How to Dominate a Web Design or SEO Industry to Make More Money

If someone told you to try and serve less people in your business in order to make more profits, you would probably just laugh them off. The truth is, however, this is a tactic that many business owners are using these days to blow away the competition, to make their products and services easier to stand out, and ultimately make more money than they had ever hoped for.I’m talking about dominating a specific industry.If you’re in my web design business, SEO business or web design & SEO client courses, you’ve already heard me talk about the importance of picking a specific niche to serve.In this post we’ll look at why you should be focusing on serving a particular industry, and how to completely dominate it and take your business to a whole new level.Why Serve a Specific Industry?“When you attempt to be known for everything, you don’t become known for anything”

Remember the saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none?” When you try to focus on serving anyone and everyone it’s hard to become an expert. Consider discovery time alone for each project. The amount of time it will take you to research the client’s requirements, what they may need that they don’t tell you, what plugins or extensions are available and what you would need to customize to get the job done. This takes a significant amount of time. Plus, you may have extra phone calls with the client as you don’t know the answer to all of their questions upfront because you don’t typically build the type of website they’re requesting. And since time is money, you’re probably losing more money than you realize.The key here is to niche down and spend your time and energy serving a specific industry. I understand many of you will probably say that this is counterintuitive because you may believe that when it comes to business, being able to handle all of the client’s needs is valuable. And why would turning away work from clients who want to hire you just because they work in another industry, make you more money? But the truth is, many multi-million dollar marketing companies are doing exactly that. And for a moment, consider this from the client’s perspective. If you own a carpet cleaning company and you find two web design companies who can help you, would you go with the one that serves anyone and everyone or would you go with the one that exclusively serves carpet cleaning companies? You’d go with the company that can show you previous results of companies exactly like yours, who knows your industry and has your best interest in mind.Success in business is not actually about metrics and high numbers. It’s about standing out from the rest of the competition and it’s much harder to stand out when you serve everyone because the the majority of your competition is already doing that. You have to cement your business as a leader and as an expert in your chosen industry.Still not convinced? Okay, let me give you a more in-depth explanation of the benefits you get when you niche down and focus on a specific industry.Clients want to work with you because they see you as an expertLet’s face it; clients and big-shot companies, regardless of the industry, would always prefer to work with somebody who they see as an expert. Being able to show expertise gives potential clients the feeling that they can put their full trust in you and that you can perform and deliver the desired results they expect. For example, if your services are focused on pool builders, and your website, portfolio, articles and marketing materials are all geared towards this particular niche, pool builder companies would be crazy to hire a generalist over someone like you who has the specific technical know-how needed for the job.This also helps remove some of the risk clients feel they take when they hand over their hard earned money to a company that generalizes. In reality it doesn’t take much to be seen as an expert. Your website reflects a specific industry, you can frequent various online communities where your community spends time and attend targeted groups. And why not get featured on relevant sites so you can display some industry logos on your website in a “as featured in” section to build some quick trust with potential clients?Charge higher rates and make more profitsWhen you are able to showcase and prove that you are an expert in a given field, this expertise allows you to charge higher rates that clients are gladly willing to pay. Expertise not only makes your business’ reputation better, but your prices as well. And being able to charge higher rates also means that you can work with fewer clients and still achieve your income goals while providing customers with a more personalized experience. It’s really a win-win situation.Focused learningAnother advantage of serving fewer clients is that learning is kept more focused. You don’t have to learn all of the web technologies, but only the ones your niche uses. If you’re a web designer you don’t need to get yourself acquainted with too many platforms and themes. You can just select one or two great themes and platforms, which you can use and focus on to build your clients’ websites. The focus you get from serving fewer clients is also helpful if you’re just getting started in web design or SEO. Building your brand and reputation won’t be that excessively overwhelming.Complete Projects FasterOne of the biggest tasks that slows us down (and tends to be something we overlook) is the amount of time we spend in the discovery phase of the project. This is the time when you are first speaking with a client, gathering the information you need to put a proposal together and researching their requirements. When you serve anyone and everyone the requirements tend to be all over the place. This means with each new project you are likely spending quite a bit of time researching the best CMS to use, which theme to use, which plugins are available and which ones may need to be further customized to meet the clients’ needs. When you serve one industry, you will know the main features most businesses will want / need which means you will already know which CMS, which theme and which plugins you will be using. In addition to having all of this ready to go, you don’t need to spend time learning new themes, plugins, etc. so a significant amount of time is saved with every project.With this system in place you’ll find yourself being more efficient and completing projects much faster. The faster you can complete projects, the more you can do which also means the more profits you can possibly make. If you also think you may want to outsource some work down the road, developing a seamless and easy to follow-up process for building sites will help you easily outsource the work for less cost and will less oversight required.Marketing your services is easier (+ find and close clients easier)

When you are a generalist it’s hard to figure out where you should start marketing because there are so many possible directions you can go to. However, when you serve a particular industry, marketing your services becomes easier. You can create and design ads that will stand out to your niche, you can target specific business owners on various web and social media platforms, and you can quickly identify the online communities where your ideal and prospective customers usually spend their time. The process of outsourcing this task to a team member also becomes much easier once you decide to expand your business.You will also find a much higher conversion rate on your marketing efforts when you specialize which means you have to get in front of less people and spend less money.So now that you know the tremendous advantages of serving a specific niche, the next question is this: how do you dominate your chosen industry? Below are a few pointers you should consider.How to Serve and Dominate a Specific Industry

  1. Identify and decide which industry you are going to serveThe first step is to know which niche and what kind of audience you want to work with. It could be relevant to your previous job experiences, your natural talents and skills, or even hobbies and activities you enjoy doing and are passionate about. You can also look for any patterns you may have noticed from clients you have previously worked with. These can all give you ideas on which specific niche you should consider pursuing.
  2. Take actionIn the process of trying to find out which niche you want to serve, you will definitely come up with more than one industry on your list. And this is where most people have problems for fear they might chose the wrong one and because of their indecision, they end up failing to take immediate action or worse, not pursue anything at all. It would be wise to remember that this isn’t a marriage. You don’t have to stick with one niche forever. You can always expand on it or change your niche altogether if needed. The important thing is to take immediate action after you have generated ideas on which niche and audience you want to serve.
  3. Do a test runIf you really want to validate your decision, what you can do is to put up a landing page for your chosen niche and service, and drive some targeted pay-per-click ads (Facebook ads, Google Adwords, etc.) to your page and see what happens. Get a few clients, do a test run, and get an overall feel if this is something you’d be comfortable doing in the long haul before officially launching your business.
  4. Check out the competitionLook for competitors in your niche and find out what they are and are not doing. See if what they are doing will work for you too and see how you can take advantage of what they are not doing.
  5. Offer a solution; be a problem solverIf I were to ask you what you sell, what would your answer be? If your answer is websites, SEO services or any kind of product, that’s fine. The next question, however, is what would push me to buy that? You see, you must be a problem-solver. You need to offer prospective clients a solution to problems they never thought to be problems before. You have to sell results. And the best way to know what kind of solutions you can possibly offer is to listen very closely to your audience. Determine what their thoughts are, what their current problems and difficulties are, and what will drive them to hire you and get your services. Listening is an indispensable tool if you want to build good relationships with your clients. The more you listen, the more likely you will know what they need and provide it.
  6. Do your researchCheck out current news in your chosen field, read blogs, forums and client feedback, use other companies’ services, ask questions, email businesses and industry leaders for information, take your clients out to lunch and find out directly from them what is really needed. Taking the time to research will help you understand what your audience wants, and this will help you determine what kind of profitable services and solutions you can offer them.

Serving a specific industry and fewer clients has a wide array of advantages. Serving and dominating a specific industry is actually not hard to do when you can dedicate a little time and effort towards that. So select a niche to serve, do you research, and most importantly, take small action steps towards your goals everyday.

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