There are typically certain niche industries in the search space that are controlled primarily by SEOs with "special skills." Ian McAnerin has an excellent post on this at Search Engine Watch Forums. He gave this analogy; "if you were a normal home contractor and have the standard hammer, saw, etc toolkit, you could be very comfortable taking on a home reno, or even building a house. Pushing yourself, you could probably try to take on a small office."

For someone already in these niche spaces, they have the knowledge, skills and, most importantly, network and infrastructure to move into similar spaces. So what are some of these niche areas that are so competitive? According to Ian;

• Online Pharmacy
• Gambling
• Mortgages and Loans
• Legal Sites
• Porn/Adult
• Dating/Personals
• Modeling
• Website Hosting
• SEO
• Gifts and Gift Baskets
• Real Estate
• Affiliates
• Cheat codes/Warez
• Travel

Ian explains correctly that if you want to enter a space and you do not have much experience in these areas, then try to localize for them. For example, SEO in CITY, STATE or Travel in CITY STATE, types of queries. But even then, they still may be too challenging for some new or inexperienced SEOs.

On the other hand, some SEOs may not feel comfortable working on some of the niche areas listed above.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

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