Hot Online Niches For 2014

Gaps in the Market for 2014

As ROAR’s PPC specialist, I’ve spent much of the New Year digging around in Google’s 2013 search data. Call me a geek (you wouldn’t be the first) but I love nothing more than seeing what the Great British public have been looking for on the World Wide Web, and to use this wealth of rich & informative data to chart annual rises, falls and most importantly, to seek out any monetizable gaps in the market. Here are my findings….

Just for Fun

• The most searched for Celebrity in 2013 was….Ms Miley Cyrus. Of course. ROAR’s CEO, Neil Asher, wrote a fantastic blog about the twerker’s amazing ability to generate publicity last year. The Kardashians took second place, with our very own Kate Middy landing in third.

• So far in 2014, the top ‘rising’ celebrity is a young man named ‘Dominic Celaire’ whose video involving a staircase, a young lady and errrr, some rather rude oral activity, set the Social Media sphere on fire a few days ago. Searches for June Brown, lovely old Dot Cotton from Eastenders, have risen by 1200% so far this year, thanks to an appearance on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories.

• The most searched for ‘Business’ brand in 2013 was….Barclays. Followed by Asda, Facebook, TFL and Sainsburys. A popular year for banking, supermarket shopping, social media and transportation.

• The top ‘rising’ brand so far in 2014 is ‘First Choice’ which is probably due to seasonality – January is a hugely popular month for travel (more so than for any other sector) as people receive their new allocation of holiday days from work & start to plan their year ahead. It’s interesting that First Choice (which also includes Thomson Holidays) is the average searcher’s preferred holiday company this year. It’s probably because I used to work there.

Sectors to Avoid

• Autos & Vehicles saw a serious year-on-year dip in impressions. In these austere times, it seems a new car is the bottom of the public’s ‘must-have’ list. I wish that applied to me – we bought a nippy little runaround the week before we found out we were expecting twins and are now having to part-exchange it for a huge minibus. Sigh.

• Very interestingly, at the tail end of last year, searches for ‘online community’ type terms really dropped off, particularly compared to the same time period in 2012. Searches for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Linked In, Plenty of Fish and the rest aren’t rising as they were. If you were thinking of setting up your own online community this year, I’d encourage you to think long and hard.

Monetizable Gaps in the Market

• The Beauty & Fitness sector continues to grow, with searches increasing every year, particularly in the winter months. The breakout verticals are ‘nail art’, ‘tattoos’ and specific types of workout, particularly ‘crossfit’ and ‘insanity workout’. If I were in the position to start a new business, I’d seriously consider looking in to these areas as there are huge opportunities to be had. Searches for ‘crossfit’ for example have grown by 60% already in 2014 and there’s next to no paid search advertising against relevant terms. A friend of mine opened up a Crossfit box recently and is raking it in.

• People love a good quote. The ‘Wisdom Quotes’ page on Facebook, which features regular status updates like “Do it now. Sometimes later becomes never” has got over 2 million likes. The breakout genre of quote from last year according to Google’s data were ‘Swag Quotes’ which is a wildly popular tag on Tumblr and are basically sayings from the young, hipster youth of today’s Miley generation. Things like ‘My back is not a voice mail. Say it to my face bitch’ and ‘P.E.M.D.A.S. Please Excuse My Dope Ass Swag’. I have no idea either. There’s a gap here though – millions of annual quote-related searches, and almost no-one bidding on the terms. Set up a quote site, drive loads of traffic to it and monetize with advertising? Word up.

• Searches in the Food and Drinks industry are also on the up, with 2013’s numbers for ‘Cooking & Recipes’ type terms surpassing 2012’s. With shows like The Great British Bake Off generating better viewing figures than the X Factor, cooking up a storm is definitely in the nation’s psyche. ‘Cake’ was the most popular term last year. I suspect my own search activity contributed heavily to that. The rising star of 2014 is ‘pulled pork recipe’. Any pig farmers reading this could be in for a porker of a year. Boom.

• Over the past few years, due to the economic climate, people have commonly decided to stay where they are and make home improvements, rather than move. 2013’s search trends compound this, with far more people looking for ‘home and garden’ terms than in 2012. Good old Ikea remains the most searched for brand of the year. It seems people can never have enough plastic ice cube trays. ‘Candles’ are the breakout product of the year with ‘Yankee Candles’ receiving a huge volume of impressions. This little one retails at a whopping £19.49.

It could be there’s room in this market for a cheaper, prettier alternative?

• Compared to 2012, when everyone was reported to be staying at home and contributing to the baby boom, 2013 was a year for getting out and about. Terms like ‘pubs’, ‘bars’, ‘bowling’ and ‘carvery’ are really popular and the trend for ‘local’ results continues to rise as searches for ‘pubs near me’ has increased by 180% so far this year. I’d say that’s the real area for opportunity – capitalising on the SoLoMo (Social, Local, Mobile) revolution for searchers looking to get out and have a good time.

Cheers to that!

Here’s our list of services, should you want any help filling in those gaps!

Libby

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