do you think that selecting a highly competitive niche is suicide?

not exactly a suicide. but surely greater effort and expertise are needed. You might want to get help of some good SEO company in order to acheive rankings. If you are doing everything yourself then I would recommend moving from bottom to top with 1 step at a time by choosing low competition keywords and then slowly moving towards high competition keywords.

No not at all.

Most of the competitive niches are the most evergreen, you just need a good reputation and a unique offer.

competition = opportunity

If niches has high competition it usually means there are lots of money to be made in the niche and well worth entering.

No matter how much competition in the niche there will always be a way in for you.

I would rather enter the competitive niche that I now has proven buyers than some obscure niche which might or might not pan out.

Cheers

Jan

If you've got the money and time, then no.

But if you're on a budget, 5 smaller niche sites with less competition is a lot less expensive to manage.

Not at all. Niches with high competition have high competition because there are lots of money to made in them.

But you would have to be willing to invest either more time or money, when doing SEO for high competition keywords.

I just ranked a site for an uber competitive keyword. Something that gets nearly 20+ million searches during a particular month of the year and is brutally competitive. So competitive its taken me about 18 months to rank and even then we will still dance backwards.

Is it worth it? We are ranked number 10. Traffic is exploding. I got butterflies in the stomach thinking about not only the climb up to number one but the traffic that will follow.

Far from suicide. Actually one of the most amazing feelings as a professional optimizer is getting to page one--especially for extremely competitive keywords. I especially enjoyed this small victory as many of my "colleagues" told me it couldn't be done.

I must be socially awkward, because I highly enjoy being able to prove the nay-sayers wrong!

I also dont think that it is suicide but its a challenge and nothing is impossible and if you can achieve that then It will give loadz of profit.

Highly competitive is not suicide. Choosing the wrong keywords are.

I think the underlying question is how much you love that niche. I am now doing quite well in a very competitive niche, but it took literally years of very hard work. And the only way I would have gone through all that pain and suffering was passion for my subject matter.

So I would answer that it depends on you mostly...

I NEVER look at high competition as suicide - in fact the opposite.

It is highly competitive for a reason right?

Make your product stand out and have a good unique selling point/s - find out where your target market goes and what they need and give it to them...

Simple as that.

Chris

Not at all, just more effort is going to be needed. All the websites that make me money are in highly competitive niches. Gotta muscle your way in there!

Big evergreen niches are great long-term projects. Just keep the 'long-term' part in mind. Your best bet is to start with 10-20 very long-tail keyword phrases, and build pages for those. Then, as you get those pages ranked, add another 20 pages of more competitive keywords, and after that, some even more competitive phrases.

Trying to get ranked for the keywords 'IT Consulting' or something like that right off the bat wouldn't get you anywhere, but your job gets much easier when Google starts viewing your site as an authority site.

Now, you can always set up several small niche sites as short-term projects along the way.

Where there is competition there is money.


regZ

It's not even close to suicide. If you build a good site with good content, it'll rank eventually. And honestly? You'll probably do better with an authority site in a large niche than anywhere else. If you're willing to put in A LOT of work, then it's easily the most lucrative route to go.

Just don't expect to make too much money for the first year or so unless you do some crafty long tail keyword targeting.

I don't think it is suicide either. I agree with james when he says if you build a good site with good content it will rank well in the search engines.

What I would suggest is you focus more on your competition when it comes to going after highly competitive niche markets because if you know you can outrank your competition on the search engines you can get your number 1 spot and then monetize your site after you are getting some decent traffic.

Remember though don't monetize your site until you are indexed by the search engines and are getting a decent amount of traffic.

"Build your list and market to them after you build a relationship with them."

and for SEO "Search Engine Optimization," purposes in highly competitive niche markets - if you know you can beat them and make money "GO FOR IT!"

Choosing a competitive niche is similar to suicide if you don't put much effort on it!

BUT ...

Choosing a competitive niche means you are stepping on a gold mine if you know how to take that opportunity, and put more and more effort to it!

I know I'm bumping an old thread, but I have a question:

When people say "competition," are you referring to sites that (as far as you can tell from looking at their content) are actively targeting keywords and trying to make money (via Adsense, affiliates, eBooks, etc)...

OR...

Are you simply saying competitive in the sense that, whatever is in the top 10 of Google has a high PR, tons of backlinks, etc?

Maybe there's no difference, per se, but if the majority of the top 10 in Google is, say, YouTube videos, Wikipedia, a .org, and a HuffingtonPost article or a About.com article, as opposed to a top 10 that consists of five established, similar niche sites, is one scenario deemed more "legit" competition than the other?

In other words...is it going to be harder to climb the top 10 if most of that top 10 consists of sites specifically targeting that keyword (and built for targeting that keyword), as opposed to sites that rank high due to domain age and reputation and links (say a YouTube, a Huffington Post, a popular .org site, or Wikipedia), but aren't necessarily built with the specific intent of dominating the given niche or keywords they're ranking in the top 10 for?

Not necessarily suicide. You just need to know how to work the niche.

Maybe "make money online" is a huge competition whilst more specific things like "make money online with an authority adsense site" are not as bad.

Go after long-tail keywords that signal buying potential and you can make it work.

Choosing the best niche suitable for yourself is the best thing to do weather it's competitive or no but if you choose the niche you like you'll find ways to get traffic

This is why 99% online marketers fail, they select very high competition keyword and work on it 2-3 years before google update removes it. Just aim for low competition keywords, at most medium competition keywords.

harro, i wouldn't say that -
it´s not like committing suicide to have a high competition keyword. the problem is to get a foot into the door.
so my suggestion:
- try to find a subniche if you can. e.g. if you work on a site to program java try to find keywords which are more specific.

if you have done that without much success:

many people, including myself, read many blogs/sites. so why not yours? if i like your content i´m more than happy to come but i need to know of you. so it´s all about marketing.
don't worry about the niche, worry about your content :-)
good luck!

It's not a suicide if you know what to do and if you know how to compete. It needs more effort though.

I think a key thing to remember is that competitive industries generally mean there is business there. It's most likely a profitable industry.

You challenge, however, is defining what your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is within your industry.

nope. a challenge only

"It's not suicide, if 'yer already Dead!"

Jacob, From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

You need to offer something a little different rather than standard run-of-the-mill stuff in a super competitive niche and you can still outrank your competition in time. Its going to be difficult but possible. If you are a single product site then it may be a lot easier if the product is simply better than competition or is original. But if you are an informational site then it could be a lot more difficult.

High competition also means that the rewards will be higher if you can beat others in the competition. So, it may be a good choice only if you have the dedication to create something good that can survive the competition. Don't do your math just looking at the backlinks, if we are talking about a website, it is the content what really matters and some small details such as uniqueness, honesty and personality that will keep visitors on your site and attract them back.

I tried entering niches that I know nothing about and ended up abandoning all such projects because it was like forcing myself to do research, write and market things that I am not enjoying myself. So, just because the competition is low is not a good enough reason for me to enter a niche. I have to know about and enjoy that niche to some extent or else it will not work.

The answer to your general question depends on 3 main factors:

1. Your marketing acumen.
2. The actual market you're going into
3. The distribution channels

If you have marketing acumen and know what you are doing, going into a competitive market isn't a big deal because in most cases, you don't even need to be in the top ten of volume in order to make a low to mid-range six figure net income.

If you jump into a market that has a lot of competition and that competition has their own affiliate program or belongs to an affiliate network, then there is ample opporunity to work with them and not just against them.

No one single entity owns all the distribution channels. For example, I competed in a highly competitive market for years because no one, I mean no one, in that market used free publicity. They also didn't use a lot of the paid advertising channels either, so I was able to compete that way.

Market saturation, while it can be a very real thing, is generally not something that concerns me when I enter a competitive market because I know I don't have to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun the other guy.

RoD

I never ever worry about competition unless I'm doing a product review and adhering to the product creator's specifications about competition. Otherwise all I want to know is if there is an audience and traffic.

If so...it's MINE.

Go into your online business with every intention to dominate, period.

Try to find some keywords in competitive niches that are not very competitive but still work pretty well.

I prefer to choose some competitive niches,cos i find these niches are easier to sell that's why there is so much competition. Also, need to find the
useful traffic source to monetize it.

It's important to be patient , it may takes at least months for SEO to bring you some good results. Try social media, I recommend YOUTUBE , it's
the best traffic source i find.Find a nice keyword then you can get it rank in a matter of 5-7 days with a good strategy. Instant traffic make instant
sales. Have a try!