Your competition
Websites exist that cover nearly any aspect of any topic you can imagine. So, while you may have a great idea for your own website, chances are that someone else has already done it, is considering doing it, or will do it in the future. Welcome to the world of competition. To be successful you need to know what your competition is doing, what makes them good, why visitors use them, and how you can be better than them.
Regardless of the concept of your web site, how well you create your website, and how well it does what you designed it to do, there is a pretty good chance that it won't be totally unique, so you can assume that you will have competing sites at some point in the future if you don't have some out there already. This isn't a bad thing, however, because competition helps to keep more quality websites available to the internet public, and seeing what your competitors do to remain popular can help you as well.
If your site is going to be doing something similair to another, already existing website, you need to ask yourself a few questions, and honestly answer them to see how you'll stack up.
- How will I compete with an already popular website and attract their visitors? Established websites already have a leg up on you since they have an audience, an established name, and credibility with thier users.
- How will my website be better than theirs? If your competition is popular, they are doing something right to keep people coming back to it. You need to find their mediocre, and even bad spots, and be able to offer something better.
- What will my site offer visitors that isn't offered on their site? What can you offer to potential visitors that your competition doesn't? What can you add to their experience to pull them away from other sites? Adding new twists to what seems normal can often appeal to many people.
- How can I compete in search rankings? High search rankings can take time and several key elements in place. Can you keep your sites' content fresh and relevant, and pursue SEO and marketing programs to help gain exposure?
- Is my site design and functionality appropriate, and good enough? You may be up against professionally designed and developed websites, so being able to match them in both looks and functionality will be major factors. Can you do this yourself, or will you need to finance these just to be on a level playing field with your competitors?
- Does my target audience even exist, or is it already saturated with competition? Having no potential audience may not make your website practical to even set up unless you can create an audience, a task all its own. Even with a large potential for visitors, if there is a lot of competition, one more site covering common ground may get lost in the shuffle unless it can really stand above the rest.
Starting a new website and going up against those that are already established isn't impossible, but it takes time, patience and perseverance to make up ground on them for the most part. And if you start a unique type of website, someone is sure to try to start their own to compete with you, so staying ahead of the competition is something else to think about when you're the frontrunner.