A common question I get in the Ship Your Directory community is “Someone is building a directory in the same niche as me. What should I do?!”
Look, I get it – it’s discouraging to discover new competition going for the same directory niche.
You may even feel threatened, especially if you’re convinced that this idea is your super secret find of a lifetime (spoiler: it’s probably not).
The truth is, the random person you’re worried about isn’t actually your biggest competition.
It’s the person who is already successfully ranking on the top of the first page of Google for your niche.
And to be the best, you have to beat the best.
Which means you’ll need to:
- Understand the biggest drivers of modern SEO
- Deliver more value than those ranking top 3 within your niche
- Deploy an effective SEO strategy with high quality, relevant link building
To put it bluntly, the person you’re worried about likely won’t do the work.
If you’re seriously committed to learning how to build a profitable directory, your copycat “competitor” is statistically more likely to give up in less than a month.
Or, be the type of person who publishes 500 AI-generated, first draft blog posts on a fresh domain, then calls it quits when it doesn’t magically earn them thousands of website visitors hungry to read more.
p.s. I rarely invest my efforts into blog posts as a means of acquiring organic traffic these days
“OK – but Frey, what if my competition is serious about building and we’re going for the same niche?”
In the extremely rare case that you’re competing for the same exact keywords as someone else, here’s some practical advice:
- SEO is a player vs. player game (PVP). Not everyone will win. Accept this quickly and prepare for battle.
- Don’t copy a competitor that doesn’t already have the success you want. Instead, copy the people who are succeeding now (i.e. top 3 ranking websites for your niche).
- If you want meaningful profitability, you need rank within the top 3 of a high-traffic keyword. Obviously, you want to be #1. If you don’t believe you can compete with the current top 3 ranked websites, then move on to the next step.
- Niche down even further. The more you niche down, the less competition there will be. Long-tail keywords are much easier to rank on the first page for.
- If you’re stubborn and don’t want to niche down, offer value that people can’t find from other competing directories. Understand search intent deeper, find ways to make your search experience more convenient, and enrich your data better than anyone else.
- Focus the bulk of your efforts on niche-relevant, high-quality backlinks. This is arguably the most important one if you and your competitors are providing (more or less) the same information.
And remember, you can always pivot and chance niches entirely.
There’s an abundant of niches for those who are willing to find them.
The best SEOs, or builders in general, are those that have the humility to change their mind quickly when there’s good reason to.
Best,
Frey
