New Website Owners Have Ways To Increase Their Edge Over The Competition

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Sunday, July 1, 2007

The competition online isn’t getting any less fierce. For one thing, if you are just starting out with your online business then you have a certain number of competitors who have been here longer. They have clout that you don’t have - especially at the search engines.

When you consider that older sites gets more credit for their authority than new sites you should also keep in mind that as your site grows older that gap will shrink. A site that has been online for 10 years doesn’t have as much of an edge of the site that’s been live for 7 seven as the site that’s been live for 4 years has over the site that’s been up for only 1 year. That’s because both websites have been steadily building their reputations, inbound links, and other mojo. Hang in there and you’ll get there eventually.

Your primary focus in the early days of your business should be in finding the right keywords for your niche. Don’t just go after the most popular keywords. Those will be the hardest to target for and attract any level of business. Go for the less popular but profitable keywords first. Even there, the competition is getting stiffer, but you stand a much greater chance competing on that playing field than the larger, broader one.

Another thing you can do is look for an edge. Many older sites have problems with their web pages. Sloppy code, too many tables, too much code, ineffective title tags, outdated meta tags, or one of many other coding difficulties. If they’ve been in business for more than three or four years they are probably using outdated techniques and haven’t updated their website to conform to the latest standards. That’s something you can take advantage of. It will lessen the edge they have over you in other areas.

In short, focus on what you do well and where you have the advantage and any lead the competition might have over you will lessen with time.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

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3 Comments

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Made Friday, 6 of July , 2007 at 3:57 am

[...] feeling when pouring through the websites of all of their well-established competitors? In his post New Website Owners Have Ways To Increase Their Edge Over The Competition, Nick at Search Engine Optimization Journal offers some good reasons why you as a new business can [...]

Comment by namecritic

Made Friday, 6 of July , 2007 at 4:27 am

Great Post. Great explanation about how the gap shrinks over time. It takes patience in the beginning. Impatience when you first start your website will cost you a lot of money with little effect per dollar you spend.

You can spend money effectively in the beginning, just in my opinion, don’t spend it on someone guaranteeing you top listings in the search engines right way. Spend it on ppc and advertising while making sure you leave enough to optimize your website one time.

After you do the onsite seo, leave it alone for a few months. Use your budget to get traffic from other websites and use ppc for search engine traffic. If the onsite seo was done correctly, then the organiuc listings will start to appear in the search engines soon enough.

Just my two cents worth again

Comment by Adam Thompson

Made Friday, 6 of July , 2007 at 10:27 am

Targeting the smaller keywords is always a good idea. In many cases you can get more traffic from them, and do it faster than if you had just targeted the main keyword.