Niche validation

Hey everyone,

I am taking my first steps into Affiliate marketing and I was wondering if you could give me some tips on how can I figure out if I can grab a piece of the pie in that niche or it is too saturated.

I tried a couple of different keywords and checked the resulting 1st page websites with ahref's free backlink checker. That resulted in finding some big whales ranking at the top positions of the results but I also found some weaker websites ranking in positions 4-10.

Do you think that the existence of a couple of popular websites is a factor that should discourage me from going with that niche?

How do you guys approach the validation of a niche in general?

Thanks.

A lot of competing niche do have some results in serps and which keywords have you tried? Are they so compete and there is nothing else absolutely you want me to say? I really do not get you with that matter.