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Posts Tagged ‘competition’
Saturday, September 4th, 2010
comScore reports that in the last year small business retailers online have lost 5.6% market share to their larger competitors. Does this spell the end of small business?
First, let’s discuss the reasons for the shift from small business to large business. Prices. Remember when we said that prices are the No. 1 reason consumers choose to do business with a company? Well, in a downward economy, what’s the first thing that happens? Prices fall.
Unfortunately, it’s the big retailers that win when prices fall. Small businesses tend to compete on price in good economies so when prices fall they don’t have as far to go. That means small businesses have to compete in other areas – like service.
Another way small businesses are able to compete online is with free advertising – i.e. social media. It doesn’t cost anything to use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and often a small business can see a greater return on investment because you don’t have to spend a lot of time on these sites to make a difference. A big business has to pay someone to manage accounts, but you can do it yourself in as little as fifteen minutes a day.
It’s not the end of small business. You just have to be a bit more creative in your approaches to marketing and compete on service, where you can always have the advantage.
Tags: competition, small business
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Skype is a software program you can download to your computer and talk person to person with anyone in the world over the Internet. It’s called Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP by industry insiders.
VOIP has been around for a while and in some quarters it is quite popular. Small businesses, however, have not taken to it in the same way big businesses have. If you work for a large corporation where you frequently discuss business with other employees of the corporation who office in a different location from you where you’d pay long distance phone fees then you may already by using VOIP. But it may be a different provider than Skype, which is free. There are paid VOIP services that offer more and better services than Skype. But we’re not talking about those.
A small business cannot afford more costly VOIP services. That’s why Skype has been a good alternative. It’s free. But Skype has recently introduced a pay-per-call model. It works like this:
- You put the code on your website that shows a Skype button
- Your website visitor sees the Skype button and clicks it to call you
- You answer, pay the per-call fee
Will this give your business the edge over the competition? It may.
Imagine that your website visitors can call you for free at the click of a button. You’re there to answer and offer immediate assistance to their needs. It’s free for them and you pay only when you get a call. Would it be worth it?
I think so, but there is one catch. Your caller has to have Skype loaded on their computer. Otherwise, they won’t be able to make the call. Still, it could be a competitive edge. Would you use it?
Tags: competition, Skype, VOIP
Posted in Tools for Small Business | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Everyone has competition. If you do business online then you’ll have competition online. And here’s the sad part: Your online competition could be completely different than your off line competition. That will mean that your business will face more competition, not less, for being online. Congratulations!
Sarcasm aside, it’s time to see competition as a good thing. Sure, your competition can do some things better than you. But you can also do some things better than them. Your goal as a small business owner is to take inventory of your strengths and see where you best fit into the marketplace.
HINT: Take inventory for both your online business and your off line business.
When you take an off line business online you are essentially starting a new business. You are not just adding an extension of your existing business. You are entering a whole new market. Is there some crossover? Yes. Your current customers will likely find you online. But you will also likely find new customers online that never would have found you off line. At least, you hope so. That is the goal.
For these reasons, I always tell small business owners who go online to do business to study the competition online and figure out what your niche is – online. Your online niche could be a lot different than your off line niche. But you need to find it.
Tags: competition, online marketing
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
At this juncture in the history of online marketing, I find it a bit reflective to take a look at the nature of competition. In the early days – and I mean the early, early days – there were not that many websites online. Of those that were online, they had virtually little competition as there were so few websites representing the various industries that were represented at all. And search engine optimization was so much easier then.
As the Web has grown, both in the number of users and the number of websites, more and more people have joined the Internet marketing craze. Search engine optimization has gotten more difficult, there are more ways to market a business online and most industries are a lot more competitive. For most businesses competing online there is huge competition as you are not just competing against like businesses but also against unlike businesses seeking to rank for the same key terms.
The nature of online competition is so different to the competition in the brick and mortar world.
Today’s competitive landscape is so much more difficult. With so many businesses seeking to rank in the search engines for the same keywords, so many different ways to market a business and so many ways to fail, it can get confusing. What should a small business person focus on?
There’s nothing wrong with seeking help from someone who’s been there before. Sometimes, the smartest thing to do is ask for help. If you find yourself in that position, ask someone who is empathetic with your station. You are not alone.
Tags: competition, internet marketing
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Reading the day’s headlines, one may get the impression that succeeding online means being the biggest company in your industry. Or the one with the most recognizable name. But neither of those is true.
The key to succeeding online is to develop a niche. It doesn’t need to be a huge niche. It can be a narrowly targeted niche. But it has to be a niche that you can develop and capitalize on. It also has to be large enough to sustain a business model around.
Preferably, your niche will have no competition. It would be nice to get into a niche with no competition and with lots of potential for profit. But even if there is competition, it has to be a niche where you have some skill and expertise and that you can turn into a reputation for yourself.
You don’t have to be big. You just have to be good.
Tags: competition, niche, online business
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 4 Comments »
Friday, June 5th, 2009
In just a few short days, less than a week actually, Microsoft’s new search enging Bing has replaced Yahoo! as the No. 2 search engine. That’s according to an article in WebProNews. But the big question is whether or not the search engine can maintain that position long term. I’m betting that they do.
Bing has certainly got a lot of buzz and if you haven’t used the search engine yet then you should probably make your way over and give it a try. My first impression is pretty positive and it looks like Microsoft has made a complete turn around in search technology, which is what it will take to become a competitive player in the search market.
One possibility is that the initial buzz got everyone talking and checking it out. But will they change their search habits? Will Googlers abandon the No. 1 search engine and migrate over to Bing? Will Yahoo! users? I think that some may, but there won’t be a mass exodus. What is likely is that users of both search engines will incorporate Bing as a second opinion source. If that happens then Bing could rise to No. 2 permanently. Nevertheless, this report is interesting news and is just good enough to keep us all on our toes.
Tags: bing, competition, google, search engines, yahoo
Posted in search engines | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 23rd, 2008
Rand Fishkin provides a really good example of why you want to be honest, straightforward, and direct with your customers. I even like some of his answers here. One of the best answers to questions people asked Google was on the question of spam. Here’s what Rand had to say:
Google can take anywhere from a day to 2 years to take action on spam reports. Generally speaking, unless the violation is egregious (or appears publicly in the media), Google likes to find scalable, algorithmic solutions to spam issues. Thus, they’ll take your report, compile it with dozens of similar reports of the same types of violations, and work from an engineering perspective to come up with a solution that will catch everyone using the tactic, not just the single site/page you reported.
That’s a good clue for webmasters. It’s not all about you. Google wants to create an environment that benefits the searcher all the way around. Creating algorithms to address issues like search engine spam is one way of doing that. That’s much more effective than just looking at one or two sites and engineering them through human-centered ways. But I do take issue with Rand’s suggestion to publicly out your competitors:
My best advice, if you’re seeking to really get a competitor booted from the index or penalized in the SERPs immediately, is to write about them on major SEO-related forums, submit a thread at Sphinn or a blog post to YOUmoz. When spam is reported publicly, Google tends to take action much more quickly and directly.
That’s really dirty pool. I’d say report the competitor to Google and, if you really want to be competitive, try to figure out what tactic they are using to get the ranking they have. If they are already using blackhat SEO techniques that Google has algorithms for addressing then you don’t want to mirror those. They’ll get their just deserts eventually and it could be bad for them. But if they are using techniques that are not necessarily considered blackhat, but might be questionable, then mirror them and when Google changes their algorithms the playing field will be leveled naturally. This will save you face with industry peers and customers, who might take your public criticisms of your competition and use them against you.
If you do use this mirroring technique, do it sparingly and wisely. You don’t want to get on the bad side of Google either.
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Tags: competition, google, search, search engine spam, SEO
Posted in SEO for Small Business, search engines | 2 Comments »
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