Crash Course Question - Keyword Research Shows Vertical is Competitive, Should I Enter the Niche?

[Sarge85]

I'm not sure if this is the right board - or maybe the dumb question board - at any rate -

[sidebar]I'm also in the TASS class now and trying read both portions of their course and the crash course as they relate to each other[/sidebar]

I'm in my Niche Research/Market Research phase - or Vertical if you prefer.

What is the benefit of going into a vertical, or even sub-niche within that vertical knowing that there appear to be some high authority sites out there already in it?

For instance - Let's say I'm really into DooDads - it's my passion, there are products to sell, and I really "good" at understanding how DooDads work. I'm looking at a DooDad vertical.

I fire up Ahrefs and find that there are a lot of people selling DooDads too - and have sites with authority well over 50.

I understand one train of thought is that is actually a good thing - it shows there is money to be made selling DooDads.

However the negative Nelly is me is like - well shit, won't these big sites selling DooDads simply suck all my traffic? Where is the virtue is seeing that there are a lot of other sites already far ahead of you?

I would think I'd be happier to see not necessarily a lot of super high domain sites selling DooDads, but rather a bunch of mid-range authority sites. I get I wouldn't want only super low authority - indicating perhaps there just isn't enough in the veritcal/niche to make a a go of it.

 

[voLdie]

Focusing in on long tail keywords is important. The big guys often leave a lot on the table.

Example:

I focused on an article "best doodads 2019" you can mix into the article other keywords like "cheap", color modifiers and other more specific keywords.

So first you will start ranking for "best doodads 2019" less search volume but even better buyer intent. As time goes on you will gain more authority and BAM now your ranking for just "best doodads" you can even take it to the 1 word keyword. The one word keyword depending on niche often has less buyer intent anyways. Fuck em'.

Say there are branded doodads. You can pump out reviews like "Nike doodads for Woman Review". The money and low comp. is in the long tails.

I used this exact strategy and exited with a fat check multiple times in the same niche starting from scratch each time. There were massive competitors but you can thrive off the small pieces.

A quote from Jonah Hill in War Dogs "Everyone's fighting over the same fucking pie and ignoring the crumbs. I live off the fucking crumbs."

 

[Ryuzaki]

I agree with Voldie. Giant verticals have giant players and tons of searchers. That means there's tons of long-tail searches for you to rank for that aren't as competitive. You can go after the big boy terms many years from now when you're ready to actually compete there.

If you're looking at "Best DooDads" with 9,000 volume and a KD of 70, then you'll never rank it. Same for "What is a DooDadd" with 130,000 volume and a KD of 65.

However, something like "Why do DooDads have FlooFlams on Them" with a search volume of 300 and a KD of 7 is up your alley. If you focus on tons of terms like that, you'll end up with a giant site with giant traffic that attracts good links and eventually you can play with the big authorities.