Ahem, you may have noticed that this post didn’t appear last Monday as promised. Damn those holiday festivities. And damn Apple for the 10.5.6 Leopard update that crashed my mac, taking my blog posts with it. Anyway, without further ado, here it is:
Competitors. Nobody likes them but, now more than ever, we need to learn to deal with them.
There are 2 schools of thought on competition. There’s the traditional “kill ‘em all” theory of dealing with competitors, and the Web 2.0 “love thy competitor” theory. Personally I’m torn between the two and find myself working with some competitors and against others. It all depends on your business model, your frame of mind and the arsenal of weapons you keep stashed in your basement.
Irrespective of whether you choose to work with or work against your online competitors, you need to know who they are, and you need to make a habit of keeping an eye on them. Here’s what I’d recommend as a basic competitor survey:
- Enter your primary keyword (the one you are trying to get a Google #1 for) into Google, within double quotes, e.g. “website maintenance services”. If you’re only targeting local competitors, be sure to tell Google to only show ‘results from the UK/US/wherever you live’.
- Write down the URL’s of the top 5 websites ranking for your keyword in Google’s organic rankings. While you’re at it, you should also write down the names of the top 3-5 advertisers on Google. These people are unlikely to be top 5 competitors, but they have got an advertising budget which makes them a threat.
- Now head over to Yahoo and MSN and repeat the process. Even though Google owns the lion’s share of search traffic, it’s still worthwhile checking out the smaller engines.
- Once you’ve put together a list of competitors, audit their websites. Actually read their web pages. Compare their product offerings to your own and make a note of any customer names they give away in testimonials or portfolio pages (if you’re planning on stealing their clients). You’d be amazed at the useful information you can pick up on competitor websites.
- Do it again every month. Some websites will change (e.g. those with blogs) and others will remain boringly static. After a few months of this you’ll start seeing how your competitors run their online marketing, and you’ll be able to decide whether you want to work with them, or squash them like defenseless bugs. It’s actually quite a lot of fun.
Moral of the story: Unless you’ve just written a dictionary for Amoebas, you’re probably going to encounter some competitors online. Best you learn how to deal with them before they learn how to deal with you.
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Online marketing doesn’t have to be complicated, and as far as I know there aren’t any rules to say you can’t have fun doing it.
Everything your microbusiness needs to be an online success is contained within the next 4 points. Granted, it’s a bit simplified, but the basic idea is bang on. So read carefully and take these ideas to heart:
Step 1: Get WordPress
Forget about what anyone else tells you about websites, the Internet and search engines. Content is what drives search engine results and there’s no better content management tool than WordPress. Of course it does cost £0.00 so that may be a sticking point for some of you corporate types.
If the world wasn’t on the brink of destruction, WordPress would go down in history as one of the most important inventions of the 21st century. You can download a copy of WordPress from www.wordpress.org.
If you don’t like the default theme that ships with WordPress, you might want to spruce up your design. You can either download a free theme from themes.wordpress.net (or do a Google search for ‘free wordpress themes’), or you can buy a premium theme from diythemes, woothemes or from Brian Gardner’s Revolution Theme store (there are plenty more, but these are the cream of the crop). Alternatively you could hire me to design a custom theme for you. That’s a subtle hint that I’m for hire, in case you didn’t notice.
Step 2: Install some plugins
To get the most out of WordPress, you’ll need a few plugins. A WordPress plugin is a little piece of add-on software that helps your WordPress driven website achieve more, and act more like a Website than a blog. For most microbusinesses wanting to run a small website with a blog, consider activating Akismet to protect you from spam, and download cForms II, Sociable, Related posts and the All-in-one SEO pack. That’ll do for the time being.
Step 3: Learn SEO
It doesn’t matter if you know absolutely nothing about Search Engine Optimisation. You should still sign up to Aaron Wall’s SEObook training program. There’s never been a more comprehensive guide to understanding SEO. For those of you who don’t have the time to do the whole course, I suggest Aaron’s guide to Blog Optimisation (it’s shorter, and it’s free).
Step 4: Communicate
Now that you’ve got a website that can do backflips, you know all about SEO and your site looks pretty, you need to start blogging. If you still don’t know what a blog is, or how it can help your business, I recommend reading Problogger or Chris Garrett’s blog. Blogging is probably the most important marketing activity your microbusiness should be doing regularly. There’s never been a faster, more organic way to grow a business while still having fun.
Well, that’s it. Four simple steps to online success. Other than Aaron’s SEObook and a decent hosting account, you don’t need to spend a penny. You’ve still got a bit of time until CERN’s LHC makes the world disappear into a black hole, so unless you want to spend that time with friends and family you can achieve almost everything on this list. Good luck!
Hello, I’m Dave. I work with web design agencies, freelancers and bloggers to develop standards-compliant WordPress and Thesis themes.