Is your company or business in a competitive industry, is there any way not to be? Are you thinking about moving into a specific niche market that is already saturated? You don’t always have to just move on to something else if the field or topic you are interested in proves to be a very competitive arena.

You may have to do things better, be unique, and operate more efficiently than the competition, but you don’t have to automatically make the decision to leave for a less competitive area. Your business may have the talents and skills to run with the competition, survive, and be successful. Usually, at least in the free world markets, you already have competition because you have more than one entity providing the same product or service, so there is probably room for one more.

Keep in mind, success in a competitive market may not be the “number one” spot. Many retail businesses are successful and are not Wal-Mart, so be careful how you set your goals and measure your success. In this article we are going to look at a few ways to compete in an already competitive field.

What are the Barriers for Entry

Before you actually enter into a competitive field for the first time you really do need to look at what the barriers to entry might be for your company or website. Do a quick analysis of what it takes to get into a particular niche market, and be honest with yourself or your company about what you find. You might find that you really don’t want to take the time or energy required to be competitive in that market anyway.

If this is the case, you have lost nothing (nor risked anything) and there is no need to advance any further. Just stop now and find an article on how to run a successful online business like, 10 Steps to a 7 Figure Income From Your Site, and then come back and read how to compete with the competition. If you can compete, you have work to do, start working on some lead generation techniques, make a business and marketing plan, and of course, check out the competition.

I received an email recently from a gentleman in Australia who had developed a fairly high traffic site and his last post said, for various reasons, he was shutting down the site and would not continue that particular entity. Seeing a well developed site with good rankings all around disappear was a waste, to me. A waste of a good asset, time, and not to mention money spent. So I emailed him and asked if he would consider selling the website instead. His response was interesting.

Scott,
Sorry I have no intention of selling any asset. You have got great
content however the SEO blogosphere is really crowded
Regards,

Scott wxyz

Besides the fact that there seems to be a large volume of us “Scott’s” around online, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to sell the website to me, I understand that, it was the initial reaction he had to my own blog I author. “It is really crowded in there”. Besides misinterpreting my blog’s focus, it may me think… should I just quit now then?

Online eCommerce and user friendly storefront applications like Yahoo Stores, ProStores, Miva Merchant, and several others make the financial barriers affordable for just about any business. So if the barriers are not totally financial, lets look at some others.

• Is this a totally saturated market? Can it handle “one more”?
• Can you afford the marketing, promotion, development, staff?
• Do you REALLY have the time needed to make this a successful project?
• What ethical practices will you have to do to be seen on Google and Yahoo?
• How big is the top, and who are the players?
• Do you honestly know what you are doing, i.e. do you have the experience and know-how required?

Perhaps some people or businesses should be more honest with themselves and get out while the getting is good. But if you have a competitive spirit and understand the barriers to entry, and are willing to climb those barriers, dive in and get started. The longer you wait, the more ground you are going to loose to the competition.

Stay tuned for part 2… Coming up

[ Scott Fillmer, a guest author for Allinanchor.com, is an online business owner and author of five blogs and you can find his site at scottfillmer.com ]

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