The Mushy Middle sucks. It’s a site that doesn’t quite do the job that it’s supposed to do: persuade your customers to take the next step. You are in the mushy middle if you’re trying to be all things to all people and don’t have a disciplined Internet strategy. You’re in the mushy middle if you’re trying to be a General Store with no reason to exist. And your marketing or operational excellence is likely to be a frustrating experience: if people don’t see the need for you to exist, they won’t.
“Tweeners” are destined to fail. General Motors didn’t cut Cadillac or Chevy from its lineup, it cut the other brands: Saturn, Pontiac, Oldsmobile. In internet marketing it’s the same way.
Small business marketing means that you have to stand for one thing. WordPress makes it possible to build a website in a matter of hours. You don’t have to labor over anything, you can use Fantastico to deploy your website, Thesis or Headway or Woo Themes or Genesis to get launched, and be ready to advertise fast. And each website is taking advantage of the way to communicate to one group. So if you’re an attorney with some business in Criminal, DWI and Bankruptcy, make a site for each discipline, like Attorney Damon Chetson did.
If he tried to go after everyone on the same site with the same landing page, he’d fail. If he tried to go after everyone with an approach that suggested that he was doing everything all at once, that would lose. Instead, he’s in pursuit of each vertical on each website. And he avoids the mushy middle, he has credibility in those verticals.
Another part of the equation is limiting yourself geographically and having Trust in Google. Why? Consider: if you’re a home searcher, and you’re looking for property in one area, like Houston Texas, the more ultra local you get, the better. Think: subdivision. Because if people search on Google for a subdivision, you can come up, and you have the opportunity to demonstrate the standards you uphold and the virtues you have. And, it’s quite simply more easy to rank for a small area than a large one, and you’ll get more traffic.
Plus, if people start a search in one neighborhood, don’t you think they’ll be open to suggestions? Don’t you think they may look at other areas?
Pursuing a single idea on each website is the way to go. You can deploy your ideas on rapidly, and if it doesn’t work, you’ve spent a couple of hours and $7 bucks for a domain. That’s not a major risk to avoiding the mushy middle.
Now: how do you market these “satelite sites” and what is the overall goal?
The goal is the lead. It could be a phonecall it could be an “opt in” But you have to focus the site on generating leads, however it may be. One goal. You fail if you try several goals. Pursue a goal at the exclusion of others because other things will happen at the same time. When your page converts phone call requests, you’ll also get more e-mail opt ins.
Steps to take:
- Create a site with a single focus, narrow demographic. Your goal isn’t branding, its results.
- Create a site that seeks people coming in through one channel. (one email form, one phone call)
- Create a site that gives people just enough information that gets more.
- use Website Optimizer/Analytics to test & Tweak.
This isn’t the instructions to make a flagship blog, it’s the instructions to get started with internet marketing to the point of success.
