What Are The Most Competitive Industries For SEO?

[islandmaan]

Sorry I am new to this Forum and cannot find out how to start a new thread, so I apologize for being off topic. I just had a quick question?

What do you find to be the top 5 most competitive/difficult industries for SEO? You always hear about Porn and Gambling being so difficult but I would like to here from you professionals what you thing the top 5 are (including porn and gambling if in fact they are in the top 5).

Wave I apologize for the hijacking i really could not find the new thread link.

Thanks,
Brian

[gamblingsem]

I have found that the travel, gambling and games industries are very competitive. I have also heard that pharmaceuticals and porn are in pretty much the same league.

Any specific reason for asking?

[David Wallace]

Well my compamy doesn't market porn or gambling/gaming sites so besides those 2 industries I would say the following:

1. Real Estate (individial agent sites)

2. Mortgages

3. Travel

4. Web Site Design (in general)

5. Any specific product or service that allows hundreds and hundreds of affiliate sites promoting the same thing.

[CaseyC]

insurance would fall into that highly competitive category

[mcanerin]

Also - gifts and gift baskets - spam-o-rama!

I have a pharma client doing very well - total white hat, etc. It's not a cake walk, but I don't think it's hyper competitive as a whole. It costs about 30k per month to market the site, which is a fair amount but not outrageous, given the profits.

There are sites that spend 10 times that in other areas just to keep up.

Certain types of pharma are though, especially pseudo pharma stuff like "herbal" remedies, etc where the regulations are not as clear as when you are selling prescription heart medicine to people.

Changing my mind..

Thinking about it, I suppose that if you didn't *have* 30k, then it would be extremely competive - depends on your definition of competition. I define it by the skill necessary to succeed, not the money spent. Others may have a different definition.

I guess it comes down to - ANY area can be too competitive if the normal budget for top sites is out of your price reach. If you want to be a millionaire without spending anything, then I imagine almost everything is "too competitive".

I only define areas as "competitive" if the top players all have roughly the same budget and time, and the rankings are due only to the skill of the marketers involved.

But that's just me today. I didn't think that way when I first started out doing small business sites (back then almost everything was competitive because my clients never wanted to pay for anything...)

Ian

[randfish]

Good Topic.

These are in no particular order (but are very tough):

1. Real Estate
2. Financial Services (mortgages in particular)
3. Travel
4. Medical/Pharma
5. Retail Computer Hardware
6. WebDev and Hosting
7. Retail Apparel

[Jill Whalen]

What do you find to be the top 5 most competitive/difficult industries for SEO?

If you find that you get email spam for it, it would be in one of those most difficult industries.

[badz]

porn, sex, butt plugs and beer. Not all at the same time of course

[islandmaan]

The reason I asked the question is I am looking for an SEO expert who is not in the gaming business but has had success in other highly competitive markets.

Since the US has made online gaming a grey area many have avoided direct involvment so I was looking someone who would be interested in a consulting role. Please PM me if interested.

Brian

[seobook]

porn, sex, butt plugs and beer. Not all at the same time of course
adult toys really is not that competitive IMHO...my second client ever a few years back was one of those stores and although it has been years since I have been near it the site is still rocking in Google.

[dannysullivan]

Put up a poll with some of the most popular suggestions.

[obuwebco]

Real Estate is the worst IMO.

We have had great success with seo for our business (web design)

Real Estate is bad cause you have SO much junk to weed through. Arizona alone has over 25,000 licensed agents..

[MrMackin]

EDUCATION - college degrees

[critter]

Gaming?

That gets my vote!

Critter

[shor]

What Randfish said.

Most of those industries (specifically the top 3) have hundreds/thousands of competitors per region/city willing to invest in SEO.

[notepad]

I'd have to say inkjet cartridges...then 2nd most difficult, a real estate site for foreclosures. Done both - had great success. All are still at the top on all major engines.

...however, never again.


# # #

[simons1321]

I would say Travel is definitely one of the biggest. Many of our clients are in the travel business, especially all inclusive vacations and cruises. The words "vacation package(s)" gets about 2,000 hits/day on wordtracker and about 7,500 hits/day on overture... thats per day!

[AussieWebmaster]

Real Estate is the top for organic...

Financial services tops for PPC...

[adgooroobizdev]

My experience has been that the following verticals are all very competitive (not listed in any particular order):

Singles/Dating
Floral/Flower Delivery
Financial Services/Mortgages
Gaming/Game Cheats
Real Estate
Pharmaceutical/Medical
Wellness/Nutrition
Travel
Online Education/E-Learning

[PerformanceSEO]

It depends on how you measure "competitiveness"??

Is it the amount of results the search engines turn up?

Is it the amount of money the clients are spending in the sector? (i.e. pharm)

Or is it the amount of websites that are being optimized?

If we are talking about the latter, then the Search Engine Optimization industry is THE MOST competitive industry on the web. It is the only industry where EVERY SINGLE website has been optimized (or so we would hope).

[powerstar]

1. Real Estate (individial agent sites)

Individial agent sites are not as competitive as the general keywords for real estate or mortgage.

'Deerfield beach florida real estate' much easier then 'real estate' or 'mortgage'

[sunnymonkey]

Crazy!

I find it crazy that no one has said the "SEO" sector is hard to optimise for? Lol

Surely the SEo sector may not have the most competitors but it has to be one of the hardest to crack ;)

Dave

[PerformanceSEO]

Dave, look back two posts before yours ;)

[sunnymonkey]

Im soooo tired today :rolleyes:

Dave

[NuevoJefe]

- means minus

Singles/Dating - city names
Floral/Flower Delivery - city names
Financial Services/Mortgages
Gaming/Game Cheats - game names
Real Estate - city names
Pharmaceutical/Medical
Wellness/Nutrition
Travel - city names
Online Education/E-Learning - school names

Those are definitely some of the most difficult industries to rank for main phrases and not local or very specific phrases. Most that are ranking well have been participating in the industry for a significant amount of time.

[WeDid]

I would say that "video on demand"

or anything with radio .mp3

[simons1321]

Those are definitely some of the most difficult industries to rank for main phrases and not local or very specific phrases. Most that are ranking well have been participating in the industry for a significant amount of time.

Just about any main phrase is hard to rank for ie: bmw compared to 1998 blue bmw 330i sedan. IMO, the more specific you get, the less searches there are for those terms and the easier it is to rank for those terms. The more general the term is = more searches for that term and more sites trying to optimize for that term, therefore harder to rank for. Just look at the Google Zeitgeist (http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html)... every top search phrase or term is a main term and not really very specific at all.

[adgooroobizdev]

Just about any main phrase is hard to rank for ie: bmw compared to 1998 blue bmw 330i sedan. IMO, the more specific you get, the less searches there are for those terms and the easier it is to rank for those terms. The more general the term is = more searches for that term and more sites trying to optimize for that term, therefore harder to rank for. Just look at the Google Zeitgeist (http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html)... every top search phrase or term is a main term and not really very specific at all.

I share your opinion. Although there may be fewer searches for '1998 blue bmw 330i sedan' than there are for 'bmw,' the former tends to be a higher conversion term than the latter. It also depends on the target audience you are trying to convert on the landing page.

If you're looking for shoppers just entering the market for a luxury car, keywords like 'compare luxury sedans' or 'compare luxury cars' will generally convert better as long as the ad is written around this theme and that is the action the user is able to take when he/she arrives (comparison shopping).

If you're looking for someone who is ready to buy now, keywords like 'bmw dealers in chicago,' 'compare bmw 330i prices' and 'buy bmw 330i in chicago' may be a better choice.

The keys are to build the sites for the users, build the campaigns around the desired user behavior/conversion, continuously track ROI/ROAS and make adjustments, and monitor the competition to see where you stand and what ideas you might gain from other successful campaigns (obviously without stealing/plagiarizing...I want to be clear on that).

[AussieWebmaster]

Traffic volume does not automatically equate to conversion.... and you need to do careful ROI analysis to see if the broad terms which are generally more expensive - the lazy are everywhere - and in most cases convert less.

Obviously so long as they convert at a profit the volume makes up for the better ROI of the more specific.

[NuevoJefe]

Contributing even further to the competitiveness of non-specific terms are the branding benefits that come with ranking for those mass-searched and recognizable terms.

[Shoda]

Regional travel and real estate aren't too bad, but probably depends on the region.

Global travel, well, forget it unless you have very deep pockets.

Derivatives of real estate aren't that tough though. PPC isn't that tough either, for real estate, or regional travel options.

I think there's probably areas where every niche is difficult to competetively SEO for.