can feel impossible for one person to compete with marketing teams that have dozens of dedicated writers and SEO professionals. 

Enterprise brands have the resources needed to maintain consistent writing and publishing schedules, while a niche brand may be able to produce only a blog every few months. However, niche brands can get a helping hand from content companies. Even with a limited budget, you can contract for at least a blog or two a month to stay on a consistent schedule and continue to give Google the high-quality content they want. 

Give Your Niche Brand a Fighting Chance with GPO

The SEO playing field might not be level, but that doesn’t mean your niche brand has to be a benchwarmer. GPO has helped both niche and enterprise brands dominate search results to gain more visibility, drive site traffic, and increase conversions. 

We know how to strategize for a regional burrito chain compared to a national fast-casual restaurant — and have done so successfully. You don’t have to take our word for it; the numbers speak for themselves. We’ve helped a Midwest burrito chain with only three locations achieve more than 20k monthly blog visits — despite having a domain authority score of just 24. 

Compare that to the Qdoba newsroom site, which has an authority score of 61 but only 9k monthly visits, and you can see it’s possible for niche brands to outperform their big-name counterparts in search. All it takes is some expertise and high-quality content, which you can get when you partner with GPO. Get in touch with our team today so we can chat strategy and help your brand get found. 

Be sure to visit our blog again in October when we share our top strategies for ranking high in search as a niche brand in part 2 of this series. If you’re attending Content Marketing World this fall, you can get our advice in person during our presentation on Wednesday, October 23, at 10:10 a.m.