Search Competition 101: How to Analyze It and Find Your Niche

Intro

Are you looking to break into a new niche? It can be an exciting journey to start a new venture.

But if you aren't watching out for the competition, you might struggle to generate traffic to your website.

Learning about your competition gives you an opportunity to discover areas or gaps where they may be lacking so ‌you can leverage your strengths and gain a competitive advantage.

This strategy not only helps you stand out, but it can also help you boost your search rankings. And more traffic means more potential customers.

How to conduct competitive analysis for your niche

Here are five simple steps for conducting a competitive analysis to find your niche.

1. Identify your niche

There's no right or wrong way to choose a niche. But the catch is to find something that's both profitable and popular enough to generate interest.

Your products or services should soothe a pain point your audience is currently experiencing. If the niche you're considering hasn't quite taken off yet, don't let that discourage you.

Do some research on it. You might find that it's anticipated growth, which means you may be one of the first to enter the niche.

As a result, you might not have much competition starting out, making it easier to establish your brand and attract customers.

Take the topic “banana bread recipe” as an example. Rather than dealing with generic recipes, one could highlight unique variants or cultural reinterpretations of banana bread.

This approach not only avoids widespread competition but also attracts a dedicated audience. A deep competition analysis and a more specific focus can make a difference.

If you're unsure if you've chosen a good niche, consider these questions:

• Are your target customers easily identifiable? If you can't put your ideal customers into an identifiable segment, chances are, your niche won't be profitable. You should be able to easily identify who to do business with. Your customers should have a set of reliable characteristics that define them and their needs.
• Are your target customers easily accessible? You can have the best product or solution out there. But if you have no way to reach customers with information about how you can help them, then you may need to consider a different niche.
• Is the market you're looking to enter underserved or neglected? Some niches are oversaturated with small businesses or startups looking to capitalize on a market. If you want to really stand out, it may be a good idea to focus on underserved or completely neglected markets. Be careful not to go too hyper niche, as this could hurt your SEO efforts. Competitor research can help you identify areas where customers' needs aren't being met.
• Does the niche have a large potential market? While low competition is ideal, it's still best to target a market and niche large enough to be profitable. When it comes to your target customers, there has to be enough of them, even if that means facing some competition.

Are you looking to break into an underserved or neglected niche? One example of a relatively niche industry is vintage typewriter restoration services. This industry caters to collectors, writers, and enthusiasts who appreciate the nostalgia of antique writing machines.

Toronto Typewriters repairs and restores typewriters for people who want to experience the timeliness and craftmanship of these old machines.

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2. Learn about your target audience

Before you can even begin to analyze your competitors, you first need to have an idea of what your target audience wants and needs.

Otherwise, when it comes time to research the competition, you won't even know what to analyze. When you're not familiar with your target market, you'll have a hard time determining what competitors are doing right and what they need to work on.

To avoid this, thoroughly research your target audience to understand their needs, goals, and motivations.

Ways to research your target audience include:

• Surveys and questionnaires: Directly gather feedback from your current and potential customers.
• Social media analysis: Monitor comments, shares, and discussions related to your industry.
• Focus groups: Engage small groups for in-depth discussions about their preferences.
• Online forums and communities: Join platforms like Reddit or niche forums to grasp trending topics and concerns.
• Google Analytics: Assess visitor demographics, interests, and behavior on your website.

Screenshot by Britney Steele

3. Find your niche keywords

Now, it's time to start doing some research on other businesses in your niche. Doing so will help you find relevant keywords that your target customer is using in the search engines.

Use a keyword research tool like the one by Ranktracker to conduct competitive analysis.

As you input relevant keywords into the search bar, they'll receive an SEO difficulty score, which can help you identify low-competition keywords. The lower the score, the less competition there is and the easier it'll be to rank for that keyword.

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For even better rankings, look out for long-tail keywords. These types of keywords are great to target because they are more specific and have low competition.

Plus, ranking for long-term keywords can increase your likelihood of turning leads into paying customers.

That's because the more specific a customer is in their search query, the closer they are to making a purchase.

Let's look at an example. Say you run an online boutique selling women's clothing. A more general keyword to target might be "womens boutique." But a long-tail keyword might be "womens boutique with next-day delivery."

This keyword is much more specific, and the potential customer is likely looking to make a purchase right away. And they want to receive their merchandise as soon as possible.

Here’s another example. Navigating the competitive landscape of niche industries like metalworking can be a challenging endeavor. These industries often consist of highly specialized products and services, making it vital to pinpoint the right keywords to stand out.

Let's take, for instance, the market for lathe machines‌ — ‌a key player in any manufacturing facility. Analyzing search competition around “industrial lathe machines” might reveal fierce competition on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Screenshot by Britney Steele

However, by diving deeper and targeting more specialized keywords, such as “high-precision gunsmithing lathes,” you can carve out a distinct niche for your brand.

Penn Tool Co., Baileigh Industrial, and Kent USA are brands that have successfully used this strategy to cement their positions as industry leaders. Begin with a focused approach and gradually expand your horizons.

Once you have a list of keywords to target, you can start creating content your target audience is interested in. Google suggests creating people-first content‌ — ‌which is content that aims to serve people, not to “game” the search engines. Incorporate those keywords naturally into your content so that search engines know what your blog or web page is about.

If your content is valuable and provides information that makes your customers' lives easier or solves a problem, it's likely to be shared across the internet, where you'll gain backlinks.

Think of backlinks as credibility boosters. It sends signals to search engines that your content is helpful to your audience, which often means they'll start ranking your pages higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Pro Tip: Consider creating dedicated statistics pages related to your industry. They're a fantastic magnet for backlinks. Journalists, bloggers, and writers often search for authoritative, industry-specific statistics to enrich and authenticate their content

For example, if you're a freelance writer focusing on financial literacy, adding key statistics on bad credit as authoritative data points to your articles is a simple way to enhance their credibility.

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4. Analyze your competitors' content

How well do your competitors meet the needs of your target audience? Asking yourself this question can help you identify any content gaps your competitors may have overlooked in your industry.

For example, imagine that you're in a home improvement space. You run a local flooring store. You've analyzed the content your competitors have published, including blog posts.

You'll notice that many of your competitors provide helpful information about how homeowners can choose the right flooring options, from vinyl to laminate flooring. They've also produced content on different topics like flooring maintenance, flooring trends, and even installation tips.

However,‌ they're merely providing introductory information to get customers started. Your competitors don't really go in-depth about any of these topics.

So, you decide to create:

• How-to guides for maintaining flooring
• Comparison guides that highlight the pros and cons of the various flooring options you sell
• Videos detailing how to install different types of flooring

While these types of content can take significantly more time to create than typical blog posts, it can pay off in the long run because they're filling a need that your competitors may not be filling.

Flooring can be complicated, from choosing the right option to handling floor care.

Having content that goes in-depth can be extremely helpful for potential customers who want to feel like they're being guided toward making the right decision or completing a project.

Flooring America offers a floor care and warranty guide that provides helpful information about choosing the right material, warranty details, available brands, FAQs, and maintenance tips for each type of flooring.

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Even though this example focuses on a flooring store, the same point applies to any business or industry.

To get a sense of how well your competitors are hitting the mark regarding their content strategy, do a thorough analysis. Taking these extra steps will help shine a light on your own content marketing approach.

You'll want to start by making a list of your competitors. Then:

Analyze key SEO metrics

Use an SEO tool to see how your competitor's content ranks in the SERPs.

Look at metrics like their monthly organic search traffic, domain authority score, average time on site, estimated top number of keywords, and estimated number of backlinks.

Review their on-site content

Look at the topics your competitors are covering in their blog posts. Consider the length of their posts, whether they use headings, or if they have quality images.

Check if the content is easy to understand or has grammatical errors. Take note of the content formats they're using. Do they just write blog posts? Or do they share other types of content like videos, webinars, e-books, case studies, podcasts, etc.? Do they have a testimonials page? What about a FAQ page?

5. Find your unique angle and value

Put your competitive analysis into action by figuring out how to improve your content. Come up with new content ideas. Discover ways to stand out from the competition.

This could mean covering topics they don't cover or finding a different way to share information beyond a blog post or infographic.

Offer a product or solution that serves a specific need. For example, Coin Ledger doesn't just have a blog that teaches about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

They also offer a crypto tax calculator that helps crypto investors calculate their taxes in three easy steps.

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Wrapping up

Doing a competitive analysis is essential for finding the right niche for your business venture. On the one hand, a niche could be too saturated.

On the other hand, it may not be saturated enough. As a result, consumers may not have a true need for your product or service.

Knowing how competitive a niche is can help you make the right decision. When you do choose your niche, make sure you're constantly scoping out the competition.

Business markets change. Customers change with them. So, to keep up with trends and ever-changing consumer behavior, check in on your competitors on a quarterly or yearly basis.