I’ve had quite an interesting from Rich. It is yet another question regarding the selection of niches, but with a twist… is it really OK to try to compete where there is already one or more established sites within the same niche.

Here’s his question: -

Kirsty, first of all, some brownnosing – I love your blog and the help that it gives people like me who are newish to affiliate marketing. Instead of “chest beating” you give some really helpful advice and I remember voting for your blog in the A4U awards last year, you should have won!

Rich

Well Rich,

Wonderful compliments, thanks… I must get you to drop me a line the next time I’m feeling sorry for myself!

Of course, I don’t know which particular niche you are talking about. Lets face it, you don’t want me publishing that info or you’ll have 100 shiny new competitors by this time next week! Therefore I’m going to have to generalise and cover a few bases with this.

So long as what you have identified really is a niche I don’t really see any issue with you going up against an already established site. However, if you have chosen a “genre” instead of a niche then think twice about setting yourself up for a huuuuugggeeee task. To clarify for anyone who thinks I’ve gone barking mad, a “genre” would be something like shopping, whereas a site such as my Lingerie Brands site is a niche within that area. Geddit?

As you rightly point out with your voucher code sites example, Affiliate Marketing is an industry defined by its competitiveness. So long as nobody is ripping off anyone else’s site or content, it is all fair game. Any affiliate with a shred of common sense has no problem with this. It is the competition in this game that makes us all push on to achieve greater and bigger things every year.

You are an individual. As such you will probably find you deal with your subject matter differently to the owner of this other site, and create something with your own distinct touch to it.

If I were you, I’d sit down and try to actively think of ways to differentiate your site. Get a notepad out and have a real old brainstorm. First off, sit down and write out all the features you can see on the existing site that you think are really working. Once you’re really familiar with it, you will find all sorts of ideas to improve on their offering popping into your head. If, as you say, it is an area you are interested in you should find this happens really naturally (which is why I’m always harping on to people about following their interests in this game).

You might think you can’t do this right now… but seriously… you will surprise yourself. This will have the added bonus of giving you different avenues from which to extract search engine traffic

To close, the best thing for you to do next is a bit of advice I’ve heard loads of bloggers give to new affiliates: - You KNOW what you want to do. Stop thinking!!

Do it Now!