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Niche Over-Saturation

by NoMoreWords
18 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I'm sure that a lot of newbies, like me, think that every niche they start digging into seems to be over-saturated and would take forever to rank in top 10 for. Top results being sites with 3+ PR and over 500 backlinks, it's a bit discouraging for those just starting out.

There are lots of lists with potential niches, and there are threads with evergreen markets which are recommended for people who want to get a jump start. But when I start digging into those (I use Market Samurai), I can't seem to find a keyword which has significant traffic and low SEO competition.

So I'll break it into a few questions, hoping that this will be of help for other people with the same problem.

1. Let's say you've picked an evergreen market, weight loss for example. What do you do from there? What are your seed keywords? Do you just type in weight loss and see what that leads you to? Do you use the "chain method" for keyword research? How exactly do you start scratching the surface of a niche?

2. Are tools for suggesting keywords, like Ubersuggest, really any good? I've typed in several seed keywords, and the suggestions I get from it have very low traffic.

3. A bit offtopic - if you've used Market Samurai, what would you say a relatively low competition looks like in the SEO module. Average PR? Backlinks? On-Site factors?
#niche #oversaturation
  • Profile picture of the author evilsaigon
    I basically search for my keywords in a variety of sites, to target a sub-niche within this saturated evergreen niche.

    Going along the weight loss example that you've given, I will search for weight loss forums and see what other sub-niche traffic I can target. I see an idea in the forum like "green tea for weight loss" and realized it is a pretty hot topic.

    And then I will see what other ideas I can develop from the green tea sub-niche, like long tail keywords. This is where Ubersuggest helps me come up with more ideas to expand on.
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    I think that approaching any market believing you can make serious progress with SEO is problematic. Stuff that worked over the last few years is not nearly as effective.
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    • Profile picture of the author NoMoreWords
      Originally Posted by travlinguy View Post

      I think that approaching any market believing you can make serious progress with SEO is problematic. Stuff that worked over the last few years is not nearly as effective.
      Being a beginner, how do I get traffic if not from SEO? I don't have lists, subscribers, nothing. I have to start from SEO i suppose?
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      • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
        Originally Posted by NoMoreWords View Post

        Being a beginner, how do I get traffic if not from SEO? I don't have lists, subscribers, nothing. I have to start from SEO i suppose?
        Paid advertising would be an obvious one.
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      • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
        Originally Posted by NoMoreWords View Post

        Being a beginner, how do I get traffic if not from SEO? I don't have lists, subscribers, nothing. I have to start from SEO i suppose?
        Article syndication.
        Paid traffic.
        Social media networking.

        I think you'd see positive results with any one of these, especially in broad markets, before you'd ever see them with SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author jamie78john
    1 thing to remember - quality of the links. I have seen sites with 10 links ranking in extremely top searches, all because of the quality.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Davison
    Being a beginner, how do I get traffic if not from SEO? I don't have lists, subscribers, nothing. I have to start from SEO i suppose?
    You could get traffic from social websites like Facebook & Twitter.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Always target root keywords like your going to rank for them, even If there's no chance of ever ranking for the root keyword, it helps build up the entire site.

    If I'm selling auto insurance & never target the keyword (auto insurance) it would be more difficult to rank for longtail traffic (ex: low cost auto insurance topeka).

    So... If I target the root keyword (auto insurance) like I'm trying to rank for that specific keyword then really all I have to do to rank my real keyword is target the longtail variation of the root keyword (ex: low cost + root keyword + topeka).

    Example keywords broken down:
    • low cost
    • auto insurance
    • topeka
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    • Profile picture of the author NoMoreWords
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Always target root keywords like your going to rank for them, even If there's no chance of ever ranking for the root keyword, it helps build up the entire site.

      If I'm selling auto insurance & never target the keyword (auto insurance) it would be more difficult to rank for longtail traffic (ex: low cost auto insurance topeka).

      So... If I target the root keyword (auto insurance) like I'm trying to rank for that specific keyword then really all I have to do to rank my real keyword is target the longtail variation of the root keyword (ex: low cost + root keyword + topeka).

      Example keywords broken down:
      • low cost
      • auto insurance
      • topeka
      What's the point of this? With long-tail keywords you're still using the root keyword in every occurrence.

      1) I have found 99 low / medium competition keywords in weight loss niche using nothing but long tail pro software and google keyword tool. The avg CPC was above 3 $ and the minimum search volume was 1000. Few of them above 5000 searches. If you are expecting such keywords with volume above 10,000 it is almost impossible, as everyone in those niche aims to find such keywords.
      1000 exact searches per month? Isn't that really low? Or do you use several of those keywords for one website? In most of the tutorials, using Market Samurai, I've seen people set the SEO traffic filter to 50 or 80 daily. When you multiply it by 30, you get 1500-2400. When you keep in mind that SEO traffic is calculated for the first spot in Google, which averages 42% of searches, this means that the minimum monthly searches number, recommended by most IM-ers is about 3500-5700 for [exact] per month. Or are those numbers for your site's main keyword?
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by NoMoreWords View Post

        What's the point of this? With long-tail keywords you're still using the root keyword in every occurrence.
        Sure, but that longtail on it's own is weak.
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by NoMoreWords View Post

        1000 exact searches per month? Isn't that really low? Or do you use several of those keywords for one website? In most of the tutorials, using Market Samurai, I've seen people set the SEO traffic filter to 50 or 80 daily. When you multiply it by 30, you get 1500-2400. When you keep in mind that SEO traffic is calculated for the first spot in Google, which averages 42% of searches, this means that the minimum monthly searches number, recommended by most IM-ers is about 3500-5700 for [exact] per month. Or are those numbers for your site's main keyword?
        Lol... you should ignore anything Market Samurai tells you. That thing is a total POS and full of so much misinformation about keyword research.

        Search volume is relative to what you are selling. If I'm pushing something that makes me $1500/sale, I'll go after a keyword that only gets 10 searches a month. If I only make $0.05 a sale (like in the case of crappy AdSense sites), obviously I need a ton more traffic.
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        • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
          What's the point of this? With long-tail keywords you're still using the root keyword in every occurrence.
          The point is you will never guess, and no keyword tool has, every keyword permutation used in search. There are also too many to realistically optimize for. An unbelievable number of searches are "one offs" never to be seen again.

          When you have a more popular phrase and related words on your page the odds are increased you will rank for longtail searches you are targeting - and ones you never contemplated.

          If you have ever reviewed search traffic to a site, such as in Awstats, this will quickly become evident.

          Is 1000 exact searches per month too low? Depends on your niche and what you are doing with traffic. By itself, the number is meaningless.

          For some of my niches if a keyword is searched for at all, maybe only one time per month, that is enough for me to create a page with information about it. Have I made money from such terms? A lot. It would be foolish not to go after that source of business.

          For other niches, such action would be incredibly foolish. Context and what you do with the traffic can mean a lot more than getting caught up in Market Samurai numbers.

          One of the best things I did for my affiliate marketing was to delete Market Samurai off my computer.

          .
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  • Profile picture of the author NShankar
    1) I have found 99 low / medium competition keywords in weight loss niche using nothing but long tail pro software and google keyword tool. The avg CPC was above 3 $ and the minimum search volume was 1000. Few of them above 5000 searches. If you are expecting such keywords with volume above 10,000 it is almost impossible, as everyone in those niche aims to find such keywords.

    2) Yes you can use tools like ubersuggest, scrapebox keyword scrapper, related search results shown by google when you search for niche specific keyword, google trends and google trend related keywords. The best method is to get the related keywords list from google keyword planner with the website urls of your competitors or the top ranking sites in your niche.

    3) I use only long tail pro to find low / medium competitive keyword. I consider anything with seo moz keyword difficulty score less than 40 as medium difficult and anything less than 30 as low competiton. If you can find anything less than 20 you can consider yourself as lucky as such keywords can start to rank very fast if the contents and backlinks are done in proper way.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEOArbiterJoanne
    Originally Posted by NoMoreWords View Post

    1. Let's say you've picked an evergreen market, weight loss for example. What do you do from there? What are your seed keywords? Do you just type in weight loss and see what that leads you to? Do you use the "chain method" for keyword research? How exactly do you start scratching the surface of a niche?
    It depends what you're trying to achieve.

    If you want to have an all-encompassing weight loss site then just target any keyword relating to weight loss that you think is achievable.

    If you're trying to dig deeper and focus on a sub-niche then I would, using your example, visit as many weight loss forums as I could find.

    Just read heaps of forums and even sites like Yahoo Answers and look for what types of questions keep popping up. That should give you heaps of sub-niche ideas.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO Power
    To find low competition keywords within any saturated niche with decent search volume, look for a popular site within that niche, check out it's categories and enter one of them into a keyword tool of your choice.

    For example,

    Saturated niche = weight loss.
    Category = lose belly fat

    You can even dig deeper if you want but the deeper you go, the lower the search volumes of the keywords you will find.
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  • Profile picture of the author NoMoreWords
    So everything depends on the market I choose? I just suggest that there is a flat conversion rate and adjust my KW research according to that conversion rate and the average money I will make per sale? I'm getting kind of confused.
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    • Profile picture of the author muay
      Try targeting 5 or 6 of the low competition keywords that are all related buyer keywords in your niche with search volume of, for example 500 per month. Add broader articles and content that encompasses all of the low competition keywords and other smaller articles or posts dealing with the specific keyword topic and you will soon see traffic. Brand your site and build backlinks to the brandname and the URL with just one or two backlinks that are using your keywords as the anchor text.

      Easy to rank for low competition buyer keywords 5 x 500 = 2500 buyer intended visitors you will raise in the rankings get traffic and sales hopefully. Then reach out further and slowly add content related to other more competitive keywords as the site becomes more popular.
      Google should love your site if you do it that way, don't overoptimise heavily with your keywords and use the keywords as anchor text very sparingly and you shall be good to go
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