In this internet age where you can buy pretty much anything you want in the World and have it delivered to your door, the comparison website has grown in popularity exponentially. These wonderful tools allow us to pop online from the comfort of our own homes, compare a multitude of companies offering the same products or services and then easily identify which come in at the cheapest. Of course, the cheapest isn’t always the best, though if you’re in need of saving as much money as you can, at least you’ll be able to shortlist a few potentials and then roll with whichever one seems the most appropriate for what you’re looking for.
If you want to build your own comparison website, then you’ve got your work cut out for you. It’s not impossible of course, though it does require a great deal of hard work and research if you want to succeed. In this post we’re going to explore a few tips for helping you get started!
Find Your Niche
Naturally the first port of order is to find a niche which hasn’t been overly rinsed in the market. For example, this site uses skip bin hire companies as its niche and is doing incredibly well with it. It’s not the most obvious of services, though when the time comes, and someone is in need of a skip it offers an incredibly useful service where visitors can identify the perfect skip bin hire company for them.
Of course, the revenue potential for your website is highly dependent on the niche that you decide to roll with. So, before rushing in and making your decision be certain to consider all factors which will affect the buyer’s decision making processes in order to make an informed choice in the beginning.
Secure Affiliate Partnership in Your Chosen Industry
Affiliate marketing is essential for bringing in money when selling products and services on behalf of your clients. Signing up as an affiliate partner on various portals shouldn’t cause you too much trouble, so it’s relatively easy to get the ball rolling. Before long you’ll be able to link out from your comparison site to various other companies and start building from there.
Build the Website!
If you’re dead-set on building your own price comparison website then you’re going to have an awful lot of hard work ahead of you, though not without reward. That being said if you have never built a website before and you’re somewhat new to anything technical then we would highly recommend that you hire a professional to help you – however if you do go ahead, there are a number of resources available, such as PHP scripts which already cover most important aspects of a price comparison website; and the WordPress platform has a multitude of plugins which will be tailored to price comparison functionality.
Fill it Up with Price Data and Information
What good is a price comparison site without any pricing data? Again, if you chose to go down the DIY route you’ll have to build a capable web-scraping tool for the purpose of crawling through thousands of websites for their pricing data and then compiling it onto your website efficiently. However, if you’re unfamiliar or not at all confident with the thought of that then there are plenty of companies out there which can offer this service to you and gather your required data on your behalf.
Keep It Fresh
Once you’re established, up and running you’re going to want to keep it that way, – which means constantly updating your servers, adding new data and keeping it fresh. This is essential for maintaining your relevancy and keeping ahead of any competitor websites.
Marketing, Marketing, Marketing
Another very important aspect to consider is your online marketing. A great way to go about this is by having an agency who specialises in Web Design and Search Engine Optimisation help you out from the word go. This will allow for a seamless transition and help to drive more traffic through to your website as soon as possible. Remember that online marketing is a marathon, so if you want to stay ahead you’re going to have to keep plugging away.
Reap the Rewards
All your hard work will almost certainly pay off, it’s just a matter of timing and patience. Follow all of these steps with careful consideration and you shouldn’t run into any major issues. Finally, you’ll be able to relax while business takes care of itself, – just keep on top of everything and voila, you’ve got yourself a successful price comparison website!
