Breaking into an existing market is almost always difficult for newcomers, and the world of internet marketing is no exception.

When a new business sets up shop, it must deal with older, bigger, and often wealthier competitors; when a company or firm launches a new website, it must compete with older, better-established websites. The longer a website is up, the more time it has to accumulate content, construct link networks, and build value with various search engines. In order to "catch up," the new site must expand, network, and build value at a very high rate – often not an easy proposition.

It's even harder when a website's market or targeted search terms are highly competitive; a website targeting a small rural community would be far easier to optimize than one targeting a large urban metroplex. 

Though SEO results may take a while to show up in these highly competitive markets, achieving strong placement is far from impossible. Case in point: the new website of Los Angeles employment lawyer Perry Smith. As you can imagine, breaking into a search market like Los Angeles is pretty difficult; dozens of long-established, well-monied firms have already built up strong footholds at the top of major search engines – and there are only 10 spots available on the first page.

For a long time, Mr. Smith's LA employment law website languished in the doldrums of online search, unable to match up to first-page competitors. It took months of expansion, pages of new content, a revamped site plan, and countless hours of link-building to bring it up to the first and second pages of Google – and the battle isn't over yet. 

What I'm trying to point out is this – breaking into a highly competitive search market on the internet is just like breaking into a highly competitive retail market in the "real world." There's no way to do it except by hard work, dedication, and technical know-how. But then again, at The Search Engine Guys, that's our specialty.