Truslow
There are two types of SEO nowadays – and luckily most people are still playing the old school "Match The Keywords" game. Oddly enough, I find that the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Digital Marketing niches are still very heavily weighted toward this – in spite of the fact they should really know better.
As such, if you know how to (or learn how to) master the Semantic SEO game – that competition is typically fairly easy to leave in the dust. You're no longer competing against everyone, you're just competing against 30-40% of the field.
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Jenni
Long tail keywords + building a personal brand *guest posting, guesting on podcasts, social engagement) are super important. Sometimes it's social media or email lists that work better for certain niches, but I wouldn't ignore SEO altogether because there's a lot of terrible and unrelatable advice out there.
Toto
Don't listen to the discouragement. People say successful things are a waste of time all the time. You can make it work if you want it bad enough. If you're passionate about what you're doing, you'll make it work.
Vivek » Anna
Just a little advice that in your blog firstly target some long tail digital marketing keywords with low competition don't target directly keywords like digital marketing. Its better to work just a little in different way because if someone getting 1k traffic daily but only able to convert 10 users into revenue and other getting 100 visitor daily but successfully converting 50 users. so work smartly and when you rank your blog on long tail digital marketing keyword start to work on more blog with little different queries but same niche. Than at last start working on competitive keywords, because at that time Google already know a lot about your content and it helps to rank you in high competition also. But if you directly start working om high competition may be Google will not like your content much so that work start working on low competition at first you got a lot of things to change.

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Ammon Johns 👑
There's an old-school term that long predates the web, but is still absolutely key to success without massive investment: the USP or Unique Selling Point.
Despite how old and long established it is, there's a lot of people who still don't really get it. They think that just being unique or quirky is enough, without understanding that the uniqueness has to be in regard to a selling point.
With a good USP you can stand out in any field, however crowded, with something that is both unique (has no exact competition) and compelling (a selling point). Without a USP, the cautions and advice of others that the market already has plenty more supply than demand is absolutely true.
What the USP means for you in particular, is that you have to find that area that plays to your unique strengths, talents, or experiences, and gives people a reason to want *your* version of the information, rather than just *a* version of widely available information.
The long-known principles of power laws, or the famous Pareto Principle, show that there is no chance of just getting a fair share of a market just by being in it. 100 competitors don't each get 1% of the market. The one with the compelling USP gets almost all of the business from those for whom its uniqueness was a selling point. The rest of the market go for whoever is cheapest (which means has the lowest profit margin).
I can't advise you on *your* particular Unique Selling Proposition (USP), the thing that will make you stand out in a compelling way. I don't know you or your background well enough. But I can state with certainty that you need to find one, and that your success (or not) will depend on your USP.
Michael Martinez 👑
" MY blog is about digital marketing/blogging/affiliation, so pretty much an extremely competitive/ crowded niche."
Who do you want to reach with the blog, and are you hoping to make money with it or just to reach an audience?
No Search Engine Optimization (SEO)/digital marketing blog reaches everyone. There are many corners in the Web marketing-verse, and many of them have little to do with the others.
If you can reach only a few thousand people per month, would that be enough?
I built my blog up to 10s of thousands of monthly readers. Now it only gets thousands because I don't invest time in it any more. But I'm okay with that. It does what I want it to do.
Honestly, I reach more people through social media. I occasionally write Tweets that are read by more people than read my entire blog in a month.
What are you trying to accomplish? What do you want from a blog?
If you only see it as a money vehicle, yeah, the competition is fierce and you'll spend years building up the audience you need.
If you see it as a platform where you can share your thoughts and maybe engage with people who are interested in what you have to say, then every month where you get at least 1 visitor more than the previous best month is a good month – and a success.
YOU should define your key performance metrics, not other people (many of whom are just parroting what they read on the Web without caring about what you want).
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