If you want to bring the hammer down on the competition, you must choose a niche you can dominate.
In this post I’m going to share my strategy for choosing a niche that will not just let you compete against established authority sites, but blow them out of the water.
NOTE: This is part 1 of the 90 day adventure to build a $9K/pm authority site from scratch. If you’re new to clambr, sign up to the action in the sidebar to learn how you can do the same!
Passion VS Opportunity
Choosing a new niche to dive into should always begin with deciding what topics you’re most passionate about, followed by keyword research to see which markets have the least competition.
The niche I’ve chosen for my new authority site was not my first choice, but after I analysed each market thoroughly using the strategy below, it was easy for me to see which niche would be easier to dominate so I can stand out like a meerkat in the arctic.
What’s Ranking?
First I punched my target keywords into Google search to see what kind of competition reared its’ ugly head.
I made a spreadsheet that lists the top 10 ranking sites on Google for each keyword I’m planning to target, along with: PR, Article Date, Article Title, Tweets, FB Likes, G+ shares and pins. Here’s what my excel spreadsheet looks like:
If you want to get super analytical you could even add a word-count column!
The more I filled this out, the more I began to see a pattern appear. It wasn’t long before I could see:
- Who’s consistently ranking
- How much fresh content there is in the niche
- Which article title’s go more viral
As the spreadsheet grew larger and the same sites kept popping up for a number of different keywords, I began to see vulnerabilities gradually reveal themselves. These vulnerabilities are what I like to call “Domination Invitations”.
5 Domination Invitations
Domination Invitations are what the name suggests – invitations for you to swoop in to an untapped niche and dominate it!
Here are the 5 Domination Invitations you should look for when choosing a niche you can dominate:
#1: The Blog-less
There are a few niches in which people don’t manage a blog on their site, let alone produce fresh content on a consistent basis. These sites may be ranking for some pretty neat keywords but only a few, because as long as they’re not producing anything new, they’ll only maintain some dominance for a select amount of search terms. These guys will also typically only target one or two keywords, thinking those are the only keywords they need to rank for.
You can often spot a blog-less niche right away by the sheer lack of fresh content ranking on Google.
Although this isn’t a blog-less niche, here’s a great example of how you could swoop in with some more up-to-date content for a keyword that’s searched over 3,000 times a month!
The lack of freshness and variety in a niche will allow you to ripple past the competition, without them even realising it, until it’s too late and you’ve already overtaken them.
#2: The Closed Book Clan
Those of the “Closed Book Clan” are easy to spot. They’ll share a few nuggets of valuable information with their readers, but only up to a certain point. They won’t let you in on their real secrets unless you sink money into one of their eBooks or online courses. You have to invest in them to find the information you really want.
If you discover a lot of the competition in a potential niche to be members of the “Closed Book Clan” then this is good news. You can bring a fresh vibe to the niche by being a more open source of information and steal their frustrated audiences from right under their noses.
#3: Too Sterile or Embarrassing to Share
There are two types of content that really stand out as un-shareable. The dead pan boring, no imagination in the title, keyword stuffed rubbish, and the too saucy or risqué content that would bring utter embarrassment to you when your friends see that you’ve liked it on Facebook.
Once you’ve filled out the excel I described earlier, with the stats of all the top 10 performing articles for each target keyword, you’ll see a pattern that’ll reveal quite clearly how crafting your article’s title will have a massive effect on social share volume. For example, which would you share?
#1: How to satisfy my girlfriend in bed
#1: 7 things women wish men did more in the bedroom
There are plenty of niches out there jammed full of content just like #1 there – titles simply catered towards word-for-word search terms that make them nuclear for social sharing.
Find a niche that has plenty of this type of un-shareable content, create better titles so it’s shareable, and then watch your competition wonder how the hell you turned an embarrassing problem into a viral hit.
Pratik Dholakiya shared some fantastic tips on how to write interesting content for a boring topic here.
#4: Neighbourhood Bully
Don’t be put off if there is there’s a big “how-to” neighbourhood bully parked in the top spots for a load of your target keywords.
Generic how-to sites like Wiki-How may have dozens of writers and a powerful SEO team to call upon, but what they lack is the ability to write truly compelling / authoritative content in very niche areas. Once the effect of their glossy images begins to wear off and you actually read their content, you’ll often find it’s poorly written and very generic. It simply doesn’t go as deep as a real expert can.
It’s likely that most of the other kids on the block are too scared to stand up to the neighbourhood bully and have let him dominate the rankings for quite a while. This is where you come in! You can be the first person to stand up and fight back. Use Brian Dean’s Skyscraper Technique to out-write and out rank the ‘Neighbourhood Bully”.
#5: Old School 500’s
Comb the landscape of your potential niche to see how many of the top ranking articles are only 500 or so words.
If the lay of the land is littered with these “old school 500s” you’ll have discovered an arable gold mine.
It’ll only be a matter of time before you plough through this content wasteland in your shiny new combine harvester and claim the top spot with a 1000 acre piece of land!
Conclusion
If you find a niche with at least two of these Domination Invitations you’ll have a huge chance at rolling in and taking a lion’s portion of the pie. Find all five of the above and you’ll be laughing 
Make sure you sign up to the adventure so you can get updates each time I share another step towards building a $9K/pm authority site.
What things do you look for when choosing a new niche to dive into?