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Know Your Competition: How to transfer business skills intointernet marketplace |
by:
Felicity Anderson |
One offirst things to do before starting up any business is to investigatecompetition. Any business owner knows this is crucial; to determine how to positionbusiness inmarket, who to target, what prices to set and who to keepeye on. The same is true ofinternet marketplace.
However, this understanding is rarely transferred whenbusiness decides to ‘go online’. Perhapsinitial setup is so daunting that little thought is spared for anything beyondlayout and content ofwebsite. The internet, however is stillmarketplace, and one that is growing exponentially. Those same business skills need to be put to use here too.
If you want to learn fromsuccess of your competitors you first need to think likesearch engine. By mimicking popular keywords and phrases you can benefit from traffic that would otherwise be directed to your competitors sites.
Keywords are contained in what are called ‘Meta Tags’. These are tags that are found insource code attop ofwebpage and include descriptions, titles and key words. Search engines use this information (in addition to content) to rank your page for different search strings. You can access this information by viewingsource of any website, just simply select ‘View’, and ‘Source’ fromtoolbar.
If after looking at this code you fear it resembles some alien language, do not despair! There are many programs available that will search competitors’ sites for this information and providefull report: in plain English. Just look for anything about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it is one ofnew hot topics; and you will be swamped with products. The danger is to believe too much ofhype, don’t pay for promises; search engines are not as easily tricked as we are!
Another key ingredient is links. Your page will be ranked favourably if it is viewed bysearch engines as beingauthority ongiven subject. Links workbit like votes, if someone links to your site they are effectively ‘castingvote’ of approval. Howeverweight of this vote is affected by how many other sites they link to, so beware of ‘link farms’ (pages contained entirely of links) because they will not help improve your site’s positioning. The easiest way to obtain links is through online directories – although people may not visit your site directly through these links, it will help with overall search engine positioning.
Returning tocompetition; you can discover who is linking to other sites by usingonline link popularity checker. This way you can try and get these sites to link to you also. Remember, directed traffic isbest, so aim for links from sites which contain similar content to yours. If you arebusiness selling stamps, your best links would be from stamp appreciation pages – obvious really.
The internet has been established forwhile now. It is no longerunknown jungle. Asnew business entering this arena you can learn from other people’s successes as well as their mistakes!
Aboutauthor:
Felicity Anderson isweb designer and communications manager who usesinternet as her main source of promotion. If you would like to know more about anything mentioned in this article please visit her webpage where you can access contact details.
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