With COVID-19 forcing millions of people out of work, the internet looks like it offers an opportunity to try and earn a living online.
Setting up an eCommerce business is challenging, and there’s plenty of tasks involved with launching and managing a webstore, blog, or affiliate landing page.
To make the most out of your online experience, you need to choose a niche where you have the best chance of penetration. The reality is it takes a marketing strategy to make your website rank in search and SERP.
Therefore, there are some niches that newbies should avoid when thinking about starting an online business. Some niches cost a fortune in ranking for keywords, and the expenses involved marketing and SEO.
Here are our five most difficult niches in the online marketing industry. Avoid them unless you have a large marketing budget and deep pockets.
#1 Gambling and Casino
Online gambling and casino are possibly the most challenging niche to rank online. According to Casino Robots, it’s a competitive niche with brands and companies generating millions in revenues. Therefore, you can expect the niche to be challenging to penetrate.
Most casinos spend a large part of their profits on advertising and marketing strategies to draw in more business. They offer the latest casino games and competitive bonus packages for players on the front-end. On the backside, they spend millions on AdWords, social media, and video marketing strategies.
As brick-and-mortar casinos closed in 2020, the online gaming space absorbed the action. As a result, business is booming for casinos, and the industry is even more competitive than it was at the beginning of the year.
#2 Adult
Adult is another popular niche that exploded in 2020. With adult stores closed, everyone is moving their business online. The adult niche has plenty of opportunity for talented marketers, but it also has plenty of competition.
The internet got its claim to fame from hosting adult content, but today, eCommerce far outweighs the old model. Adult websites rank for some of the most expensive AdWords, and you need a deep marketing budget to accommodate the costs involved with competing against the top companies and affiliates.
To run a profitable business, you need to specialize in combining sub-categories. Marketing to your audience can require some racy content, and you’ll need to hire copywriters comfortable with working in that industry.
#3 Payday Loans
A payday loan website is a lucrative but competitive niche. However, it’s not the best option for beginner internet marketers. Ranking for a payday loan site takes a massive amount of outreach and backlinking to improve your rankings.
In 2016, Google decided to ban payday lending websites from advertising using the Google SERP platform. The reports of predatory lending practices from unethical companies caused concern with promoting these businesses.
As a result, marketers must resort to social media and link-building strategies to build their business. Using digital traffic sources to deploy geotargeting strategy through social media and local PPC offers the best value for your marketing budget.
Payday loan prospects come from specific demographics, with targeted customer personas. Therefore, using your strategy to target these groups on social media is a great way to attract new customers.
#4 Real Estate
Real estate continues to be one of the most profitable and competitive niches online. Real estate agents put a huge amount of work into marketing. Unless you have a solid work effort and a Deep marketing budget, it’s challenging to compete.
The best strategy for ranking in real estate is to focus on promoting local listings. Using local SEP tactics and strategies to target specific zip codes is the best way to promote your company’s listings. Facebook Ads allow you to geotarget prospects in your local area, promoting your listings and your company in their feed.
Focus on using informational, local keywords surrounding real estate investments, such as demographic information, legal, and financial data. Remember the importance of using video and high-quality images in your marketing strategy.
#5 Cryptocurrency
With Bitcoin breaking its 2017 high almost three years to the day, cryptocurrency is in for a wild ride in 2021.
Crypto is one of the most competitive niches online, and like Google banned payday loans, social media banned crypto. Therefore, it’s challenging to advertise your crypto business on these platforms, and you’ll have to find alternative methods.
There are plenty of models for working with crypto online, from crypto cloud mining programs to promoting exchanges. However, it’s a challenging niche requiring extra effort from marketers.
To be successful, you’ll need to focus on backlinking and building your reputation on social media – without the use of ads. That means creating an organic reach, and that’s challenging on a platform that focuses heavily on its advertising model to generate reach for your posts.
Choose the Niche that’s Right for You
Marketing a business online is challenging work. Therefore, make sure you choose a niche you enjoy working in every day. When you have passion for your work, it will help you persist through the challenging times.
