Finding Content Ideas In A Crowded Niche

You need to come up with new content. Constantly.

But, your niche is packed full of epic content already. And, you have no idea where to start!

Fear not my young content creator, help is on the way.

In this post I am going to share with you some ways to overcome this problem.

Not only will you have lots of great content ideas, but you will also potentially be able to rank for them.

BOOM! Yes, it’s a win-win.

It Sucks When Your Niche is Crowded

I should know. I have to compete in the SEO industry, as well as in WordPress.

And if you take a look around either – it is chock full of “epic content” from high ranking websites that are very hard to beat.

Let’s take a look at the top 4 for “On Page SEO Tips” a relatively common term in the SEO world.

You can clearly see the following top websites in there:

1. Moz
2. Backlinko
3. Online Income Teacher
4. Neil Patel

So, what is an SEO guy to do?

How You Can Win With Related Content

This is something I have been telling my clients and students for quite a while, but a lot of people just don’t talk about it (enough?).

The idea is simple yet super powerful – shoulder niches.

Say you have a niche like custom cakes.

You could start out writing blog posts about cakes, decoration, layers, icing etc. But eventually you will run out of ideas or it may be too competitive to begin with.

What do you do then?

You take a step sideways and brainstorm related niches.

What would someone looking to buy a cake also be looking for?

• Event planning
• Birthday decorations
• Renting event space
• Deciding on the perfect gift
• Weddings (and all the related stuff)

As you can see, you can go pretty wide.

via GIPHY

The Benefit of Shoulder Niches

Not only can these kinds of content and niches be far less competitive (depending on the industry of course) but you can also capture a far larger audience.

The problem with “sticking to your niche” is that:

• you are limited in what you can write about
• some people might not care about the details (only your competitors or cake bakers)
• you limit your traffic potential
• you limit your SEO and ranking potential

Imagine you are preparing for a wedding and you read an awesome article on how to plan it, step by step.

By chance, this happens to be a wedding cake specialist in your neighborhood. You loved their guide so much, you ended up buying your cake from them when the time came.

If all this wedding cake company had written about was types of cakes and decoration, you might never have found them.

So, if you are stuck trying to come up with content to capture a new audience or to rank better in Google…try going wide.

1. Think of what your potential reader or customer would be looking for that is related to your service or product
2. Think about the kinds of problems that leads to your solution
3. Think about the things that they need to learn or know in order to succeed with your solution

It can take a little getting used to, but in the end, you will reap huge rewards.

via GIPHY

More Detailed And Long Tail

Another option is to go deep, instead of going wide. This means that you write far more specific and detailed content instead of more broad and less useful stuff.

This is referred to as using Long Tail Keywords (which you can read more about in that post).

Not only is this more likely to rank on Google (because most big players don’t use this tactic as the traffic volumes are too small for their needs) but it is also far more useful to the person looking for your answer. People are kind of sick and tired of the same old “10 ways” and generic posts on how to solve problems. Being specific will help you stand out.

Say, you answer a question on how to store or transport a cake before a wedding. That is super specific, and there might not be a lot of traffic or people writing about it. But, the person looking for this answer will love you for it. As it saves their day!

You can find some great ideas for these kinds of things in

• forums in your niche
• wikis
• reddit groups
• Facebook groups
• books and reviews on Amazon

The idea is to look for what people are asking and talking about and then seeing if there is traffic and you can help.

Just go beyond what other people are doing and you will win some easier to earn traffic as a result.

You can then build from there.

Create Content No One Else Is

Whether you are struggling to come up with ideas, or just struggling to get traction on Google both of these ideas will help you big time.

Just take an hour or so to delve deeper into what it is that you do, or explore related niches you had never considered.

Sticking with the same old broad and generic content doesn’t help anyone, least of all you!

If you want to beat the competition by finding easy to rank keywords, try my Killer Keywords Course!