ABA - Choosing a Niche and Analysing Competitors

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ABA - Ask BuSo Anything Intro
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INDEX (Still playing around with the best way to format this, subject to change...)
How do you personally choose your niches?

• Answered by secretagentdad, by ___, by ___...

When is it time to give up and try a new niche if I'm not seeing any results?

• Answered by Ryuzaki,

When you sit down and say "Alright, time to build a new site," what is your starting point?

• Answered by StackCash,

Which metrics are you using in order to determine if a niche(specific keyword) is good to go or are you just deciding by feeling/experience?

• Answered by Romac

What are the most important steps when you look into a new niche: What`s your process(are you scrapping the serps? Do just take a look at the competition(step by step would be cool!)) to determine if this keyword is worth a try?

• Unanswered

When do you consider that a niche has "strong competition"?

• Answered by Devil Anse

When analyzing a SERP for a given keyword, what type of currently ranked sites signify that you should instantly stay-away (.gov / .edu / big ecomm pages) etc? Vice-versa what type of sites signify instant wins? What if both of these site types appear on the SERP?

• Answered by thehobbster,

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Choosing a Niche & Analysing Competition
This is where most people get started, so it's also a good place for ABA to start. We'll leave the interpretation open-ended as to what falls under the umbrella of "choosing a niche" and "competition analysis".

If you have any questions or suggestions relating to the idea of an ABA itself, please take that to the discussion thread. Thanks to @Romac for helping to prepare this thread, and thanks in advance to everyone who's going to participate in this experiment.

Alright! With all of that out of the way, let's get it rolling...

What do you need to know about choosing a niche or analysing your competitors?

 

[Rage]

Ok, I'll start the ball rolling..

My question, How do you personally choose your niches? do they all generally gravitate around one large niche (such as technology), or do you pick random topics and delve deeper, or do you personally have to have a working knowledge of that niche. etc etc

 

[SheIsaBlogger]

When is it time to give up and try a new niche if I'm not seeing any results?

 

[Jarred]

When you sit down and say "Alright, time to build a new site," what is your starting point? Where do you head to research/get ideas for potential niches? And when you do settle on a few possibilities, what metrics do you use to decide if the niche is viable or not?

 

[secretagentdad]

Ok, I'll start the ball rolling..

My question, How do you personally choose your niches? do they all generally gravitate around one large niche (such as technology), or do you pick random topics and delve deeper, or do you personally have to have a working knowledge of that niche. etc etc

Never use the word random. There are lots of great reasons for picking something or not picking something. There are a million and one reasons to get into something. If you're classifying your action as random you're probably doing something wrong.
_________________________________________________________________________________


My process is always the same. I look for undeserved demand. Search results can be extremely reflective of undeserved demand.

I ask my self.

How useful are the search results for an average searcher?
How valuable is the traffic in this niche?
How much traffic is there?
Do I feel that I have the ability to better serve said demand then existing players?
What would it cost me to do so?


Even if you're not interested in building your business around gaming search engines you can learn a lot about the competition levels relative to profit opportunities in a vertical by looking at the search results.

At the end of the day I'm really just looking for gaps where I can offer a better solution for peoples problems (even if its just higher quality more informative articles) for less then I think the traffic will end up costing me.

If you're offering best in class value to people building "traction" becomes a matter of semantics and execution.

 

[Ryuzaki]

When is it time to give up and try a new niche if I'm not seeing any results?

Further probing into this question with more questions can expose sub-scenarios that will change the answer.

For instance, "Why am I not seeing results?"

• Is it a case of choosing a niche that has no demand?
• Is it a case of choosing a niche in which you aren't prepared to compete?
• Did you choose a niche that was too macro for you? Can you go more micro instead?
• Are your methods ineffective?
• Are you looking for instant gratification and not sticking it out long enough to see results?

Demand Problems

"Join the Mobile Infantry and save the Galaxy. Service guarantees citizenship. Would you like to know more?"​

​

"Young people from all over the globe are joining up to fight for the future."​

If you've chosen a niche with no demand, can you create demand by educating your potential demographic about a problem they aren't aware that they have, and present the solution at the same time (probably based on convenience more than anything else)?

"They're doing their part. Are you? Join the Mobile Infantry and save the world. Service guarantees citizenship."​

Self-Sabotage Through Ambition

"Sir, I don't understand. Who needs a knife in a nuke fight anyway? All you gotta do is push a button, sir."​

If you aren't ready for the big time, you can keep your architecture in place that can tackle the macro-niche at large, but start with a more narrow focus by creating a silo on your site. Instead of trying to own the Widgets niche right off the rippy, you could narrow down to Blue Ceramic Widgets and start moving horizontally from there. When you have enough breadth, creating more depth and tackling the whole vertical will be much easier.

"The enemy can not push a button... if you disable his hand. "​

Their Psychology

​

"To fight the bug, we must understand the bug."​

Maybe your niche is fine and you just don't know how to market your stuff to the right people. Before you give up here, you can educate yourself first and pivot your efforts to see if you can still win here. If this is your problem, it will remain your problem no matter the niche.

"You're some sort of big, fat, smart-bug, aren't you?"​

Your Psychology

​

"I only have one rule. Everyone fights. No one quits. You don't do your job, I'll shoot you myself. You get me?"​

Another problem that will remain no matter the niche is one of perseverance, vision, and impatience. Your personal psychology is one of the most important factors to succeeding in any niche and business as a whole. If you can't tough it out, slog in the hours, create systems, and wait for a tree to grow from a sapling, then you're done before you start. If your vision is too small, surrounded by psychological blockages that create a fence around your perception, how can you ever operate on the level (and a larger level) than that of your competitors? And how do you destroy those blockages? With experience, knowledge, wisdom, and strategy.

"Anytime you think I'm being too rough, anytime you think I'm being too tough, anytime you miss-your-mommy, QUIT! You sign your 1248, you get your gear, and you take a stroll down Washout Lane. Do you get me?"
​

I, for one, will never walk down Washout Lane.

*This post brought to you by Ryuzaki and Starship Troopers.

 

[secretagentdad]

I want some of what ever this guys on ^^

 

[algospider]

Cool replies so far! @secretagentdad @Ryuzaki

Here is my question:

• Which metrics are you using in order to determine if a niche(specific keyword) is good to go or are you just deciding by feeling/experience?
• What are the most important steps when you look into a new niche: What`s your process(are you scrapping the serps? Do just take a look at the competition(step by step would be cool!)) to determine if this keyword is worth a try? -> reference to @secretagentdad post: Can you quantify "undeserved demand"? I also would love to hear an example.
• When do you consider that a niche has "strong competition"?

Appreciate your answers!

 

[stackcash]

Question:

When analyzing a SERP for a given keyword, what type of currently ranked sites signify that you should instantly stay-away (.gov / .edu / big ecomm pages) etc? Vice-versa what type of sites signify instant wins? What if both of these site types appear on the SERP?

 

[stackcash]

Answer:

When I'm ready to start a new site and find a niche that I can build out, I ask myself these questions:

• What are my hobbies, and what niches do I "think" can make me money?
• Do these topics interest me?
• Can I write at least 50 articles on the topic?
• Of those 50 articles, can 5 to 10 be the most informative, best, most-helpful pieces on their given keywords?
• Once those 50 articles are live, will I have the motivation to continue writing a few articles a week after that. Will there be enough information for me to expand upon?

Once I identify this isn't something I'll get bored with - I take a look at the revenue possibilities.

• Brainstorm a few keyword searches - do ads show up on Google? Are the ads highly relevant to the searches I used?
• With those same searches - take a look at the first two pages of the SERPs. Are there sites that are currently making money through the sale of a product or service? Are there sites making money through advertising on their pages? What are they advertising? Is it similar to the ads that showed up on Google?
• Click through the ads on Google and banner ads on the websites. Do these companies offer affiliate programs?

Once I identify that there is money to be made, I do my keyword research. If I can find 2-3 "long goal" keywords that I can work to over time, 10-15 medium keywords that I can win in 1-3 months, and a few hundred keywords that I can win in 1-2 weeks..... then it's a niche that I'll tackle.

Of course, I'm approaching this from a long-term "whitehat" viewpoint. There are other shadier methods that this doesn't apply to specifically.

When you sit down and say "Alright, time to build a new site," what is your starting point? Where do you head to research/get ideas for potential niches? And when you do settle on a few possibilities, what metrics do you use to decide if the niche is viable or not?

 

[thehobbster]

When analyzing a SERP for a given keyword, what type of currently ranked sites signify that you should instantly stay-away (.gov / .edu / big ecomm pages) etc? Vice-versa what type of sites signify instant wins? What if both of these site types appear on the SERP?

I like to answer this question and have before, because I feel like people get intimidated by .gov/edu/etc at first glance and immediately throw an idea out the window. It's not unjustified but most edu and gov pages are ranking solely on the power of the domain at large and not the page itself.

Let's say I want to build a site about "ethanol biofuel" or some term like that because it gets a decent exact search volume and high CPC on Adsense and I think I can make some local pages later and collect leads.

I search it and the top 3 rankings are from... FutureFarming.gov, UniversityOfKentucky.edu, and Amazon.com. Do I say "screw it?" and move on? No, I fire up the ole trusty Market Samurai to take a look at the metrics of the top 10.

Turns out, these random ass deep pages are really only ranking because they are on those top level domains and no other reason. They barely have any backlinks to the page itself, they aren't optimized worth a damn, and they are really just random, semi-orphaned pages on the domain. And I'm wanting to build a huge authority entirely about the topic, with on-page optimization and all the SEO tricks I know. So do I bail on it? Not in this example. If it was the bigger pages with a lot of links on those domains, yeah, I wouldn't try. But you can spot the ones that can be tackled, and that can result in a nice bit of cashflow.

Have I actually pulled this off? Yes, and the homie Stackcash (OP) has actually seen me do it.

As far as an instant win? Not sure. I don't do deep keyword research that unveils these kind of opportunities. I tend to choose more selfishly out of entertainment and interest so that I don't get bored while bootstrapping the early stages.

 

[Calamari]

^^^ nailed it!

Instant wins?

I wish.

But if I see weak affiliates, q&a sites, forums, and other pages that rank on DA alone, I'm going in.

 

[Romac]

Which metrics are you using in order to determine if a niche(specific keyword) is good to go or are you just deciding by feeling/experience?

I'll take a swing at this one.

I don't get too scientific so this response might not be all that actionable for everyone. First and foremost when I'm looking at a keyword it has to pass this test...

"Can I write an interesting article about this?"

If not, I'll usually skip it. If I can come up with an interesting angle for it, it will get much better CTR in the serps which should also help it rank better. As an extension of that one of the first things I look for when I'm looking at my competitors for a keyword is to see what THEY are writing about it. If it's all really boring and dry stuff AND I can come up with a more interesting angle then I'm 2/2 so far... I want to stand out in the serps to get people's attention, and I want to create content that my audience will share.

Next up I'll start to look at why they're ranking. The beauty with the serps for the most part is that we can see WHAT is working quite easily. Answering WHY something is ranking is a bit trickier. You can look at all the metrics but they don't tell the whole story and - let's face it - they're just rough guidelines that are kind of pulled out of asses - so I don't put too too much stock in most metrics. Together they can tell some of the story but there's always sites in the serps where I'm like "Why is that there...?" so I try not to get too discouraged or encouraged by metrics so I'm more of a "go by feel" guy. Still, there are a lot of easy wins out there and I'll identify those when most of the sites ranking have low metrics, aren't optimized for the target KW, and seem to be ranking there simply based on the fact that they exist. Those are ones I should be able to skip ahead of relatively easily.

I'm sure somebody who takes a more scientific approach can answer better. I would rather put up 100 interesting and useful articles for 100 keywords then spend time digging around and doing tons of analysis to try to pick 25 easy keywords. I don't consider it a "throwing shit at the wall" approach because I build content websites, and they need content, and if that's GOOD content then it tends to help my site across the board even if it's not a keyword I'm going to necessarily rank for.

 

[Devil Anse]

When do you consider that a niche has "strong competition"?

Nice thread, pulled me out of lurker mode.

You've said "niche" and not "keyword." I'll typically start searching random topics and terms I come up with in my head in the niche. If I come up with them, others are likely using the same terms when searching so it's going to be representative in general. What shows up over and over again?

• If it's huge sites like HuffPo, LiveStrong, and those types, I may not freak out entirely but that's definitely strong competition.

• If it's Government and Education sites, that's going to be rough on typical long-tails. If I'm going after that specific keyword though, I won't be as concerned. I consider this strong competition as well.

• If it's perfectly niche'd mini-authorities that are dominating all of the searches, and they are very active in social media and are constantly being referenced and shared in the community on Reddit, Forums, Blogs, etc... that's going to be even harder than the two scenarios above.

I say that the last scenario will be harder because the first two are winning based on just having killer domain metrics and tons of content. They take down a lot of long-tail traffic just on those merits alone. The last one is winning because there's a very focused person or group that's eyeballing, pivoting, growing, changing, and staying on top of the niche specifically. There's no accident here. If you come in like the new shining star on the block, they'll steal your shine by copying you. They may even offer you a guest post and you'll eagerly accept, but what you've done is position them above you in the eyes of the community. You're dealing with marketers here, not a random cog in a giant machine that doesn't realize you're there. They will adjust course as you do and not remain static. This is actual competition that you can't just sneak up on unnoticed.

Remove the three scenarios above and you're looking at a situation with no real competition. So have you found some killer untapped market, or are you about to waste your time?