When most people take their first plunge into making money online, one of the initial pieces of advice they receive is to gauge their online competition before moving forward with a niche, to make sure it’s not too “competitive” or “saturated” for newcomers entering the market.
I say the opposite. I say the more competition, the better. And here’s why…
A niche that has an overwhelming amount of competition tells you two things. First, that it MUST be profitable. Secondly, it means you have a whole slew of websites to potentially leverage off of in the future.
But I’ll get into all that in a moment. First, it’s important to know that if you’re going to be “ignoring high competition” when choosing a niche, you have to make sure you’re doing at least one thing right. And that is…
Retaining Your Website Visitors
Retaining your website visitors is just a fancy way of saying build your mailing list. The best way to do that is to give your visitors a good incentive to subscribe, such as offering a free report in exchange for their email address. The report doesn’t have to be long, but make sure it’s useful and relevant to your niche.
This is the fastest way to build your list because most people find it difficult to pass up a free offer.
So How Do You Get Visitors to Retain?
My favorite methods include blog commenting, forum participation, article marketing, and guest blogging.
Blog commenting is simply selecting a handful of blogs within your niche and posting useful comments on a regular basis. Forum participation works the same way, but make sure you are posting helpful replies. Article marketing involves writing short articles and submitting them to article directories, and guest blogging is submitting high-quality articles to the established blogs in your niche.
If you do all of those things on a regular, consistent basis, it doesn’t matter how many websites you’re “competing” with, you’ll get your share of the niche because you are retaining the visitors you do get. You are effectively taking a “piece” of your niche and keeping it for yourself.
In fact (as I previously mentioned) the more competition you have, the better.
Why Is MORE Competition Better?
Simply put, if you promote your website effectively through the easy methods that I just described, you’ll be leveraging your competition, rather than fighting against it. Think of it this way: the more people involved with your niche, the better!
From there, once you have people on your mailing list, those are YOUR subscribers. As long as you treat them right, they’re not going anywhere. The one’s who do unsubscribe will be the people you don’t want on your list anyway.
How to Treat Your List Right
If you follow the simple “formula” I’m about to give you, you’ll quickly become a trusted authority to your list, and then shortly after, to your niche.
Send an email every six days to your list. Two out of every three emails should contain a link to one of your high quality, useful articles on your blog. Every third post, either recommend a product (your own or affiliated) or post a product review. As long as you are recommending quality products and services, you won’t offend your list by doing this.
The reason why I say send an email every six days is because it’s often enough for your list to not forget about you, but not so often that you’re going to annoy them.
Because you’re giving them high-quality articles way more than you’re sending promotion (remember, every two out of three emails will be free, high-quality information), you’re showing your list that you care more about providing them value before you’re interested in what’s in their wallet.
Ensuring Your Success
Whether you’re just starting today, or you’re already established, if you follow the simple promotional methods I described, work on retaining your website visitors, and treat your list right (and do all of them on a regular, consistent basis), your competition will soon be working for you, not against you.
Jonathan Beebe is an online entrepreneur and list-building expert. Visit his blog for regular articles on how to make money online, building your list, and a FREE report that takes you step-by-step through the exact method he used to quit his day job for good. You can also submit guest posts and share your business tips.