Some sources say that there are more than 600 million websites in existence. Thousands more go online every day. Some might wonder if they stand any chance of making their site stand out given those enormous numbers. You might wonder if there is any point in launching a new website, especially in some very competitive niches. Well, here are a few points that should give you reason to be optimistic.
Target a particular geographic location
Maybe you would like to set up a website for the purpose of making money through AdSense or affiliate marketing, and you have chosen the niche of “gardening tools”. If you search Google using the term “gardening tools” you will see that there are millions of pages on the subject. However, you can target a particular geographic location so that your site will be a more relevant search result when people in that area use Google to search for the term “gardening tools”. At the end of the day, that’s Google’s goal: to give people results that are relevant, and people searching for gardening tools in Washington are unlikely to be interested in websites for gardening tools in the UK.
One way to target a particular geographic location is to choose a domain that is associated with a particular area, for example, .ca for California, .ie for Ireland, .fr for France and so on.
In addition, you should use Google’s Webmaster Tools to inform Google that your site is associated with a specific geographic location. This is particularly important if your site is hosted in one country but you would like the site to be associated with another country.
Local business
When it comes to local businesses, it will not matter if there are millions of websites for the same kind of business that you run; the person searching will only be interested in results in your area. In this scenario, it is really just a matter of making sure that you include the right place names when deciding upon the keywords for your site. For example, if you run a dry cleaning business in Byron Georgia, a good keyword would be “dry-cleaning Byron GA”.
If you run a website in connection with a local business, you should use Google Places to create free listing. Then when customers in your area use Google Maps to search for local information they will find your business.
Popularity and PageRank
It doesn’t matter how many websites deal with the same subject matter that your website does; what matters is: page rank and popularity. The popularity and Google PageRank of a website are factors that will determine its success. PageRank is a system that Google uses to assign a level of importance to a webpage, and that system still involves assessing the number and quality of backlinks.
The popularity of a website will be reflected in a high number of social flags (e.g. Facebook ‘Likes’), as well as people bookmarking and returning to the site.
Of course it will be more difficult to outrank and become more popular when there are a high number of websites competing to land on page 1 of Google’s search results. However, with the right keyword research, quality and consistent SEO, frequent addition of great content, and other factors, you can be optimistic about getting on page 1.
As you are no doubt aware there is a huge number of ugly websites and poor content. In many niches the competition is poor, and it may not be as difficult as you think to build a website that will prove to be a success.
Pay for a higher profile
A simple way to give your site a higher profile than the competition is to pay for your site to be advertised. Google’s Adwords and Facebook ads are two of the best advertising mediums. This may not be as expensie as you think, so you should investigate the possibilities. At the moment, Facebook ads are not so expensive, and if you target groups you can get great results for a small spend – see http://enjoyableinternetmarketing.com/top-selling-products-on-the-warrior-forum-target-facebook-groups-with-fb-target-id/
30,000 domains expire each day
While it’s true that many new sites go live each day, several sources say that 30,000 domains expire and become up for grabs each day. That means that there is a good chance that many sites in the niche that you wish to target have dropped out. It also means and that a good domain name may have become available. domaintools.com is a good place to research the availability of domain names.
Tools and tactics
This is one of these situations where statistics can easily be misinterpreted. The overall number of websites is far from being the most important factor; what’s important is the number of sites targeting a niche in a particular area, the quality of the competitions’ content and SEO. Beating the competition may not be as hard as you think – especially if you use good quality content creation and SEO tools, and if you make consistent use of social networks and other methods to promote your site.
Check out Jonathan Leger Forums if you are looking for a place to get some great advice and ideas. You will find expert and up to date information on all aspects of Internet marketing, and lots of friendly folk who will help you on your way to success!
As always, I encourage you to post your questions and feedback in a comment and to share the post via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or any other social site, if you find it informative and beneficial.
Donal Keegan















