Forum Moderators: phranque
But anyway, I thought I had this great idea for a unique content/affiliate website. It was going to be a comprehensive resource for people looking for, as yall like to call, 'widgets'. Through much searching, however, ive found another webmaster who is currently doing pretty much exactly what I wanted to, and seems to be pretty firmly established. Normally I would just move on to another idea, however I have already paid for site design, and registered a domain, thewidget.com.
So bottom line is what would yall reccomend to somebody in my situation. This is going to be me first attempt at a large website (planning on 200+ pages content, google and overture ads). Should I use decisive business strategy to try and force them under, or should I partner with them, as to promote my site more.
I dont know if this is going to make sense to anyone else, but I am just pretty ticked that my ideas been done, and want some advice on what I should do. Thanks.
How do yall out there deal with your competition? Do you use aggresive pricing, advertising, shady tactics, or a combination thereof? Or just hope that people like your product more than theirs? Do those of you who use Adwords/Overture experience many fraudulant clicks from suspected competition, as I am somewhat worried about that.
Anything else I should keep in mind?
Shak
Now I'm down to one main competitor. :)
Get out there and kick the pants off of the other guy. It's a rush.
If you have a good idea, there will ALWAYS be someone else out there with a similar idea. You're never not going to have competition. So don't give up on the idea just because someone else is already doing it. Just do it better, faster, cheaper, and prettier than they're doing it and you'll be fine. There's undoubtedly plenty of room for both of you out there.
Also - don't just get used to the competition ... learn as much as possible from them. What are they doing right? What could they do better? What have they missed completely? If you learn from them, then you won't have to try and reinvent the wheel. You'll get a jumpstart and will be able to leapfrog ahead of them in no time.
Good luck!
serving up a good ***-whuppin' or getting your own tail kicked up between your shoulderblades that's the fun part
rc has a weird definition of 'fun' IMO.
To me, the fun part is making lots of money, staying in business and watching the other guys fold. Talking to a coworker about an old competitor and saying, "What was their name again? You remember those guys, with the monkey on their site and a big purple "W" for a logo? Ha ha! Those were the good old days."
I like to avoid the ***-whuppin' as much as possible.
From my experience they seemed to have the fraudlent clicks sussed out pretty well.
As with anything else there are ways around everything, but using a combination of cookies and your server logs, you should be able to monitor them yourself.
If you have a good idea, there will ALWAYS be someone else out there with a similar idea.
[ramble] It's a bit like what they say about going to University: even if you're the smartest kid in school you'll meet someone who is smarter than you and has had your ideas before. On the internet you can multiply that a thousandfold. [/ramble]
I'd go with it, if you can already pick holes in the competitions' business plan, then you're part of the way there.
Also, sometimes epinions.com has reviews of some companies - because this one has been around for a couple years, you might find something.
Also, just a google search for "companyname reviews" might pop up something of interest, that would give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses from a customer's point of view.
If they have a newsletter, sign up for it to keep an eye on what they are doing, and what is new. And sign up using another email address than your you@newcompetitorsite.com address ;) Some businesses are smart enough that they could serve up a very special newsletter than no one else receives but you ;) Newsletters are a great way to learn when your competition is running specials, promos, new products, etc.
Some businesses are smart enough that they could serve up a very special newsletter than no one else receives but you
That's quite funny - a company I worked with actually used to do this. Get the list of our major competitors and send them a different newsletter. I've also done some copywriting for a company which would unsubscribe all their competitors from their newsletter.
Also remember that Alexa is pretty much completely useless for traffic stats - they may as well be making it up. If you are serious get something like Hoover or Hitwise.
