If you’re fine being a mom and pop shop in the online market place then you need to recognize that your place is probably not among the top 10 search results in a competitive industry. There is nothing wrong with that, just like there is nothing wrong with a local hardware store not being a Home Depot or Lowes. The local store gets locals who don’t want to take the drive to the larger hardware stores. But we all know that the Home Depot gets a whole lot more business than the local store.

Even online, mom and pop stores need to be content with their place in the business world. You realize that you’ll never own the largest store of your kind offline–nor do you want to–and you should also accept the same online. You don’t need to be #1 to run a successful mom and pop business.

Now, if you have greater ambitions than just being a mom and pop store, well, that changes everything. But before that changes your desire to be on the first page of search results, it needs to change your drive, motivation, and financial investment as well. You need to apply some of the same off-line business starting strategies for your online store. This includes creating a business plan, having a USP, and perhaps even finding some financial backing or outside investors. Again, this is most important for those starting a business in more competitive industries.

While the barriers to starting a business online are still less than starting one off-line, the mindset of success shouldn’t be. Succeeding in any environment and earning first page placement for your keywords requires much more than building a website. It requires time, determination, willingness to spend or learn more about marketing, and patience. There are very few overnight success stories online and those that there are usually come from new and innovative ideas.

There is nothing wrong with finding something you can do in order to build your business, even if it’s already being done. Target and Wal-Mart compete with many of the same, or similar, products and you can too. But you need to know what drives you and what your motivation is and how you define success. Once you know this, set your online expectations accordingly. You don’t have to invest thousands of dollars in a marketing campaign in order to be successful online, but if you want to move out of mom and pop status, then you need to be willing to run and invest in your business as any other non mom and pop business would.

The first rule of business is to define who you are and what you do. Without a plan, you are sure not meet your goals. That is no less true online. As the Internet grows and more and more businesses take to it for marketing themelves, it grows more and more competitive. Budgets grow bigger, the cost of services goes up, and specialization takes over as the way of the Web. That’s a double-edged sword, part good and part not-so-good.

The good part is you can find someone to help you achieve your goals. It’s not all about money or prestige but about finding the right specialist to get you to where you want to go. The bad part is you might have to search through a haystack to find that proverbial needle.

Online, almost everyone thinks big. Because the Internet is a global medium, many people believe that their business has to be a global business. That’s not true. You can be as big or small as you want to be, as global or local as you want to be. But whichever way you choose to go you must focus on the proper tools to effectively market yourself as such. Want to stay the local mom and pop shop? Nothing wrong with that. But it helps to know how to market yourself online for that service.

Certain services are going up. SEO, article marketing, pay-per-click advertising, and many others. Keyword competition is driving prices higher for PPC and other forms of Internet marketing. Soon, online advertising will hit its zenith as radio and TV did in their heydays. Then small businesses will have similar barriers to entry in advertising. That will just mean you will have to do more on your own. But it doesn’t mean you can’t play the game.

SEO services are still affordable for the most part. Sure, you might have to pay $10,000 for a few hours of consultation with some SEOs, but there are SEOs who specialize in smaller businesses, or at least make their services affordable for them. You don’t have to feel like you are a cub in a lion’s den, waiting for the mother to feed you your meal. There are plenty of resources available online for you to learn what Internet marketing is all about. And there are plenty of Internet marketing consultants who can help you navigate through the sea of confusion. It’s just a matter of finding the right one.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.