Niche sites are a great way for new website owners to build a business and make some money along the way. Saturated niches make it difficult to compete, and it could mean that you won’t ever rank in Google even with great SEO tactics. This article covers five niche websites that are very difficult to rank due to competition.

The Internet is an open opportunity to build a business, make money, and do something that you love. There is room on the Internet for anyone, but some industries became so trendy that they’ve saturated the web. Saturation makes it extremely difficult to compete, so unless you have thousands in an advertising budget, it might be too difficult for a new site owner to gain traction. If you plan to build a business on the web but don’t have much in terms of advertising dollars, you probably want to avoid the following types of niche sites.

Job Leads or Employment Posting

Most people know the success of Monster’s job site. The site was the go-to place for people looking for a job and a place where employers could find anyone for employment. The last several years have seen a boost in job websites trying to emulate the popular Monster website success. However, the main problem is that employers post the same job description to multiple sites when advertising a position. The result is that your website content is duplicated by hundreds of other website owners trying to compete in search engines.

Android or iPhone Tech Blogs

Reviews, tips and tricks for Android and iPhones are heavily saturated. Google Adsense no longer accepts tech blogs, especially mobile device tech sites. Both the Android and iPhone names are trademarked, so you can’t use them in a domain name. You also can’t use logo images without permission, although many blog owners use them anyway. These topics are saturated and don’t perform well in search engines. Avoid trying to get ahead by using trademark names in your domain name because the owners can seize the domain and shut you down.

SEO Sites or Blogs

Unless you have a name for yourself on the web, competing as a new SEO blog site owner is tough. You have some big players in SEO that publish dozens of content pages daily. You can still add an SEO blog to your current business page, but ensure that you cover in-depth, well analyzed SEO content. With SEO content, you also need to include marketing and social media. Most SEO experts are on social media sites such as Facebook and Google+, so you’ll likely get more traffic from those marketing outlets rather than search engines.

News Content That Isn’t Original

News sites were popular for a while even if these sites weren’t the first place to report the news. Several copycat sites popped up, and now it’s common for website owners to rehash news that is reported in several other places. Google News only accepts sites that generate high quality original news. You can add rehashed or copied news as an addition to your website, but you should always avoid having these pages indexed. Use copied news wisely, and it can be a nice add-on for your readers. Basing your site entirely on rehashed news won’t usually rank well without marketing efforts that help you stand out against competitors.

Coupon Sites

Coupon sites are easy to create because you just need scripts and plugins. The problem with coupon sites is that new sites rarely offer anything new in terms of content or business models. Coupon sites generate code found all over the web and let users copy them from the site. It’s an easy business model to understand and get started, but it’s a saturated concept that will be difficult to compete unless you bring a new spin on site content and delivery.

When you want to start a new website, you should focus on a topic that you know well. You should also perform competitor analysis to figure out your chances to compete with sites that already rank well. If you perform a search and the top sites deliver quality and what users are searching for, you must be able to add value to the search index or you’ll likely struggle to compete.

These five niches have saturated the web, but it doesn’t mean you can’t give it a shot. If you can bring something new to the industry, you can compete and even rank above competitors. However, be aware that there are so many of these niche sites already that you’ll probably have a difficult time against older, more established site owners.