Competing with Amazon, NexTag etc...

[FlyinPianoMan]

Are these sites hard to beat for niche items? A lot of the searches that I do seem to bring up these sites as the top sites. I see that they don't have many back links to the page, or aren't particularly well optimized for SEO as my site would be...are they hard to compete with?

[tjcocker]

In my experience not really. Some less so than others, but a few are hard to get top spot. You might have to settle for #2 or #3. In the end it depends on WHEN you want to beat them. At some point you will be golden.

[JMartin]

Overall, I don't thing they are too tough. I've beat Amazon and Nextag without any real work. Probably depends a little on the pages.

Personally, I like seeing Amazon/Nextag at the top of a search.

[InternetMarketingIQ]

Think of it from another perspective, if they were so easy to beat then why are they consistently coming up ahead of most everyone else?

A lot of people like to talk the talk.

[FlyinPianoMan]

Interesting what you guys say. I thought I remember reading xFactor's book and seeing that it would be easy to beat them, or somewhere in his posts...I'm just not sure where I saw it, and that's why I'm trying to clarify.

[StevenR]

Most of the pages that rank for product names / long tail keyword phrases (by Amazon, Nextag, eBay etc.) are riding on the authority of their sites. Not because the page itself is optimized well.

So, if you get an exact match domain name, do proper on-page optimization and some basic link building you will generally beat them out of their spot.

/Steven

[tjcocker]

Originally Posted by StevenR

Most of the pages that rank for product names / long tail keyword phrases (by Amazon, Nextag, eBay etc.) are riding on the authority of their sites. Not because the page itself is optimized well.

So, if you get an exact match domain name, do proper on-page optimization and some basic link building you will generally beat them out of their spot.

/Steven

Yeah, what he said. Some of them are surprisingly hard to beat, but many are very easy. Also, it basically lets you know that no other IM'ers or authority sites have already dominated that niche. If you do see a lot of well optimized sites right under amazon or nextag then figure out why they aren't beating them first, then try to do it better yourself. Or move on. I'm not really speaking from a vast amount of experience, but it always pays in the long run to try something and learn from it even if you fail.

[HCLee]

My niche site just beat Nextag from no. 2 to no. 1 spot so it can be done and since I had already done so much back linking I tried something different and it worked. It's onsite SEO. I reviewed all possible areas to improve on my site and made some changes.