What do you guys think of SEO and super competitive niches

[Charles Washington]

I was looking through ebay to se what types of cookie cutter websites are selling over there. There are a TON lingerie sites selling over there.

Looking at the SEO competition, WOW, there are some heavy players. Even the long tails have super high SEO competition. Would you guys try to compete in a niche like that? Is a niche like that even worth trying to break into?

[dburk]

Hi Charles,

The lingerie market is quite large, ~$29 Billion annual sales. It may be worth slogging it out for some top rankings.

[jennypitts]

You know in my opinion it is a double-edge sword. For starters, why do you think they are even up for sale? Easy, a super competitive niche will be extremely hard to handle if you have more than one site. In addition, most people who handle their own SEO and their own promotion may find it too time consuming and overwhelming. Can you be successful in a competitive niche? OF COURSE, that is why there are so many marketers trying to get a piece of the pie. Does it entail LONG and TEDIOUS hours of work? YES...

Now, of course it is important for there to be competition, but unless you have the money, the time and the strive to make it happen, you will get frustrated and re-sell the site. Would I buy one of those? HHHMMM, I'd have to take many things into consideration.

[SEO Training Alliance]

I'd give it a whirl. Word on the grape vine is that the May Day update dropped the weight of internal links, so already dominant sites lost a lot of the long tail power they had through their internal linking structure.

Also, aim for some local phrases. "lingerie + major city"

They tend to have less competition, and the buying intent is still pretty good!

[Eddys Velasquez]

Originally Posted by daedalus1

I'd give it a whirl. Word on the grape vine is that the May Day update dropped the weight of internal links, so already dominant sites lost a lot of the long tail power they had through their internal linking structure.

Also, aim for some local phrases. "lingerie + major city"

They tend to have less competition, and the buying intent is still pretty good!

He's right I was about to tell you that...aim for local and you'll get less competition...if your a beginner I would go ahead and do a less competitive niche to get the ball rolling faster and to start making some money and then once you make money you can leverage that money you made and put it into SEO'ing the sh***t!! out of your lengeire site...haha I don't even know how to spell that right...

Let me know what you decide to to

Your Friend,
Eddys Velasquez

[Brad Callen]

Find the right keywords to target with the site and you will be well on your way. Eddys right about tying in a geographic location with the keyword. Finding the right keywords, sticking to the battle plan, and building high quality back links would be the way to go. When you say even long tail has high competition, what PR, total back links, and domain ages are you up against in the top ten ranking sites?

[Eddys Velasquez]

Originally Posted by Brad Callen

Find the right keywords to target with the site and you will be well on your way. Eddys right about tying in a geographic location with the keyword. Finding the right keywords, sticking to the battle plan, and building high quality back links would be the way to go. When you say even long tail has high competition, what PR, total back links, and domain ages are you up against in the top ten ranking sites?

Brad is totally right about building high quality back links and if you can find a domain name being auctioned at godaddy that has a high pr and a good age you can get it and a new algorithm that google has come out with besides looking for content and quality links they are now looking for "activity"

You can look at it like this...content and quality links are the ingredients to baking the cake and "activity" is the actual HEAT that bakes the cake...

activity is basically the amount of interactivity there is between you and the visitor as in comments, rss subscriptions, duration of stay, how frequent..that is why google spent so much money on google analytics..they are basically stealing all the information they need in order to make sure if your site is good or not by measuring the consistency of traffic and activity that your website gets.

If you can master that I'm pretty sure ..actually I'm positive that you can cut yourself a piece of that pie and make yourself some good money from that competitive niche...

Let me know what you decide to do

[Charles Washington]

Originally Posted by Brad Callen

When you say even long tail has high competition, what PR, total back links, and domain ages are you up against in the top ten ranking sites?

PR7's, 10 year old sites, 15,000-30,000 backlinks

[Aira Bongco]

Hey Charles,

In this instance, you should go for the longtails of the longtails. People who are most likely to buy are more likely to key in a more specific term. Though this works a lot better in the technology niche where you can simply specify the characteristics to get more long tails, I am not that familiar with the lingerie industry. I am pretty sure that you will get some keywords worth ranking for so long as you don't discriminate your keywords.

[lexilexi]

Charles - the question I'd ask is "what resources are at your disposal"? Do you have the time, patience, skills and resources to build something that can compete with the players on all levels? If so, do it. If not, aim for a target that you can hit, and then use the resources generated to aim for a big target. As Eli once said, "you don't get rich ranking for 'mortgage', you get rich developing the assets to be capable of ranking for 'mortgage'.
Sounds like you are doing the right preliminary research though.
The other question is, by the time you have 30,000 links, how many more will the people have that have 30,000 now. The frustrating thing is that the ones that already top the rankings are getting a lot of traffic and therefore may already be acquiring natural links at a pace - as well as working to achieve more. You have to skate to where the puck will be, not to where it is now

[brettb]

I've found it quite easy to get ranked in the fashion niche.

Yes it's competitive but there are endless combinations of garment + colour + person (women's, kid's, adult's etc.).

Many of the cookie cutter sites probably have the same content - if you write original copy you'll easily outrank them. I know this has worked for me in the art gallery niche. Writing original stuff about clothes is hard, so if you can do it then all the better.

Good luck!

[rohnsmith]

in super competitive niche , you have to crack each and every corner of the internet

[williamspd]

In a nutshell: It's the quitting that makes the business fail, not the SEO.

The harder niches and markets are usually where the rewards can be astronomically greater - and this is the holy grail that you need to drive yourself onwards, because ranking in the tougher markets can be a year-long enterprise.

From a stamina and mindset point of view, rather than SEO, I would be asking myself how willing I am to work hard for long hours each week for a whole year without necessarily seeing any real returns.

I'd also be asking myself if I was up to the job of planning my SEO and linkbuilding campaign well enough so that it would be effective.

I would probably decide to build up experience with easier markets first. The experience of earning your stripes in the trenches is invaluable when it comes to tackling the really tough stuff. So I'd look for niche and microniche keywords within or related to the lingerie market.

Let me say this: once you have some experience under your belt, your confidence is a lot higher because you know much more about what is possible and what is not. You'll find yourself looking at a niche, analysing the stats, and knowing immediately whether it's suitable for you to tackle at this point in your business.

It's too easy to demoralise yourself by either a) thinking that all niches are too competitive and so not bothering to try, and b) going gung ho at any niche and then running out of steam and quitting in disappointment.

When starting out, pick a niche that is within your powers. After you have experience, pick niches that are just outside your comfort zone and current abilities, and push yourself to grow and improve.

But you have to have stamina and mindset - slow and steady wins the race, and you have to have the patience and tenacity for the long haul.

Even with autoblogging there is still a whole bunch of tedious stuff to manage on a daily basis, and I have seen people start with great enthusiasm on Day 1 and quit on Day 2. I've also seen people quit on Day 20, Day 60 etc. It's the quitting that makes the business fail, not the SEO. Get your mindset right about not quitting, being in it for the long haul, and giving good content to customers.

I suspect that there are lots of cookie cutter sites on eBay right now because the PLR and MRR membership sites crank them out for members to use and resell - I bet if you check around on eBay you'll find a lot of cookie cutter sites for sale in a lot of other niches. Lingerie might just be one of those niches where newbies can be persuaded to buy a 'done for you' type of cookie cutter business. The fact that you think it is a competitive niche leads me to think that most of these people will fail with their site.

If you were to enter the lingerie market, what would be your USP? Would it be the local markets, perhaps a series of 'SilkLingerieDallas' and 'SatinLingerieChicago' type keywords? Or would it be the ahem, specialist end of the lingerie market?

Who would your customers be? What can you offer and do online that say, shops and department stores can't or won't do?

Can you find a microniche that is underserved at the moment? Perhaps 'cute cat costume New York' is an easier target than 'LaPerla California' etc? The so-called 'plus size' market may still have untapped long tail keywords in it, for example.

[jusin]

Some niches like fashion, health etc are some fields that requires SEO in more productive way. We have to do SEO more ethically.

[MichaelF]

Paul hit the nail on the head. The most important thing in highly competitive niches is the realization and the determination to put in months and months of work with little payoff for your SEO efforts.

Paid traffic would be quicker, but riskier dollar wise.