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Getting edge over niche competitor

by btyiw
9 replies
Warriors,

I wanted to get some feedback and suggestions on something I'm currently working on. The past couple of months I've been working on a site that would essentially generate leads in a very niche market, similar to CPR/AED. Based on my research, only one other company I've found is ahead of the rest in size of operation, internet marketing and market share.

Now I've easily ranked my website and it's bringing in an average of 100 UV a day from just organic traffic. I'm in the process of scaling it to PPC within the next couple of days. But I'm looking to get an edge over my competitor who is also doing PPC to get a bulk of his traffic. I'm only a couple of months away from over taking him on the 1st page of Google. The main objective of the site is get people to sign up for these certificate classes in which I would essentially hire instructors to teach them. Do you guys have any suggestions on how I can get the edge over my competitor?
#competitor #edge #niche
  • Profile picture of the author flipfire
    Try and find something you can offer that your competitor cannot. This way you'll have that edge you are looking for.

    Regards,

    Lee
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by btyiw View Post

    Do you guys have any suggestions on how I can get the edge over my competitor?
    Not so easy to add to the simple reality of Lee's answer above, but ...

    Non-SEO traffic is a good way to get more than just an "edge" over competitors. Its overall quality tends to be so superior to that of Google traffic that it can even be a way of forgetting "competitors" altogether. I don't like to put time and effort into trying to attract "organic SERP's" traffic, for two main reasons ...

    First, it's very precarious and makes your business Google-dependent, and any business that's Google-dependent is no more than one algorithm-change away from a potential accident (or even a potential disaster), as so many Warriors have been finding out over the last year or two, some of them to their very great cost.

    Secondly, for me, search engine traffic has been uniformly the worst-converting traffic out of everything I've ever tried in 8 entirely different niches over the whole of the last 4 years - search engine visitors to all my websites typically stay the least time, view the fewest pages, opt in the least often and actually buy anything by far the least often. I admit I do get tons of search engine traffic to all my main sites (because high rankings for multiple keywords happen to be a minor side-benefit of the main targeted traffic-generation method I use to build my business) but I'd certainly hate to have to make a living just from that traffic, or to make specific plans to try to increase the flow of that sort of traffic. I prefer almost any other traffic-source.
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    • Profile picture of the author Lucian Lada
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      in 8 entirely different niches over the whole of the last 4 years - search engine visitors to all my websites typically stay the least time, view the fewest pages, opt in the least often and actually buy anything by far the least often.
      How do you track that? :confused: Using goals in Google Analytics?

      Edit:

      I'm curious: have you ever tried, by using some software, to display a different landing page to SE visitors? I was thinking about using a more-hyped version for them just to get their attention (which is already achieved for article syndication visitors), and then slowly drift them into my normal funnel. I'm very curious to see how this works out.
      Signature
      Professional autoresponder email writer.
      I also write premium quality articles, e-books, etc.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Lucian Lada View Post

        How do you track that? :confused: Using goals in Google Analytics?
        Very similar ... mostly with software originally derived from Google Analytics; same principle, I think.

        Originally Posted by Lucian Lada View Post

        I'm curious: have you ever tried, by using some software, to display a different landing page to SE visitors?
        No, but I've often "wondered". (I'm not sure I'm sufficiently interested in search engines visitors to set up something different for them, but maybe I should, really).

        Originally Posted by Lucian Lada View Post

        I was thinking about using a more-hyped version for them just to get their attention (which is already achieved for article syndication visitors), and then slowly drift them into my normal funnel. I'm very curious to see how this works out.
        Yes, I'm also curious, and would be very interested to hear more about it, if you try it.

        I strongly suspect that it might be possible to do a little better with SEO traffic than we do. But whether the difference would ever be enough to make the effort worthwhile is another matter altogether.

        I might be wrong, of course, but I'm guessing that the qualitative difference between "article marketing traffic" and "Google traffic" is so big that it isn't really worth spending any time/effort/energy on trying to "improve" Google traffic performance that could be spent on (for example) increasing the syndication of existing articles, because that's something that seems - in niche after niche - to translate so directly to money in the bank.

        Translating visitors from search engines into money in the bank is going to be much harder and less worthwhile, I think. I'm honestly reluctant to use up even my VA's time on it, let alone my own.
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        • Profile picture of the author dkunklebb
          This is an interesting thread. I'm curious about something Alexa said regarding paid traffic being preferable to organic traffic. Do you think that just for people who are trying to make affiliate money or AdSense, etc? Or do you feel that applies to any situation?

          I'm not an affiliate marketer - I do the SEO for my insurance agency, which sells health insurance products. We want visitors to our site who find the information so helpful that they end up putting their contact information into our conversion page. They then become a "lead" that we can contact to try to help them apply for a policy.

          Getting listed high in the SERPs has been our goal but certainly we could try Google ads for paid traffic. What is your opinion regarding this is my site is not a traditional SEO money site? Appreciate your thoughts!
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            Originally Posted by dkunklebb View Post

            I'm curious about something Alexa said regarding paid traffic being preferable to organic traffic.
            I did?

            Well, I said I think non-search engine traffic (paid or free) is preferable to "organic" traffic.

            I prefer free traffic, myself, and most of my business is built on it. (But not search engine traffic, admittedly).

            Well, look, it's all a slightly semantic point, really, isn't it? I can say "article marketing traffic is free traffic" and others can say "Well, you're paying for it with your time, effort, energy and skills rather than with money", and that's a perfectly valid point. And then they can say "Google traffic is free traffic" and I can say "Well, it isn't really, because you're doing this and that and the other to achieve and maintain your high rankings, and that's all work and effort and time and energy, too", all of which is also true?

            Originally Posted by dkunklebb View Post

            Do you think that just for people who are trying to make affiliate money or AdSense, etc? Or do you feel that applies to any situation?
            I was actually speaking of "affiliate money". (I don't use AdSense and wouldn't want to).

            I don't know whether it applies to "any situation". But I think it's pretty much undeniable that search engine traffic is dependent on search engines (i.e. precarious and you're not ultimately in control of it: someone else is), and usually pretty poor quality traffic, too?

            Originally Posted by dkunklebb View Post

            I do the SEO for my insurance agency, which sells health insurance products. We want visitors to our site who find the information so helpful that they end up putting their contact information into our conversion page. They then become a "lead" that we can contact to try to help them apply for a policy.
            Yes, I understand. I have no experience of this at all.

            Originally Posted by dkunklebb View Post

            Getting listed high in the SERPs has been our goal but certainly we could try Google ads for paid traffic.
            I don't have a lot of experience of PPC advertising, either (though I've used Google AdWords sometimes in the past and am interested in it). I wouldn't expect its traffic quality to be better, though, because it comes from the same source (and indeed the same page!) as SERP's traffic, doesn't it?

            I understand that many businesses do well with PPC other than AdWords, and that their cost-per-click can work out lower, that way, too. (I'm "just saying": Google AdWords is far from the only kind of PPC traffic available).
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            • Profile picture of the author dkunklebb
              thanks for your thoughts Alexa! I think I have a lot to learn on the terminology used in the forum about this, and clearly so much to learn about all the ways to generate income from a site. If I am going to be building all these, might as well monetize some of them.
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  • Profile picture of the author gcbmark20
    Hi,

    Find as many ANSWERS to your potential customers PROBLEMS
    as possible and write them down.

    Take the very first step you can help them them with right through to
    the last step and then base your OFFER AROUND THOSE.

    Look around and check out your competitors site(s) any forums in
    your niche, anything that can allow you to see what potential customers
    are looking for.

    Once you truly know what your market wants...

    ...GIVE IT TO THEM!

    EVERYTHING!

    ON A PLATE!

    This will give you edge over your competitor(s) because more than
    likely THEY haven't done this research and this is where YOU can take
    advantage of this fact.

    Go the extra yard, mile and give them what your competitor hasn't.

    All the best & keep us updated with your progress.

    Regards
    Gavin
    Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author rodsav
    This is a very interesting post and I have to agree with Alexa's comments. But when it's all said and done, the goal is to get an edge over your competitors. You need to have a better offer to convert the prospect into a buyer.
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