Aaron Wall is one of the most popular SEO bloggers. His Alexa rank is under 2,000. He writes:
If you think about the success of this site, much of it is due to being one of the first bloggers covering SEO stuff. Start a blog about SEO today and it would be much harder to gain traction. I also was one of the first SEOs to make publicly available extensions for modifying search results and aggregating data via widgets.
Too many people are starting sites in markets that are very saturated. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But realize that you are making it more difficult for yourself to make money.
Yes, being passionate about your niche is important. However, if you’re passionate about multiple niches, pick the one that’s less saturated and competitive. Also, you can develop a passion for less saturated niches. This takes getting out of your comfort zone and having a teachable attitude.
So, find a niche that’s small but growing and be one of the first to cover it.
Or be one of the first to do something that provides great value for your niche. For example, many niches don’t have a top 100 blogs list. Create one for your niche and you’ll get links, traffic, and excellent branding.
How will you create a first-mover advantage for your site?
9 Comments
Add your commentWe recently started up a blog, though I am unsure of how its niche will fit in with the blogging community. It does seem like everyone and their brother is starting one, and many have copy-cat content.
But I commend everyone who tries, because it’s not very easy :)
Reply to this comment
This is true and interesting. There is so much duplicating of content on the net, it seems like everything has been covered!!
Reply to this comment
Aaron is 100% right. But it’s easier said than done. There are many first movers in the blogosphere. But lack of exposure, lack of traffic or/and lack of people’s interest in the topic makes the blog “just another blog”.
Reply to this comment
I don’t know. I hear this advice all the time but I think if you really have something to say then just go for it regardless of how saturated the niche is. I just started a blog in the makr money online type niche which is saturated beyond belief but it’s doing okay.
Reply to this comment
It is truly amazing how saturated some niches are. And it is truly amazing how many people continue to add to the saturation of these niches. Yes, you might be able to become a success in a saturated niche, but you have to do something amazing and be a very special blog to succeed.
Excellent idea about looking at what you are passionate about and find the least saturated niche to start a blog in. Chances are that one of your passions will be in an under served market that is ripe for your taking.
And another excellent point about being the first to create a top 100 list in your niche. Anything to make yourself stand out and be recognized! :)
Reply to this comment
nice tips on this post, thank you for sharing !
Reply to this comment
I like the idea of taking a saturated niche (like SEO for example,) and then creating/focusing on a sort of sub-niche or differentiator.
“Industrial Search Engine Marketing Blog”, for example is one blog I can think of that does this – (optimization techniques aimed at those in the industrial sector.)
Or “SEO Theory” blog, (very strictly just algorithm analysis, testing and the like.)
What if an SEO blog ONLY posted answers to frequently asked questions? I.e. based posts on key word searches like “how to insert special characters in a title tag” to usurp some of the forum placements in the SERPS? And so forth.
Reply to this comment
Great examples. Thanks!
Reply to this comment
[...] a great post and doing a blog outside of internet marketing is great (I’ll admit, it’s even better than doing a blog making [...]
Reply to this comment
Add Your Comment