Are any niches overplayed? I know some niches are really popular, such as acne, taxes, credit repair, accident attorneys etc etc but you have a ton of MFA type of sites for those niches too so how does one tell if a niche is too saturated to get into? Because technically speaking you don't want to be competing too much with others doing the exact same thing you are doing I guess, from a business perspective? Or are all the niches above still good to get into even though they are so popular and "overplayed" by noobs like me?
I think you can still get into those niches if you know what you're doing. If you don't, you'll get eaten alive.
Well I don't know what I am doing but you burn and learn right? So if newbs don't hit these popular niches what else are we supposed to get our hands dirty with then?
make money online has to be the most overplayed niche of all. and ardley216, sorry to tell you, but I think consumer electronics is a very tough niche. I think so many people get into that because of the expensive items and they are just interested in gadgets in the first place. I don't think it's a great area to get involved with though because of the huge competition and the low commission rates. But that doesn't mean it's impossible, just a bit harder than something else might be
I don't know that there's any such thing as overplayed niches. Sure, there are niches with high levels of competition in them, but personally I always look at that as proof there's money flowing in that market. If nobody was buying the competition would dry up fast. The trick is just to find some "buying" related keywords to target and offer something better than the competition. If you sell your own products, sell better ones than everyone else. If you're an affiliate create a better on-site user experience than everyone else. Just make what you're doing somehow better than the competition and get it in front of traffic that's in buying mode.
It can be more profitable to go after smaller out of the way niches that you won't have so much competition with. If you choose a popular niche your PPC cost is probably going to be higher because of all the other bids you have to beat in order to rank high. If you choose a popular niche it will be harder to rank in the search engines organically, which is what you want.