Only pick a fight you can win - the first rule of successful Web marketing by David Rosam

We're at least a decade into the Internet as a commercial medium. The top sites have been there for a long time, so if you're launching a site now, you have a lot of catching up to do.

Aren't a great site and brilliant products enough?

In a word, no. Consider the nature of the battlefield. Google is king of the Web - more than 70% of searches worldwide are on Google. And, in the B2B sphere, probably more.

Google actually prefers older, established sites - it even largely ignores new sites by 'sandboxing' them for 9 to 12 months. The big hitters have been there for 10 years or more, and they have thousands of mature links, many of them inevitably of good quality. They're the kind of sites that will be entrenched in the top positions on popular searches.

Now do you want to take them on? Do you have the budget, stamina and time? Or will you find a better way?

Only pick a fight you can win

To pick a fight you can win, you're going to have to operate smart. You're unlikely to want to take on Tesco (Wal-Mart, if you're reading in the US) by setting up a small general store next door, so why would you want to take on the Tescos of the online world in a similar kind of contest?

One of the areas we find people trying to pick the wrong fights is in financial services. From time to time we get an enquiry from someone who wants to rank on the first page of Google for 'home insurance', 'car insurance', 'pensions' and 'mortgages'.

There's next to no chance (within reasonable budget and patience boundaries) of getting them there because every bank and financial institution has been pouring loads of investment into marketing their sites online.

Many have been on the Web for years, and just as many of them have thousands and thousands of links. And, for regulated financial products, the poor financial services business will have government sites to contend with as well - Google loves government sites because they're the ultimate reference for so many matters.

Where's your niche?

You need to look at what makes you different. Particular product niches or geographical focus, perhaps? That's good basic marketing, not Internet marketing or SEO. Look at your products and services.

Let's go back to the mortgage example. Do you specialize in self-employed mortgages? Or do you have particular geographical focuses? 'mortgages in West Sussex' would be a much more realistic target than simply 'mortgages'.

Your Web site needs to reflect what your business, products and services are really about, not what you'd like to be about, or what you'd like to target. Be realistic. The tough targets can come next year, once you've started making some profit from your site.

Pinpointing your opponents' undefended side

So how can you find a niche where your competitor is weak? Think about the kinds of things you can do that your competitors don't or can't? If your business is already running, then the chances are, you already have figured out your niche offline. That's your starting point for marketing online.

Or look towards your business plan. A SWOT (strengths weaknesses opportunities threats) analysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis) can be applied in the online environment just as well as off-line.

But commission some appropriate key phrase analysis, researching both traffic levels and link competition, and your opportunities should be laid out in front of you. By this, I mean higher traffic key phrases that are relevant to your business, and that you should be able secure a first-page listing for on Google because the tougher competitors have ignored those pieces of prime turf.

These niches are normally there if you look hard enough and in the right places.

Winning your fight

Once you've identified your niche, you can attack on two fronts - Organic SEO and PPC. For successful Organic SEO, you need to do three things:

1. Write the copy with an awareness of your customers' needs and the strengths of your products and services - to be as competitive as possible, your copy should be optimized on your researched key phrases
2. Build links - one-way, non-paid-for links, so don't go in for link exchanges, and beware of anyone who promises you thousands of links very quickly
3. Ensure your site is built to enable search engine spiders to read your copy - it's best to use CSS

For PPC you need to:

1. Run ads on one system only - unless you have a large amount of time to manage the campaigns (or the budget to employ an expert to do it for you), choose Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing or Microsoft adCentre. In the unlikely event you are profitably buying all the clicks you can and still have some budget, you should try the same profitable key phrases on another system as well
2. Start with the key phrases you have researched, then use the system's tools to research even more - and keep on researching as your campaign runs. With PPC, you'll almost certainly find yourself targeting more key phrases than with Organic SEO
3. Set a budget - and make sure you have set that maximum budget in the system to ensure you don't overspend
4. Set up Ad Groups and write copy - bear in mind you should try testing headline, content and landing page variations
5. Monitor, manage and test, test, test - keep a close eye on what's working and what's not; monitor bidding levels and CPCs (costs per click)
6. Work out your break-even point and be ruthless - if you can't make a key phrase profitable after a reasonable time, drop it. It's no use inflicting a hit on yourself through making a loss on PPC

Have patience and you'll win

Sandboxed or not, it'll take some months before you really start reaping the benefits of your Organic SEO. And although you can get immediate traffic from PPC, it's unlikely that you'll hit the jackpot right away. Have realistic expectations and make a sustained attack on your competitors' weakest points and you'll have won the online fight.
About the Author

David Rosam is Head of SEO Copywriting at Web Positioning Centre (http://webpositioningcentre.co.uk/search-engine-optimisation.php), and specialises in Internet marketing strategy and optimised copywriting. His blog is Dangerous Thinking (http://dangerous-thinking.com) which covers SEO Copywriting, Ethical SEO and Marketing.

Articles from June 2007
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