Build Content and Commerce on What You Know, Part II
When I brought Paul Stamet’s site to your attention at the end of the previous article, I mentioned that design wasn’t the issue at this point. Instead, I wanted to know more about Paul’s competition – if any – and how he could streamline his site to make it easier for his viewers to find what he offers.
Paul Stamet’s Fungi Perfecti site
The Competition
If you type the words, “medicinal mushrooms” into a search engine, you might discover that Paul’s site usually lands within the top five site results. If you take a look at the other competing sites on that search page, you also might discover that Paul’s competition for these keywords include a few other companies that package medicinal mushrooms. You might have also seen that some of the pages offer Paul’s books.
However, if you type “gourmet mushrooms” into a search engine, Paul’s site is nowhere to be found, because the gourmet mushroom field is highly competitive. Therefore, we can read how to position Paul from this information and from any information that he might provide if he were a client. Paul’s competition (and acquaintance) many years ago included Dr. Andrew Weil. However, Andy has moved on to bigger and better things and Paul continues to operate in the background of larger arenas and in the foreground in some obscure places (like a featured faculty position at the Telluride Mushroom Festival).* Therefore, while Paul continues to hold a top position in the medicinal mushroom field, few folks may be aware of his business.
From what we know at this point, Paul might do well to continue to push his medicinal approach more than his gourmet approach. Additionally, Dr. Weil shouldn’t be discounted as a former competitor, because when his online presence is compared to Paul’s Web site, some differences in how both men approach their audiences might become apparent. I’ll approach those differences below.