David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

Becoming authoritative is more difficult than you could imagine!

Which area to focus on, how to get visitors there and how to make sales are all valid questions.
 
Which area to focus on

It's easy to get lost on the Internet. It's easier to not be found in the first place.

Whilst deciding upon what it is in life I would like to be authoritative on, I searched for a few terms on Google only to find 100 million other people have been there and done that.

But I am perhaps being too vague. When someone becomes authoritative, their focus is very small. But their vision is large and they eventually grow to encompass that vision.

Let's pick an example: biscuits.

If I wanted to write about biscuits, I would be competing against 16,200,000 for the term "biscuits" in Google.

I'd have no chance at showing the world how much I know about biscuits! Not for a very long time at least.

So where now? Well, pink wafer biscuits are nice every now and then. I could start there. Incidentally, you may want to check out Artist Swaps Bricks For Biscuits.

"Pink wafer biscuits" returns just 66,700 results from Google.

To get to the top of this would probably be a doddle. A bit of effort and hard work for a while but it certainly is a possibility.

Once I was at the top for this result, I'd move on to tackle another biscuit. Bourbons or custard creams.

My war on biscuit phrases would then end with the almighty "biscuits" phrase.

I think the key here is to pick a niche that is wide enough to develop a one stop shop of information, but small enough to rank well for other, longer terms.

How to get visitors there

There are three answers to this.

1. Fresh content served on a regular basis
2. Persistent link building
3. Alternative promotion work

A site with old content is a site that won't grow, won't develop and won't get further in the search results.

A site without links to it is like promoting a needle in a haystack. You can shout to as many people as you want that you have a website. You can paint it on a T-shirt or print out business cards. Great but if you are not in the top 10 search engine results for your chosen phrase, your missing out on an awful lot of traffic.

How many people keep business cards and furthermore, how many read them again? Compare this with how many people search the web.

How to make sales

I'm not quite sure where the money making enterprise is in biscuits. Perhaps there is a possibility of becoming a biscuit king.

Once you have developed your niche into something that can grow, and you have built up some links and traffic, you need to look at conversion rates. A 1% conversion rate is safe yet may be optimistic for certain niches.

Better copy, better layouts and better creativity on your part can all help to increase a conversion rate.

It just takes time and focus.

Don't lose sight of where you are going and you'll get there.