How can you tell if a niche is saturated?

16 years ago

Hello,
One small thing you can do is check to see just how many google adwords ads there are for your niche and you'll have an idea if the niche is maybe saturated or not.

Mike

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xiaophil

16 years ago

Hi,

I often see people questioning whether a niche is saturated or not and am interested to clarify what is generally meant by this.

The OP is clearly not confusing saturation with competition so what does it mean for a niche to be saturated?

I think that a market (niche or otherwise) is saturated when most everyone in it owns the product in question, and so the sales volume would be very low.

This is clearly not the case with the niche mentioned, and all the others where I see this same question being asked. In fact the opposite is actually true with this niche being enormously popular with a huge sales volume - i.e far from saturated.

So I pose the question to the OP and everyone else, what do you mean when you ask "Is this niche saturated?"

Regards,

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radio

16 years ago

I have a sticky on my monitor that I use as a general rule when deciding whether or not to pursue a niche for eBay sites - a bit different than what you're talking about, but it's been a good rule of thumb for me...

Minimum niche keyword searches day / month: 200 / 6000
Maximum results for exact match search: 500,000

If it's w/in that range I find there to be enough daily search volume to be worthwhile and not too many sites already in the niche such that it would be difficult to rank.

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kenanselo

16 years ago

Radio's method works best IMHO.

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rapidscc

16 years ago

I always look for how much search results a "niche" has and then checking out how much is a review site...

You could easily tell competition just by checking out how many created reviews for the product...

But you could still do the niche..maybe put a twist on the most common used strategy and you still might make it..

oMar

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Hamida Harland 16 years ago

Sure there might be alot of competition, but in the 'get your ex back' niche there will always be couples breaking up so how could it ever get saturated? It's the same for any niche - I don't think there's any such thing as 'saturation' really. The niches where there is most competition are the niches where there is serious money to be made.
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Steven Carl Kelly

16 years ago

Mere counts in Google tell you nothing about whether a niche is saturated. You find out by testing.

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radio

16 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

Mere counts in Google tell you nothing about whether a niche is saturated. You find out by testing.

Do you follow the same advice when crossing the street? Merely cars passing on a busy street tell you nothing, you can't tell if it's safe to cross unless you test it! lol!

Just giving you a hard time - sure you need to test it, but the information I provided above helps me narrow down niches I feel like testing. Those counts are information and gathering information is part of testing.

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Steven Carl Kelly

16 years ago

Originally Posted by radio

Do you follow the same advice when crossing the street? Merely cars passing on a busy street tell you nothing, you can't tell if it's safe to cross unless you test it! lol!

Focus on the sidewalk and see how we can convert walkers into car drivers, then sell them a car or take a commission from referring them to a dealer.

Originally Posted by radio

Just giving you a hard time - sure you need to test it, but the information I provided above helps me narrow down niches I feel like testing. Those counts are information and gathering information is part of testing.

If it works for you, then that's great. Personally I feel you're possibly arbitrarily cutting yourself out from some potentially profitable opportunities, but everyone has their own criteria. Me, I focus on the QUALITY of the competition, not the quantity.

My competition for a niche, every niche, is always just 10 Web pages.

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radio 16 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

My competition for a niche, every niche, is always just 10 Web pages.

I like this! (sorry for the short post - but it had to be said!)
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- Steven Carl Kelly 16 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by radio
  
  I like this! (sorry for the short post - but it had to be said!)
  
  It's true. If you're looking to rank for organic Google.com traffic, then your competition -- your TRUE competition -- boils down to just about 10 Web pages.
  
  That's it.
  
  Not millions, not hundreds of thousands, not thousands or even hundreds. Just ten little Web pages. The overuse of the "searching in quotes" myth needs to be put to bed soon. It's a complete mirage, a thing that has sent far too many an internet marketer away from lucrative markets and profitable keyword phrases because it is based on a faulty premise.
  
  "Hey, there are only 37,000 competing results at Google for my exact keyword phrase, that sounds like a winner." Uh, no. There aren't 37,000 there are 1,000 at the most.
  
  "Hey, there are almost 2 million competing results at Google for my exact keyword phrase, sounds like I should avoid that one." Uh, no. There aren't 2 million there are 1,000 at the most.
  
  Would you reject a keyword phrase that has only 1,000 competing results at Google? Once you realize that every single keyword phrase has no more than 1,000 "competitors" at Google it sort of changes your perspective a little bit.
  
  Then you eventually realize the FULL truth of the matter: you have only TEN competitors for your keyword phrase. Just ten. Focus on quality of the competition, not quantity.
  
  Of course, it IS good for the ego: "Hey, for my exact keyword phrase my page is ranked #37 in Google out of 1,972,000 pages! Sweet, huh?" Yeah, sweet -- except that Google will only let you get to 1,000 of them.
  
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  driven247 16 years ago
  
  I like your method steven. I have a question though what would constitute a solid competitor on the first page? What things do you look for in the top 10 that tells you to attack a particular market?
  
  Thanks
  
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Entropy4

16 years ago

Steven's right.

Sure, there's always new people coming into the niche, but if the niche only gets 10,000 new prospects a month, and there are 100 competitors, then each person is only getting 100 new prospects a month on average.

As far as Google results, you'll often find "saturated" niches that aren't monetized. For instance, I've found a couple niches that bring back MASSIVE amounts of results and have tons of searches/month but almost nobody is selling anything in them.

Every market's different, so you have to research it, compare it to the raw search data and then make a subjective decision. There's no "formula" to know.

Take a look at the "get back your ex" niche. Check adwords, click around, see how many people are selling ebooks. If 20 people are already selling and advertising ebooks, chances are it's going to be very hard to get people to buy or promote your ebook over theirs. If people already have audio courses or seminars, same deal.

The first market I started out in was a sub-niche of the dating market. It's insanely competitive... every part of it. Whether you're selling to men, women, relationships, pick up artists, marriages, whatever... it's all insanely competitive. And I see new guys coming into the market every week.

Can it be profitable? Yeah, very. But it's also probably going to take a lot more work than most markets.

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xohaibx

16 years ago

A niche is NEVER saturated ... Saturation is just a state of mind. If you can give quality and deliver a top notch product, then the competition won't matter. 95% of the marketers avoid popular niches, not because they're saturated but because these guys lack the hard work and determination to make it big. Heck, if niches got saturated that easily, you wouldn't have a new porn movie on a micro niche coming out every other day! Just my 2 cents.

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Keith Kogane

16 years ago

There's no such thing as market saturation IMHO. You can do some ROI analysis to decide if it's worth YOUR time to go after a niche or not. But if a market exists (i.e. a group of people buying related items on a regular basis) you can ALWAYS get in and get a piece of the pie - you just have to have something to offer.

Now it may be too costly or not profitable enough to make it worth your while, but what's not worth MY time could very well be worth it to someone else who is earning less.

And even if it's "saturated" you can still make money by creating a platform through which to sell advertising space to the people who are already selling to the market. The easiest way to do this is to create a niche blog with adsense, and it will tend to happen automatically.

Or, you can create a list in that market with good content, and then sell affiliate stuff from inside your circle of trust. Then it doesn't matter that there are too many other products there, because you can still get paid as an affiliate in that advisory role.

Bottom line, if money is changing hands, you CAN step in and get a piece. Period. Is it worth it? You have to do your own analysis. I once had a bum refuse a coffee mug full of pennies I was going to give him because "that don't green up". I brought it to CoinStar, changed it to bills, and got a free lunch.

Hope that helps.

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Droopy Dawg

16 years ago

Even with Saturation you can still make some $$ if you find a sub-niche in the Get your ex back niche... and WHO DAT?!

Originally Posted by saintsguy

I have been looking at the "get your ex back" niche.There is a lot of competition here but how do I know if the niche is saturated and I should move on to something else?

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TLTheLiberator

16 years ago

I've heard from none other that MJ himself that there's no such thing as an over saturated online niche.

The niche may be over saturated for a product, but it can't be said that a niche can be over saturated.

With all the methods of traffic generation available, new products and services, it just can't be done.

Hope This Helps!!

TL

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sitywyde

16 years ago

When it takes you forever to make it to the first page of Google

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eddiejames

16 years ago

This is an interesting one.

Always a good idea to remember, if a niche is saturated, or has a large amount of competition - it does signify that there is money there. Why not get a share of that money?

Sometimes you're actually better off going for a niche market where there are a large number of competitive websites.

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Matt Bard

16 years ago

When you type a keyword in Google and you see the count come back in the upper right that is just the number of pages that have those words in the page.

When you use the little quotes around the keyword the numbers now show how many pages come back with the exact "keyword".

When you precede the keyword with intitle:"keyword" this will show you how many pages have that keyword in their title.

The last procedure is usually your only real competition if you plan on getting a domain that contains the keyword in your title.

I have seen returns go from hundreds of thousands to 500 - 600 after using the intitle search.

As far as the saturation question I agree with xiophil above. If you are wondering about running out of potential customers then think about the amount of new searchers coming on the net every hour.

If you are selling something that has to do with retirement you should realize that every day thousands of people are having birthdays and reaching retirement age.

So you have new potential customers coming online every day. Sometimes hundreds of thousands if you pick the right niche.

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xiaophil

16 years ago

I still think saturation ≠ competition

From the looks of it when most people ask "Is this niche saturated?" what they really mean is "Is there too much competition for me?"

Originally Posted by Matthew Maiden

When you use the little quotes around the keyword the numbers now show how many pages come back with the exact "keyword".

When you precede the keyword with intitle:"keyword" this will show you how many pages have that keyword in their title.

Some great search tips from Matthew to zoom in on your competition.

Another good one is inurl:"keyword" which will show you how many pages have that keyword in their url.

Try using them both together for a real insight.

Also, you can do broad matches with both of these as well.

use allintitle:key word phrase for a broad match on the title and

allinurl:key word phrase for a broad match on the url (no quotes in both)

IIRC you can only use one of these at a time, mind.

Once you realize how few pages are using the keywords in both the title and the url you can forget all this nonsense about saturated niches and become the competition.

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Michael Franklin

16 years ago

Let me add two things to the discussion:

1) The "get my ex back" niche is a very profitable niche. In fact, if you look at all of those products on Clickbank and click on their affiliate link at the bottom of their pitch page, you will find lots and lots of support for keyword phrases, articles and other good stuff that will get you going.....In fact for one of the products, you will be blown away by how much stuff the seller give you to help get you going (I won't say but you can easily find his product - HINT:It's the best seller of the bunch!

)

2) As Matthew mentioned a few posts back, I use the "intitle:keyword phrase" to really see my true competition. If I see 700 or less, I can easily dominate the keyword phrase. I've used this for many niches....including the "get your ex back" niche!

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dsmpublishing

16 years ago

I believe there is still plenty of room for it have a look at yahoo answers and you will see that there are people asking about it every hour of the day.

why not carry on with the niche and post replies on yahoo answers and any forums in that niche.

kind regards

sam
X

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