Taking Advantage of a Competitive Niche
I’ve talked to a number of bloggers who got started out because of an interest in a particular niche or because of a desire to make money, only to find down the road that there are a million other blogs doing the same thing as them. With the constantly increasing number of blogs online, it seems almost impossible to have an impact in a saturated market. I’m sure you’ve read about how you should avoid choosing these crowded industries because of the difficulties you’ll face. Many of you probably blog in competitive niches, and I’m sure some of you would choose a different path if you were to do things over with the knowledge that you have now.
While I completely agree that analyzing the niche is a critical step before launching a new blog, I also see some strong reasons to want to be in a busy and active niche. My primary blog covers topics related to web design. Of course there is no shortage of information already existing on the subject, so yes, it’s not easy to stand out. On the other hand, I have some incredible opportunities that bloggers in smaller, less popular niches simply don’t have.
If you’ve been building your blog for a while, you’re probably not too excited about the idea of giving up and starting over just so that you can choose a less competitive niche. If you haven’t launched your blog yet, maybe the topics that really interest you have also interested thousands of other bloggers. If either of these situations applies to you, you may want to consider simply accepting the challenge that you have in front of you, but recognize the opportunities that come along with this situation.
To start with, blogs in crowded niches have opportunities for:
1. More Links - Since there are more blogs and websites on the subject, it should be easier to build links.
2. More Traffic - Crowded niches provide loads of traffic to the blogs that are popular. With more people interested in your subject, there’s simply a larger potential market.
3. More Subscribers - Blogs in tightly-focused niches often struggle to gain subscribers, but popular blogs in a competitive niche will have huge audiences.
4. More Exposure - Of course there are many ways to get exposure, but a crowded niche can provide plenty of opportunities. There are more blogs to get links from, more blogs to write a guest post for, more social media sites that cover your topics, more chances for search engine traffic, etc.
5. More Advertisers - One of the things I love about blogging in the web design industry is that there are tons of companies that are interested in advertising to designers and developers. There are so many products and services in this niche that it’s not very hard to fill advertising spots with competitive rates.
A Plan for Success in a Competitive Niche
1. Make an Effort to Get Exposure from Other Blogs (Preferably Major Players) in Your Niche
As I mentioned above, there are more opportunities for exposure in a crowded niche, but you’ll need to make them happen. One of my favorite methods is guest posting for other blogs with a similar audience. When I was just getting started with my blog I was pretty active with finding other blogs to write for, including Blogtrepreneur. Over a span of two or three months I wrote about 20 -25 posts for other blogs. While I didn’t see a huge response from any post in particular, all of them added together to lead to more subscribers, some valuable links, and the one thing I didn’t really expect, some great contacts that helped me to build a strong network of other bloggers. I think many bloggers don’t pursue guest posting because of the added effort and time that it takes, but I highly recommend it and I think you’ll find that it’s well worth the time.
In addition to writing guest posts, getting links and mentions from other blogs is extremely valuable. Link exchanges are generally not going to work with anyone besides new bloggers that are also trying to build there audience, so if you want to get a link from a more popular blog you’ll have to give them a good reason. Some blogs publish weekly or monthly link posts that cover relevant topics for their readers, and many of them are open to suggestions if you have a post that you think is worthy.
Linkbait and social media is another popular combination, and one that I personally like very much. Most major social media sites have categories that cover the most popular and saturated niches, plus there may also be some niche-specific social media sites that would provide a targeted audience for you.
Whatever method you choose, you’ll absolutely have to get some valuable exposure to make momentum in a crowded niche. Choose the method that you think will work the best for you.
2. Take Advantage of Community Sites, Forums, and Niche Social Media Sites
One of the things I love about being in a crowded niche is that there are so many places for me to reach a targeted audience that may be interested to what I cover at my blog. Take some time to find the most active community sites in your niche and make an effort to become an active member. All of these types of sites can help you to make some strong connections and get some interested visitors to your blog. Less popular niches will not usually have these opportunities, so make the most of them.
3. Use Major Social Media Sites
While niche social media sites are a great opportunity to get targeted visitors, major sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon will have the potential to send a much higher volume of traffic. The traffic you get from the major social media sites will not be as targeted, but the huge numbers can make up for that. Especially if you’re looking to build links or sell ad space, major social media will be important. In the case of selling ad space, social media can help to get your traffic higher and the inbound links will help bring even more search engine traffic, so in time it can help to increase your ad revenue because of the higher traffic.
4. Be Different
Every blogger needs to have a plan for standing out from other blogs, but even more so in a crowded niche. While there may be hundreds of other bloggers covering the same topics as you, if you can take a unique angle or find your own approach, you will be ahead of 90% of the other bloggers. Find something specific that you can do differently or better than others in your niche, and make that your trademark.
5. Identify Monetization Opportunities
One of the most appealing reasons to get into a crowded niche is the amount of money that the leading blogs are making. Of course, for every one blog that’s making good money, there’s probably 50 or 100 that are making nothing or have already given up. In many cases, those who aren’t able to capitalize were unsuccessful because they choose the wrong methods and strategies for monetization.
In crowded niches there will typically be more options for making money, but the work may also be harder. For example, I mentioned earlier the abundance of potential advertisers in the web design niche, but there are also plenty of opportunities for the advertisers. They can choose to buy an ad or your blog or on any one of a few hundred others. As a result, you may not be able to demand as much, and you may have to work a little bit to keep your ad spots filled.
The ability to recognize the most profitable opportunities will separate the successful from the unsuccessful. A recent example is Max Davis who purchased Blogging Experiment. In Max’s first month with the blog he increased revenue from $1,826 to $5,021 without increasing expenses. Max is an experienced website owner and he does this type of thing as a business, so he knows how to recognize monetization opportunities.
6. Build a Network
Networking is important for all bloggers, but in a crowded niche a strong network can help to quickly elevate your status in the niche. Those of us who blog in very popular and common niches have the opportunity to network with an almost unlimited number of other bloggers. Simply start getting involved at community websites, forums, niche social media sites, and the comments section of other blogs.
What’s Your Experience?
Do you blog in a competitive niche? What have you found to be the advantages and disadvantages of being in this niche?
This is an interesting take on starting a blog in a competitive niche. Normally, I would think that doing so would make it difficult to succeed in that niche, but you’ve painted a very positive picture for how to succeed. Nicely done.
You know the key to great effective marketing is the age old maxim “find your market first” and I think any crowded niche has to represent a market. If you are only selling to the other marketers! So personally I go for the crowded competitive niches every time so I have the best networking opportunities. You can always cut through if your knife is sharp enough!
The information on crowded blogs was very enlightening, informative and thought-provoking.Great tips! Thanks!
Very nice information.
I had also thought of going the other way.
But decided to be on a competitive niche, indeed exposure is generally not bad.
Eric
Hey Steven - awesome post (and sorry for the lack of commenting around here).
Some people think that a competitive niche is a saturated niche, however that simply is not the case. As you said, a competitive niche brings with it the chance for higher revenues (due to the larger captive audience), and greater recognition.
Take the MakeMoneyOnline blog scene for example. Initially, from what I’ve read from Darren, it took Problogger time to gather momentum. Now with the amount of bloggers out there, there are more people to target, and it seems that people who start a blog, get 100 RSS subscribers fairly quickly.
Obviously there are downsides such as over-crowding and the extreme competition in search engine rankings for example, but good marketing can overcome this.
Adnan,
You’re right, not every competitive niche is saturated. I think I tend to use those terms together when they do have different meanings. For me it also comes down to confidence. Yes, I know I’m in crowded niche, but I believe that I’ll work harder and find a way to have some success while many others will give up.
The most competitive niche today which every blogger (or new blogger) tries to build is “make money online” blog… but i think some diff
Bloggers should blog about what they are passionate about. What they love to do. Not just see how much a niche pays
I found this very intriguing and well written, thanks for the skinny. The thing I don’t hear much about in this is crowded niche, is the depth of content. I believe we are all deeper thinkers in this industry looking to make sense of everything that is going on in our lives, including off line business relationships, family and moral questions that effect our bottom lines as well. I believe they all play a part in our profitability as well as our piece of mind. Kudos Marc
I agree with Puneet. Making money onlines are the hits to bloggers. It’s not easy to gain traffic if you’re using that niches. Find various way into gaining more traffics to your blogs. Those tips above might come in handy.
Nice Informative post, will help me a great deal, thanks.
Instead of looking for a competitive niche only another way of looking at it is choosing large niche instead of micro niche to maximize your audience.
Anyway great work on the article. Cheers.
Excellent post. Very thorough articles.. apparently bloggers are targeting making money nowadays.. This is one of great guide that I read, full guide and tips on how to do it.. Congrats.
I really enjoyed this post: as a ghostwriter for business professionals, I’m in an incredibly small and competitive niche market. Tons of people SAY they can do what I can do, and they low-ball jobs so that one gets caught in a price war.
After I read Susan Friedmann’s Riches in Niches: How to Make it Big in a Small Market, I started concentrating on visibility and carefully targeting my online time so my work would show up in front of the clients I wanted to attract. It helped a lot: I’ve seen enough of a boost in my sales that I have been able to drop smaller, lower paying jobs in favor of larger, ongoing, more lucrative projects.
Building a readership is marketing 101. You have the product (the blog), price (free) place (everywhere), and promotion (social networks, other blogs). Because blogs are free (essentially) and can be accessed anywhere with internet, you need to focus on quality posts and getting the word out.
It’s amazing how many people fail to utilize one of the easiest methods to differentiate their product: themselves! Interject yourself and your personality as much as possible. Only you have your ideas, your face, and your sense of humor. Take advantage of it.