SEO In Competitive Niches - Is It Worth It?
James Woolley
March 02, 2009
A lot of people decide not to build websites in some of the most popular niches because they know that they will not be able to outrank any of the established authority websites that currently top the rankings. So is this opinion justified or can you compete in these ultra-competitive niches?
Well there's no question that certain niches are extremely competitive and will be almost impossible to rank highly in. Examples of such niches include mortgages, loans, credit cards, etc. If you think you can get near the top of the rankings for some of the most popular keywords in these niches, then you are probably deluding yourself. Even many of the long-tail keywords are hard to rank highly for in these kinds of niches, never mind the most popular keywords.
Of course it is possible to get high rankings in these niches but you have to bear in mind that it could take several years before you start to see any results. If you are going to get high rankings, then you are going to need thousands of good quality backlinks to your website, and even then there's no guarantee of success.
A better approach is to build a website that targets a micro niche within these larger niches. For example rather than creating a general website about loans, you could instead build a website about Detroit home loans, for instance. This micro niche obviously has far less competition and will be much easier to rank highly for in the search engines.
If you do, however, wish to target the most popular niches, then your best bet would be to forget about SEO altogether. These niches are extremely lucrative but there are other ways you can get traffic to your site other than through the search engines.
For instance you could use pay-per-click advertising and simply pay for search engine positioning, or you could pursue free traffic sources. For instance you could create a general mortgage site and just focus on writing articles and blogs and linking back to your main website, or you could write free reports or ebooks which contain links to your site and distribute them all over the internet.
The point is you don't have to rely purely on SEO to get results. In many of the most popular niches, search engine optimization can be a fruitless task because you are competing against so many authority websites that are several years old. So a better idea is to either target smaller micro-niches or forget about SEO and think about how else you can generate free sources of traffic to your website.
For more SEO tips and resources, please click here to find out how to get backlinks and to read more about search engine optimization and positioning.
Well there's no question that certain niches are extremely competitive and will be almost impossible to rank highly in. Examples of such niches include mortgages, loans, credit cards, etc. If you think you can get near the top of the rankings for some of the most popular keywords in these niches, then you are probably deluding yourself. Even many of the long-tail keywords are hard to rank highly for in these kinds of niches, never mind the most popular keywords.
Of course it is possible to get high rankings in these niches but you have to bear in mind that it could take several years before you start to see any results. If you are going to get high rankings, then you are going to need thousands of good quality backlinks to your website, and even then there's no guarantee of success.
A better approach is to build a website that targets a micro niche within these larger niches. For example rather than creating a general website about loans, you could instead build a website about Detroit home loans, for instance. This micro niche obviously has far less competition and will be much easier to rank highly for in the search engines.
If you do, however, wish to target the most popular niches, then your best bet would be to forget about SEO altogether. These niches are extremely lucrative but there are other ways you can get traffic to your site other than through the search engines.
For instance you could use pay-per-click advertising and simply pay for search engine positioning, or you could pursue free traffic sources. For instance you could create a general mortgage site and just focus on writing articles and blogs and linking back to your main website, or you could write free reports or ebooks which contain links to your site and distribute them all over the internet.
The point is you don't have to rely purely on SEO to get results. In many of the most popular niches, search engine optimization can be a fruitless task because you are competing against so many authority websites that are several years old. So a better idea is to either target smaller micro-niches or forget about SEO and think about how else you can generate free sources of traffic to your website.
For more SEO tips and resources, please click here to find out how to get backlinks and to read more about search engine optimization and positioning.
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