In February 2020, I set out to dominate 1 single niche doing print on demand on TeePublic. The goal was to upload 15 designs per day, every day. Of course, that’s lofty and demanding.
I may have fallen short of the goal for the month, but the insight I gained in those few weeks have changed my process moving forward, forever.
The three things I learned from attempting to dominate that 1 niche are
- Put your keyword everywhere
- Compete against yourself
- Saturate your niche
Put your keyword everywhere
So first piece of advice: keywords everywhere. No, not that browser plugin that used to be free. I mean whatever tag or keyword you’re trying to target, you’re going to want to put that in as many places as you possibly can without becoming robotic.
Of course, we all know to put it in the tag slot. Some people try to put their main tag in the title of the product as well. But not many people are putting that keyword in theirĀ store display name as well, which works when you’re doing a store with 1 niche.
I found this out by doing a search for my keyword, andĀ 28/30 of the designs on the first page were from this brand new account I made.
Why?
The main tag was also the first word of the store display name.
For the other 2 designs, one had the search term as the first word of the title as well as the main tag…and the other design was mine from another account.
By including my main search query in the name of the account, I kicked off aged accounts from the first page of the search results.
If you’re familiar with SEO, this was the print on demand equivalent of using an exact match domain.
Compete against yourself
This makes total sense on both marketplaces where you can create multiple accounts as well as places like Merch by Amazon where you can set different brands on one account.
Instead of starting with a blank slate and working fromĀ zero, start your new store in a niche you know sells well because you already have designs selling well in that niche!
And instead of starting with a blank canvas, recreate or reupload your designs that are selling onto that account.
What you’re basically doing is copycatting yourself. And whether they buy from one of your accounts or another, that money is still going to your bank account.
If you think this is some sort of scummy tactic, think of a company like Procter and Gamble. They have dozens of laundry detergent brands that compete with each other for your dollar. They’re all targeted at different demographics and socioeconomic groups, so no matter what brand people buy, P&G make money.
They’re guaranteeing more shelf space.
Saturate your niche
In other words, dominate. The goal is to get to the point where if someone thinks of starting doing designs in your niche, they look it up and see you with hundreds of designs. They simply back the fuck away and come up with some other niche to explore.
Not only that but if someone wants to buy merch like a sticker or shirt in your niche, you have more “shelf space” and chances for them to choose your design.
Why this works
Again, I’m going to take some of the nomenclature and my knowledge of SEO into why I think keyword stuffing and saturating your niche works.
When you have a store that’s
- uploading a boatload of designs all for the same tag
- their name includes that tag
- their store description includes that tag
- every design includes that keyword in the name and description
they’re probably “the authority” for whatever that tag or keyword is.
Again, if you have knowledge of SEO, most of this stuff doesn’t work for websites anymore (exact match domains and keyword stuffing). However, these search engines aren’t as sophisticated as Google or Bing.
If you’re interested in dominating a niche, it’s best to start with a new account. You can sign up for a new TeePublic account by clicking here.
If you’re interested in joining a community of people chatting about print on demand, affiliate marketing, SEO, and all-around making money online, join my Discord server by clicking here.