Sizing Up Your Website's Competition

Today we are going to talk about online competition. More often than not, our clients tell us that they want a website because they need to compete online with competitors in the marketplace. Or more accurately, they tell us they want a website because the competition has one. All of our lives we have been taught that being first in our chosen endeavors is how you should strive to go through life. Academics, promotions, black Friday sales. =) But when it comes to having a website, being second or even last amongst your competition can have tremendous advantages.

Here's are 3 key reasons why:

1. Design. They've put themselves out there already so you and your design team can analyze their website and "cherry pick" the good and throw out the bad and come up with a design that is more relevant for your industry and more importantly your targeted customer base.

2. Keyword Analysis. (Yes this is part of SEO farther down in the article, but thought it important enough to stand on its own for this writing). If you've looked at the Web Design of Kansas website, or read this blog you should be aware that we are an SEO focused web design company. Keywords and content (to us) are as important to design. Analyzing your competitions keywords and location of those keywords is outstanding intelligence you can use to write your content, page titles and meta tag data. Need help? Well you're in luck. The internet has plenty of keyword analysis tools that you can use for FREE.

Google Keyword Analysis Tool: A great tool to identify keywords. All you need to do is enter the website address of any website and Google will do its magic and identify the top keywords, the advertising competition for those keywords, and the global monthly searches for those keywords. FYI - this is offered as part of Google's AdWords platform and that is why you have an "advertising competition" category in the results.

SEO Book Keyword Analysis Tool: Another version of keyword analysis, SEO Toolbook will provide a listing of single keywords, two word keyword phrases, and 3 word keyword phrases as well as the number of times they are used on the web page and their keyword density.

SEO Analysis: If you haven't gotten the "memo", SEO and all of the techniques involved as compared to your competition is what gives a website a potentially superior ranking. So it stands to reason that analyzing your competitors website for SEO strengths and weaknesses makes good sense, right?

Website Grader by HubSpot is a great tool to get a 'real time' and FREE SEO analysis of your competitors website(s). The Website Grader delivers important information covering several categories that are important to SEO and can help you determine how SEO healthy your competitors websites are and what you need to do to match and hopefully surpass them in the future.

Back links to your competitors site. If your competitors have been online for any length of time they have been establishing back links. And many of them may be from vendors that you both use. Wouldn't it be great to know which ones so you could ask for a back link as well? You can, very simply. Head over to our old friend Google and type this into the search bar and type the word links, followed by a colon, followed by the name of the website you want to check.

links:somesite.com

What will come up is a list of every back link that goes to your competitors website. Reviewing these will allow you to determine the value of these links and provides a great start to building your own 'vitally important' inbound link strategy.

Alright, there you go. A good fundamental understanding of what you can use to uncover your competitors online strengths and weaknesses. This information can prove to be very valuable as you work develop an online marketing and deployment strategy. But always keep in mind: "what is good for the goose is good for the gander". These techniques could be used on your site as well. Oh well, just have the best site out there so all of your competitors are jealous, right?

Jess Marlow is the owner of [http://www.webdesignofkansas.com]http://www.webdesignofkansas.com.

Offering Website Design and Marketing to small businesses throughout the state of Kansas.

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How to Analyse Your Competition (And Know If You Can Beat Them)

So how do you know if you can rank for a keyword or not? Let's say you're about to create a brand new site and you're going to be writing all of the content and creating all of the links yourself.

You've gone and fired up Google's keyword tool and you've found a bunch of keywords that you're interested in pursuing. What next?

Look at the first page of Google's search results. Do the sites ranking on this page have the keyword you want to rank for in their titles? Do they have it in their URL (particularly as their domain name)? Are many of these pages sub-pages (i.e. pages that are not the homepage) or homepages? If the answer to most of these questions is 'yes' more often than not, than you may want to avoid that particular keyword. If the keyword passes these tests, check out the Page Rank of each of the top 5 sites in the listing. Ideally you want none of them to be above a Page Rank of 3.

Now, I know I'm not being entirely scientific here, but you have to almost develop an instinct or a feel for which keywords are 'rankable'. This might sound a little odd, but it's a knack that you'll develop over time (as I have) with enough experience).

Obviously no ranking is every guaranteed (there are too many variables to contend with) and you should always have patience with your site. Good rankings will never happen overnight. In fact, many experts believe you may need to wait up to a year before your website really hits its stride.

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Health In Competition

As a grade school student, I was oriented to always compete and to stay on the top no matter what. I have learned to wiggle my way in and out of competitive scenarios and I have experienced both the joy of success and gnawing pain of failure and defeat.

Today, competition abounds in all areas and with almost all people. They are like wired deep inside with chips that automatically gets them to a competitive mode. Take a look at today's business arena. The advertisements would definitely give you a picture of competition beyond any other. One brand of detergent tells the whole world that their brand is superior to all others. A television program competes against another program from another television network in terms of ratings. The other network refutes that they dominate the countryside masses and still is the overall number one program watched by many. What's driving people crazy is that all of them claim to be number one. Can competition get any better than that?

The internet is taking competition seriously, to a new level. Websites lure people from all walks of life. Everything is sold in the internet from jewelries and socks to beauty products and accessories. With all this massive products being marketed in the internet, entrepreneurs must be competitive in aggressively pushing their products to the target market. They must be able to successfully inculcate in the minds of the buyers that of the many similar products available in the internet today, their products stand out. However, the bottom line of this all is still "whoever gets the trophy."

But what does competition contribute to the world today, if, at all. Competition eliminates the possibility if mediocrity and inspires excellence. For competing products, there is more to the captivating visuals and taglines in ads but a tangible evidence that what you are saying in the ad is, at least, close to the real thing.

While the world is increasingly becoming aware of the impact of the internet, competition among businesses in the web is becoming stiffer and scaling greater heights. The web posts itself as a borderless marketplace that also includes giving everyone an unlimited potential to compete and become the best. At the end of the day, the consumer is still the rightful judge of all things whether they will fall prey of the taglines that can paint a thousand images or getting the real value of every cent that leaks out of their pockets.

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Niche Marketing Article - Narrow Your Focus

Internet marketers are always seeking to find markets with strong demand and low competition. But rather than focus on a broad market, many sellers find that it is better to narrow the focus. This article discusses niche marketing and the benefits gained from this strategy.

In general a niche market is a subset of a broader market. For example an example of market could be dog training. A niche market is a subset of this and a good example could be puppy training.

This niche market doesn't have the same kind of demand as a broader market but it does have much less competition. In this way the Internet marketer stands a better chance of developing a website or blog and then ranking well in the search engines for keywords related to this niche market.

The choice of keywords is a critical aspect of helping to achieve strong rankings in the search engines. An excellent way to generate interest in a particular blog or website at low cost is to write articles which incorporate niche or micro niche keywords.

If we use the example of puppy training as a niche, we can come up with a number of potentially strong keywords related to this which have good search volume and relatively low competition from other sites.

To help find good niche keywords, we can use a variety of tools. One of the best is the Google keyword tool. It is free and provides many good keywords to consider. It also lists the search volume so it can help us to determine the best ones to use.

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How To Find a Niche Market in 3 Simple Steps

Finding a niche market is the starting point of your business whether you are marketing offline or online. Nevertheless, there are tons of people who never get past this point, because they end up getting frustrated and quitting.

Here are 3 simple steps that I use to find a niche market.

1. Make a List - First start with a list of things that you are passionate about, skilled at, or have experience and/or knowledge with. Think about all of the skills you have learned in school, at a job, or in life.

Also think about the things you spend a lot of time doing, or the stuff that you spend a lot of money on buying. Realize that you are not the only person obsessed with these things. That means that these could be very fun and profitable niches for you to get into.

It is to best to start with your interests, because you will stay motivated to build your business even though some of your business tasks may become mundane and boring at times.

Try to come up with 5-10 different words and phrases on your list.

2. Keyword Research- Keywords are the words that people put into the search engines to find stuff on the internet. Keyword research does not have to be a tedius job. When research your keywords you want to look at two things:

Demand and Competition

a. Demand- If there is not enough demand for some of the words that you came up with to describe your interests, then it is probably a waste of time trying to build a business around those particular words.

You might find that people are looking for the same things on your list, only worded differently. This is why the importance of choosing the right keywords in the beginning can not be over stated.

A free tool that you can use to gauge the demand for your keywords is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Simply type the words or phrases from your list into the search box one at a time. This tool will pull up a list of words and phrases that are related to your primary keyword.

Make a list of the words that both accurately describe your interests, and have anywhere from 1,000 to 50,000 global monthly searches.

b. Competition- If there is a lot of competition in a particular niche then that is a sign that there is money being made in that niche.

Use Google search to analyze your competition. Type your chosen keywords into the search bar. Keep only the keywords that have less than 500,000 competing websites.

Also look to see how many ads show up in the "Sponsored Links" sections at the top and the right hand side of the page. If you see a lot of ads then that is sign that there is money being made in that niche.

3. Find out what type of products are being sold- You can do this by doing a search for your keyword in auction sites like eBay and Amazon.

Also look at the top websites that show up in the search engine and find out what they are selling. If you find that there are a lot of products being sold for a certain keyword then you have found yourself a profitable niche.

Much Success,

Jeremiah Carstarphen

The Cartoon Coach

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iPhone and iPod Repair - The Absolute EASY Way? Earn $100 A Day! (No Electronic Knowledge Required)

You CAN make a full-time living from home. Teach yourself a rare and valuable skill faster than you might think possible! Here's the problem: Most people want to make money without learning a skill. They want to create a window washing business, for example.

What's wrong with that? Nothing, but don't you think that leaves the door open to competition? We have big Standard Poodles and I think THEY could learn to clean windows! You need to think about what will reduce the competition. By learning skills very few people know, you'll have very little competition.

The REAL secret to making a full-time living from home really is: You must be willing to be a "VALUE creator." When you become one, you CAN make an absolute endless income - without EVER doing anything but good for others. For example - if you work a few hours a day, and repair just 3 iPhones a day, you'll clearly net $100.

If you're a bit MORE ambitious? You can rapidly build on the iphone repairs, moving on to the iPod, the iPad, and then to others like the Droid. You'll have tremendous job security, as you learn more and more repairs. It is a recession proof business. It can make you rich!

Does it really work? My son just taught iPhone Repair to his cousin. Mitch cleared $130 on his first day.You can have customers come to your home, or you can set up a mobile vehicle (just a car is fine) or you can rent a tiny commercial space. The best part? You don't need to know anything about electronics.

The key is this:

Focus on creating a STRATEGIC Repair Business. Stay true to you. You'll see profits. Better still, you'll find a permanent way to put "wow" your life. You'll always feel like getting up and getting going because you'll be riding a rising wave of your prosperity. Find someone to help you learn repairs. Practice. Use good solid marketing practices, and you'll have more business than you know what to do with.

So how do you get started?.

The key is practice. Advertise for broken iPhones. Order the parts, and practice. Re-sell the repaired iPhones. Just keep learning. Learning is earning. Like my 5th grade teacher said: "Scott, the easiest way is not always the best way." Most of all, have fun doing it! Next?

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Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?iPhone-and-iPod-Repair---The-Absolute-EASY-Way?-Earn-$100-A-Day!-(No-Electronic-Knowledge-Required)&id=5148727] iPhone and iPod Repair - The Absolute EASY Way? Earn $100 A Day! (No Electronic Knowledge Required)

Filed under  //   business   competition   ipad   iphone   ipod   think   wow  

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Online Business - 5 Ways to Make More Money Than Your Competition

It is a sign of a good and lucrative niche when more than one person or company is making money. A good and healthy niche is one that you find many competitors in because this means that there is more than enough money to go around. If you understand your competition you can really bank off of it and end up with a better product and more sales than them. Here are five ways to beat out your competition and make substantial income online.

The first thing that you need to do is understand exactly what type of product your competition is selling. Yes, this means you will have to buy it so you can study it and figure out how and why they are so successful. Then you will break it down and offer a good chunk of the meaty information to your visitors FOR FREE. You will be able to give it away after you expand the product to make it better and offer your visitors more than your competition.

Secondly, offer your product up as an affiliate. Since it is more than likely a digital product, there is no limit to the amount of products you can sell. So it only makes sense to have people help you with sales and offer them a great commission in doing so.

Third, offer contests for your affiliates. Offer them cash and prizes for the person who brings in the most amount of sales during a certain period. Be careful not to offer too much where it won't be profitable for you though.

Next, besides just listing your product as an affiliate you should also seek out JV partners as well. There is no better way to beat out your competition than to get some other big dogs in your corner. If you are offering a different product than your competitor, why not make friends and team up with them? It could be a win-win situation for all parties involved.

And finally, add some kind of incentive for people to buy your product over your competitors. This could be a lower cost, more bonuses, added support, installation, ongoing counseling, or discounts off future purchases. Any incentive that you offer that you competition doesn't will get you further in the sales process. Just make sure that you also limit the amount of time they have in which to accept the offer as well.

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How To Find Keywords For A Web Site

How to find keywords for a web site is a question faced by many Internet marketers. The ultimate goal is for the key words help you earn, they have to target the audience that will convert to buyers and they have to provide sufficient amount of traffic so it can all work out. In order to achieve this keywords need to have following features:

they need to be related to the product or better to what the potential buyers are looking for in the product,
they have to target a person who already is a buyer and not someone who just wonders around,
they need to be low competition keywords so you don't spend ages trying to get listed,
they need to have sufficient number of searches and sufficient traffic to keep things moving forward for you and keep sales rolling in,
adopt a "gentle " approach to keywords, a rule of thumb to meet the above criteria,
never lean towards extremes, there is a reason why a keyword has the lowest competition because no one is searching for it and therefore no one tries to get listed for it either.

Google wants you to know how to find keywords for a web site?

Your main device to do that is Google Keyword Tool. It is absolutely free, you'll never have to pay a penny for it and it is probably the most accurate one. The difference between Google and most paid keyword tools is interface, additional functions (calculated form Google provided data) and ability to store results. I usually us Google along with something else as I do like to store my results but I also like to check competition on Google as I find it more accurate and realistic in terms of being able to rank high in search results.

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Channel Partners Versus Affiliates - What Are the Major Differences?

With the proliferation of website affiliates selling digital products, some are wondering what the differences between channel partners and online affiliates are. Could affiliates be taking over majority of sales of digital products? Are they enough competition to cause conflict with the partners? What are in partner profiles that set channels apart from affiliates?

Internet marketing or affiliate marketing, specifically, has been going on for the most part since the inception of the Internet itself. From the beginning, the adult industry was the first to realize the potential for teaming up with affiliate sites to drive traffic to their websites. Eventually, big online retailers like Amazon caught on and joined the band wagon. Affiliate marketers drive customers to company's official site or landing page and earn commission through the sales of the products. Sites like ClickBank are platforms where digital products like software are sold, bought and promoted. Affiliate newbies usually get their products here because registration is free for everyone.

Structure
Channel partners, on the other hand, are companies with physical offices and customer sales support that follow up clients and customer. While a reseller can have their own online store, their target markets are mostly offline customers and clients. There are even VARs or Value Added Resellers that cater to highly specialized markets that would normally need a physical sales meeting to introduce a product.

Selling point
Affiliates are usually individuals who can only sell one product at a time. In fact, in a certain trade marked internet marketing method, the expert suggested that an affiliate find one niche keyword that does not generate much competition and focus on finding a product to promote it to avoid too much competition.

Scope of responsibility and experience
Channel partners deal with big volume of products from a variety of vendors. The VARs, while they deal with lesser volume, sells extremely high-valued products. Their partner profiles will probably be a list of who's-who of software manufacturers and will detail their experience not just in sales but in software integrating and implementing as well. Partners are established companies that do actual selling rather than just promotion.

For big software manufacturing companies, channel partners are the regular distributors of their products but that does not mean that affiliates have nothing to offer to the table. Affiliates, in general, are more open to innovation, they are cheaper to team up with than channel partners and a vendor can have more affiliates.

Resellers, in the meantime, are solid companies that are reliable and more experienced with sales and marketing. They navigate not just the online space but the physical world as well. And they can have relationships with regular and loyal customers unlike affiliates who are confined to their virtual world.

So are affiliates enough competition to drive channel partners out of business? The answer is, of course not. As long as majority of trade is conducted offline, partners will continue to be the reliable distributors of products for vendors. In the question of conflicts, however, vendors have to decide if they want to hire affiliates to promote their products. The conflict will not come from the affiliate, it would be from the vendor itself that actually sells the product. The affiliate just helps customers arrive at the vendor's website.

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Filed under  //   amazon   channel   competition   sales  

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How to Find a Profitable Niche to Run a Home Business

We all know the importance of finding a highly profitable niche for your home business which is low in competition. One important thing to note is that even if your target market is very small, it does not mean that it will not be profitable. Many internet marketers and home business owners have successfully made a lot of income from targeting small, obscure niches.

Market research forms the cornerstone of profitable niche hunting. The first place to look at is Google Directories. The plan is to start broad and dig deeper. Choose from popular topics and then narrow down your search to find those small niches which have potential buyers. There must be a strong desire for your targeted niche. Find out what people are looking for and then make products or solutions suited to it. The best way is to put yourself in the shoes of the customer and ask yourself - What am I looking for?

The next is those magazines in your local news stand. It's usually there because they cater to specific, juicy niches, ripe for the taking. Read the articles inside the magazines to reveal magical sub-niches which you can really profit fully from. Also pay attention to the headlines they use, which are usually very striking and gets people's attention easily.

Once you have found some potential niches, u8e the Google Keyword Tool and type in the keywords for your niche. A global monthly search volume of 3000-8000 shows that it is not too competitive or too dead. Also, notice the advertiser competition. If the advertiser is strong, you might have some competition, but it shows that this is a profitable niche, and that is why people are advertising!

Next up, be on the look out for trends in transition. For example, during Valentines day or the World Cup Football season, it would be a good time to sell products related to that time of the year. When Valentines day comes up, people will usually get desperate and start looking for dates. This would be a good time to sell dating guides. Use Google Trends tool to search for terms which may follow a certain trend.

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Filed under  //   business   competition   find   first place   google   people   search   small   target  

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