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Authority Site in a Crowded Niche. Bad Idea?

by octopus
25 replies
Hello everyone!

After reading for 2 weeks everything in this forum (OK, I could be overstating that a little bit), I decided that I want to start an authority site. But what I would like to write about is in a crowded (over crowded?) niche.

(Lets say that I really like cellphones / smartphones) There's so much free information about that niche on the Internet, I feel like nobody will ever notice me. And I'll be competing with Gizmodo and other big guns like that. Not to mention all of the other million smaller sites.

What should I do? Should I find a long tail keyword without too much competition and target that keyword? Should I try to write killer content and just get links on big sites (like Gizmodo) and don't worry about SEO? Or find another less crowded niche maybe?
#authority #bad #crowded #idea #niche #site
  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    There is always space for high quality websites. Always. Matt Cutts of Google keeps harping on the fact that quality sites will be rewarded. If you choose to be the BEST site in your niche, you will be rewarded. Cream always rises to the top. Maybe not today or tomorrow but the truth and quality always win out. The good news is that, thanks to outsourcing, producing authority sites no longer need to be expensive.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brandon Modrov
    It will certainly take time to become a go to authority in any market small or big. It's all based on the quality of the content and what you can do to get eyeballs to the page. Same concepts for any market really. You can begin to go after the long tail easy to obtain keywords to get in a moderate amount of traffic while you develop your content and promote your site to get the bigger traffic.

    If you can build a well versed marketing strategy only time will tell how you will do but I am sure you will do well. What can you do to seperate you? ARe you just going to provide standard article reviews and info of products? ARe you going to offer video reviews? What is it that you'll do differently or better to get the attention.

    Maybe you just one to focus on one specific part of that big market and attack that and as the success comes you can expand.

    Best of luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author pogospring
    The tougher the space the longer it'll take to dominate it and the bigger your budget will need to be. Anything is possible and taking action is the first step. Good work.

    Have you built a niche site before? If not I'd recommend starting small to learn the basics and then scaling up.
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  • Profile picture of the author MartinPlatt
    What is your unique twist?

    What market are you going after? Is there something specific or are you planning on targeting every person that might want to know about phones? HINT: It's much easier it you have a twist of some sort or other. Could even be mobile phones for the over 40s, something like that.

    If you're just going in, with no idea of how you're going to become known, no ideas why people would come to you, and nothing to discriminate you from the crowd, then yes, you're going to struggle.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rbtmarshall
    you don't just create an authority site, authority is earned.


    If you had an authority site in a crowded niche it would definitely be a good thing.
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    • Profile picture of the author Royhammy
      Originally Posted by Rbtmarshall View Post

      you don't just create an authority site, authority is earned.


      If you had an authority site in a crowded niche it would definitely be a good thing.
      LOL, totally agree. At the same time, look at Wikipedia. That's an authority site, but the quality is not even. I just posted on another thread about my consultant who is putting together a system to set up an authority site. Believe me, that is not a one-man job (BIG HINT.)
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveSRS
    As most people already mentioned you need a unique proposition in the market..

    I'm very at home in the mobile phone scene in fact I've got some sites / domains hanging around for which I have very little time so perhaps we could be of service to each other..

    For example I own:
    - samsunguniverse.com
    - tizenuniverse.com

    The first one def has good prospects the 2nd perhaps (depending on what is going to happen with Tizen).

    If you look at my friends from sammobile.com and samsung-updates.com they have chosen a specific niche (samsung firmware flashing - pretty tech) but trust me they have a lot of unique daily visitors and sammobile has over 500.000 members.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rbtmarshall
      Originally Posted by SteveSRS View Post

      ...
      For example I own:
      - samsunguniverse.com
      - tizenuniverse.com

      ...
      Both of those domain names have trademarks in them.


      samsung is trademarked by samsung group, and tizen is trademarked by the linux foundation
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      • Profile picture of the author SteveSRS
        Originally Posted by Rbtmarshall View Post

        Both of those domain names have trademarks in them.


        samsung is trademarked by samsung group, and tizen is trademarked by the linux foundation
        I know.. and as for Samsung they don't care. They are actually aware of all things we do (we talked to Samsung NL face 2 face).

        If the site would grow big they would likely claim the domain which is fine as they would even provide some days to move all to the short domain version samverse.com).

        If you provide a service to the brand using this method is often accepted (of course thread lightly here). What these sites are is basically nothing more then a fan site (non commercial) and then the rules are somewhat different.
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        • Profile picture of the author Woodward82
          Originally Posted by SteveSRS View Post

          I know.. and as for Samsung they don't care. They are actually aware of all things we do (we talked to Samsung NL face 2 face).

          If the site would grow big they would likely claim the domain which is fine as they would even provide some days to move all to the short domain version samverse.com).

          If you provide a service to the brand using this method is often accepted (of course thread lightly here). What these sites are is basically nothing more then a fan site (non commercial) and then the rules are somewhat different.
          I am confused by this completely? If you talked to them then why would you have to worry about them taking the domain?

          Second 'laws' I mean 'rules' dont change because its a fan site or whatever the case may be...

          If permission is given then that is great, if you are just running it until they contact you with a cease and desist that is fine also, but in the case of becoming an authority then I think more care should be involved when using trademarks
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          • Profile picture of the author SteveSRS
            Originally Posted by Woodward82 View Post

            I am confused by this completely? If you talked to them then why would you have to worry about them taking the domain?

            Second 'laws' I mean 'rules' dont change because its a fan site or whatever the case may be...

            If permission is given then that is great, if you are just running it until they contact you with a cease and desist that is fine also, but in the case of becoming an authority then I think more care should be involved when using trademarks
            Haha I understand the confusion its a Dutch thing.. like with the cannabis rules.. its illegal but condoned.. same story here.. I do not have official permission but they condone it.

            As for the rules on a fansite; I'm no lawyer by far so I'm fully willing to believe you if you are more knowledgable in this but I mean to remember reading (also based on many examples) that fansites can use a trademark.. but perhaps that is also just a permission / condone thing.. a lot of artist (who's names are trademarks) have 'unofficial' fan pages and also some brands..

            but yeah I agree if you decide to go that way have a back-up plan!
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  • Profile picture of the author nicholasb
    I personally only go into the biggest most crowded niche, there more profitable because the market is proven, all you have to do is learn to market effectively and build good relationships with people in that niche and you can carve out a nice piece for yourself.
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    • Profile picture of the author Brandon Modrov
      Originally Posted by nicholasb View Post

      I personally only go into the biggest most crowded niche, there more profitable because the market is proven, all you have to do is learn to market effectively and build good relationships with people in that niche and you can carve out a nice piece for yourself.

      I agree. I've done this so many times. It's the few reasons I picked my first market back in the day. I knew people were buying and products were selling at all sorts of price points. The forums had good traffic, good interest and there was a lot of buzz on TV as well.

      I didn't truly know what I was doing but I was determined to make it work and just figured it out as I go. I probably would of picked a different market to start with looking back but I was just stubborn to make it work. It took a little bit to see the success because it was a competitive market.

      Brandon
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    I felt exactly this way in the beginning of my online adventures in 2007 because I wanted to create an authority site and beat competitors from two overcrowded niches, and in one of them I found very strong competitors ready to kill whoever would threaten their position.

    I was attacked from the beginning of my adventures online and I spent a fortune, but I could survive.

    You can beat your competitors thanks to your style. If you will be serious and you will work hard you can achieve your goal, even if you will have to surpass many obstacles. This is not easy.

    The competition you find online really is discouraging. And you also have to deal with these dangerous Google updates all the time. This is the new fashion online.

    Google was very generous in the past, but now everyone must pay something to get traffic. Everything is becoming harder and harder.
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  • Profile picture of the author bss2t
    Not necessarily a bad idea...but you have to be able to have the cash to handle it. It is a longer term play that you have to be ready for.
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  • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
    What makes you an authority on cell phones?

    Are you some sort of industry leader/key note speaker?
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Walker
    Originally Posted by octopus View Post

    Hello everyone!

    After reading for 2 weeks everything in this forum (OK, I could be overstating that a little bit), I decided that I want to start an authority site. But what I would like to write about is in a crowded (over crowded?) niche.

    (Lets say that I really like cellphones / smartphones) There's so much free information about that niche on the Internet, I feel like nobody will ever notice me. And I'll be competing with Gizmodo and other big guns like that. Not to mention all of the other million smaller sites.

    What should I do? Should I find a long tail keyword without too much competition and target that keyword? Should I try to write killer content and just get links on big sites (like Gizmodo) and don't worry about SEO? Or find another less crowded niche maybe?
    Let's take smart phones as an example, that's far too broad and not specific enough. Niche down further like smart phones > iphones > iphone covers or smart phones > android > android apps > android apps about XYZ....see what I mean?

    You should forget about focusing on long tail keywords and SEO competition. Niche down and create epic content that people can't help but love, like and share and then get your content in front of your target audience.

    Originally Posted by writeaway View Post

    There is always space for high quality websites. Always. Matt Cutts of Google keeps harping on the fact that quality sites will be rewarded. If you choose to be the BEST site in your niche, you will be rewarded. Cream always rises to the top. Maybe not today or tomorrow but the truth and quality always win out. The good news is that, thanks to outsourcing, producing authority sites no longer need to be expensive.
    Google doesn't really care how quality your content is, I mean you can write some of the best shit the internet has ever seen but if no one see's it Google certainly isn't going to be rising you to the top of the search results.

    Killer content > exposing your killer content to your target market to get likes, shares, links etc > then Google will consider giving it a high placing.

    I agree it will take time.
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  • Profile picture of the author CharlesL
    What's your budget? If you've got $1,000 a month to spare on design, content, SEO, etc, then go for it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Walker
    I should have said this earlier I would only advise starting an authority site in a big and crowded niche if you have something different or better to offer than the current big names otherwise why bother? If you can't compete then don't bother....
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    • Profile picture of the author octopus
      Charlie : why would it cost 1k per month in design/seo/content? I can do this myself, that's the point, no? OK, maybe not the design, that's not my best skill, but I don't think I'll need to pay for graphics each month.

      Maybe I should start 2-3 smaller sites and see which one gets traffic/interest and invest more time/money in this one? I don't know. I'm not looking for something easy but I don't want to work for 2 years on something that won't get nowhere either.
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  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    One more tip: CONTENT VOLUME does not necessarily build AUTHORITY. You have to have the right kind of content which provokes the right kind of responses from readers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brandon Modrov
    Personally at all costs I stay away from brand names and trademark names. At anytime you could lose the site and the time spent isn't worth the risk of losing it. Unless you have a signed document stating you are allowed to do what you do I would personally be careful. They could change their mind at anytime and you would lose your domain and potentially your work.
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  • Profile picture of the author Social App Zone
    Are you bringing a unique experience to this Authority site in sense of usability, uniqueness, features or is it yet another WordPress article dump ?
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    • Profile picture of the author octopus
      I hope I'll be able to have an angle

      @Royhammy Do you think it's impossible to build an authority site alone?
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  • Profile picture of the author candycandy7
    Originally Posted by octopus View Post

    Hello everyone!

    After reading for 2 weeks everything in this forum (OK, I could be overstating that a little bit), I decided that I want to start an authority site. But what I would like to write about is in a crowded (over crowded?) niche.

    (Lets say that I really like cellphones / smartphones) There's so much free information about that niche on the Internet, I feel like nobody will ever notice me. And I'll be competing with Gizmodo and other big guns like that. Not to mention all of the other million smaller sites.

    What should I do? Should I find a long tail keyword without too much competition and target that keyword? Should I try to write killer content and just get links on big sites (like Gizmodo) and don't worry about SEO? Or find another less crowded niche maybe?
    I think eventually, if your content is interesting or even funny or engaging and really useful, you WILL make a name for yourself no matter what niche you're in. People will "need" your site, more than you will have to market to get them there.

    However, there are probably quicker ways to get the money that you're probably seeking. Going with extremely high quality, might be something that you would do along with some other more technical strategies that people use.
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