Can you compete against high authority domains with this kind of niche?

I'm trying to identify some keywords I can rank well for. I have found one term particular - for argument sake we'll say it's 'top hat reviews'. There is no specific top hat review site and there is some good traffic for 'top hat reviews' so I've bought a domain with top hat reviews in and set up a review site.

Now although there are no other top hat review sites, and the term "top hat reviews" does not appear much in the content any of the first page links - the first page links are pretty reputable websites - generally high street stores that happen to sell Top hats (Hugo BOSS, Ralph Loren etc).

So my question is, can I go against these with targeted keyword content or am I wasting my time going against these sites even if the keyword term is not matched much on these sites.

Thanks

PS: This is my second post but the first one seems to have disappeared so apologies if I've posted it in the wrong place or something.

Of course its possible, but it won't happen over night. You will need TONS of (professional quality) good content dripped in over many months and a smart on-going SEO strategy that isn't spammy.

It all depends on your skill level and patience. Don't go thinking you can just pop up a site and rank with a couple GSA blasts if you intend to beat Ralph Lauren.

Where you can outrank them is content.
By and large they will just be selling top hats and giving a description of the hat.
If you want to beat them, then start writing articles about top hats:
* the history of the top hat
* famous people who wore top hats
* how top hats used to be made
* changes in top hat styles over time

Doing this you get a whole bunch of unique content that these guys are not going to go near.

Thanks for the replies. I still find the whole 'going against a site with big DA' quite confusing. For example, if the idea is to make money with Amazon affiliates and you're essentially selling one of their products - aren't you always going to be on to a loser against them on the search engines?

My niche is a product that is sold on Amazon - when I type the keyword in, Amazon is in the top three results although it is just a product listing.

Is the product I'm promoting from Amazon being top of the search results a good thing or a bad thing?

Like Thophayt said, it takes time, patience and a lot of work. My niche products are sold on Amazon and Amazon outranks me for most keywords. My site is year and a half old (actual domain is 15+ years old). I have links from top media and other high quality links, I may never outrank them for the big keywords. It sucks. And it sucks Google favors Amazon so much, as well as other sites like Wiki. You should try and search for other keywords that aren't dominated by Amazon.

That being said, Amazon may just be ranking because of it's authority. If it's "Top Hats", well a lot of people probably linked to Amazon's top hat page, or a popular top hat, so it could be almost impossible to outrank it. But if it's like you said, "Top hat reviews", Google is just using Amazon's authority + the keyword "reviews" on their page. I'm sure you could outrank that. Again, a lot of work and time, but the latter is a little easier.

I guess the best way to find out if I can rank these products is to do it!

This has been helpful, thanks.