Finding niches, Method 1: reverse-engineering marketplaces

The goal

1. Find a low-competition (untapped) niche.
2. Find a good competitor in it and replicate what works.

Step-by-step

1. Browse marketplaces where people buy and sell websites: Flippa (flippa.com), Empire Flippers (empireflippers.com), Motion Invest (motioninvest.com), FE International (feinternational.com).
2. Filter for high performers — sort by revenue, profit, traffic, or growth rate; look at content sites, SaaS, e-commerce, or dropshipping; choose categories like health, tech, finance, pets, fitness, or hobbies.
3. Analyze a promising site with Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Similar Web — check its SEO, traffic sources, and backlinks, and identify what actually drives its traffic (organic search, paid ads, or social).
4. Check keyword opportunities — in Ahrefs Site Explorer, enter the site's URL, look at its top-ranking keywords, and find ones with high search volume but low competition.
5. Analyze monetization — see how the site earns (ads, affiliate, digital products, dropshipping) and which model fits the niche best.
6. Validate demand and trends — check Google Trends for growth or decline, and check forums, Reddit, and Facebook groups for active discussion of the topic.
7. Choose and validate — confirm consistent demand and more than one monetization option, and avoid saturated or declining markets.

Reverse-engineering directly

ahrefs.com → Site Explorer → paste the site URL → Keywords, then filter for the best keyword. Example subject studied this way: capitalexotic.com (Capital Exotics).

The fuller version of the same method, worth running on any established ("macro") site: open it in Site Explorer, review its top pages, pull the top keywords from whichever pages look strongest, then search those keywords on Google's own SERP. This is the path from a macro site down to a nano niche — one page on a big site can point you straight at a small niche worth owning outright.¹

Brand hijacking

Brand hijacking means targeting an established brand's name, keywords, or audience within a niche to capture its traffic and visibility. It can be intentional or unintentional, and shows up in SEO and affiliate marketing in several forms:¹

1. Using brand keywords — content built around a well-known brand's name (e.g. "Nike Shoes Review") to capture its search traffic.
2. Affiliate hijacking — ranking for brand-related keywords and redirecting users to affiliate products.
3. Mimicking brand identity — a site, logo, or content designed to closely resemble a well-known brand, to borrow its credibility.
4. Paid ads on brand names — running PPC ads on a competitor's brand name to intercept its clicks.

Footnotes

1. iSkills SEO course notes, compiled 2025. ↩ ↩²