If you’re like most people, you’ve probably run across the occasional sales letter or even blog post talking about finding niches and dominating them. Or that if you buy that mega cool keyword research tool, you’ll discover great niches with little to no competition, which you can completely dominate! Wow! Can you imagine being the top dog in the designer ball bearing niche? Imagine having little to no competition in your newly discovered niche!

Sounds pretty great right? I would have to say, eh, er, um… NOT!

It’s a big internet universe out there. First of all, you have to step back and ask yourself why there is no competition? To think that designer ball bearings is an undiscovered niche just sitting there waiting to make you the next internet millionaire is just pure fantasy. Yet many people buy into this very niche mindset.

Perhaps there’s another reason that a niche has little to no competition. Remember in the last post when I wrote about the word exchange game? Try exchanging “competition” for “interest“. Exactly. The niche has little to no interest.

Competition is an indicator of interest in a product. If you have lots of competition, then its a pretty safe bet that there is a demand for this type of product. You have a REAL market.  Competition is a good thing… really! In fact, in any major market, let’s say “internet marketing” for example, competition is really just an illusion. The other people in your market shouldn’t be thought of as competitors at all. Instead, let’s use the word switching game again and substitute “competitor” for “JV Partner”, “link exchange”, “affiliate”, or even “traffic source” as few basic examples.

As you can see, taking different perspectives on things, including your internet business is a very important lesson to absorb into your life experience.

The next time you want to create a product or if you’re looking for a new market to expand into, do the opposite of what the “gurus” are teaching. Go jump into a really big market with lots of “competition” and stake your claim. See what happens. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results!