When it comes to achieving and maintaining a successful online presence, small websites are often overwhelmed by their larger, more popular competitors. It’s an issue that has plagued the e-commerce community since its inception; however, because of newly developed markets such as mobile advertising and social networking, competing against well-known websites just doesn’t look possible. That is, unless you’re Matt Cutts.
According to Matt Cutts, Google’s search spam spokesperson, small websites have every opportunity to successfully compete against their mega counterparts. Here are some of the details.
Please see the video below:
It’s About Experience, Quality, and Insight
Before you begin any sort of campaign that’s designed to compete against a popular website, acknowledge what it is you need to do. Evaluate a few of the larger sites TO see what makes them so popular. Ask questions about what they offer and how existing designs facilitate the things that they offer.
Then ask how you can compensate for those things on your own website. According to Matt, smaller websites that became the behemoths we’re familiar with now focused on improving user experience, publishing higher quality content, and producing resources that provided deeper insight. You are strongly encouraged to do the same.
Be Realistic
If you run a website alone or with a small team, you’ll admittedly face what seems like a mountain of challenges. It’s simply unrealistic for a one-manned website to effectively compete with a site like Wikipedia, Amazon or even Yahoo. That’s why Matt recommends that small websites not only focus on a specific niche, but cover that niche inside and out as well.
This gives you a great platform to work with in addition to an opportunity to expand at a later time. Expansions can include things like more tools, media and anything else that accomplishes the goals described above (an improved user experience, higher quality content, and deeper insight). This timely growth increases authority and attracts more visitors.
Work towards Providing Lots of Superior Content
Perhaps the most revealing bit of information from Matt is the revelation that larger sites rank higher than smaller sites. Webmasters have debated this issue for years with some claiming size simply doesn’t matter. According to these “small size works great” theorists, it’s the quality that matters. In his “How can small sites become popular?” video, however, Matt implies that small sites cannot outrank larger sites and need lots of superior content before things are on any kind of an even playing field.
Conclusion
Chances are you won’t be able to do everything that’s required on your own, so you’ll need to consider hiring some help. Outside assistance can help you improve your content’s existing quality and create better media. It can additionally help you with SEO and link building so that the right people can find you. Think about that in addition to building a strong social media marketing presence, a lean pay-per-click advertising campaign, and perhaps a complete website redesign if necessary.
How well you employ these concepts defines how well you can and will rise above your current position in relation to your competitors.
