How Small Businesses Can Compete Against Big Players in SEO
How Small Businesses Can Compete Against Big Players in SEO
Rand Fishkin with suggestions for small businesses to focus on their competitive strengths.
5 ways to compete
So, five ways to compete.
1. Target keywords the big sites are unwilling, unable, or so far aren't trying to compete on.
First off let's talk about keywords. So in the SEO keyword universe, there are going to be keywords that a big brand, like in this example Expedia, is unwilling, unable, or has chosen not to target yet because they have an indirect path to ROI or legal issues or PR issues. Those can be things like:
Long-tail keywords. So maybe Expedia is definitely targeting something like "Istanbul city guide," but they are definitely not targeting something like "best shops to visit in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar." By the way, I looked that up, and I could not find a great list. So if someone wants to make a list of those, that would be real handy because the Grand Bazaar, very hard to find things.
Comparison keywords. So Expedia can't go after their competitors' brand names, and they certainly wouldn't choose generally to compare themselves to another brand. So Venere flights versus Expedia flights, they're just not going to have a page on that. But you can have a page on that, and you can compare those things to each other. That's an advantage that a small website is going to have over a larger one.
Editorial keywords. So Expedia has business relationships with a lot of different hotels. Therefore, it is not in their interest to rank hotels in a particular locale from 1 to 10 or from 1 to 100. As a small website, you don't have that constraint, and you can go after those types of keywords that your bigger competitors bias against doing, and that can be very powerful as well.
2. Aim for authority and brand association in a very specific niche
So like we talked about, Expedia is focused on travel. But Rand's Travels can focus on city-specific itineraries or ranking travel destinations or some other thin slice of a niche that Expedia can't build that same brand equity in.
3. Pursue indirect/harder-to-monetize content
So Expedia knows that they're generally pursuing not just keywords, but content that helps people buy directly from Expedia, and they're going to be looking at that path to conversion. But you might say, "I don't care if it takes three visits or four visits or five visits for someone to convert. I want to build trust. I want to build authority in my niche. Therefore, I can go after content that Expedia would not go after." They might be hotels, flights, cars, and cities. You might be recommended websites and travel education and news and tactics and tips and neighborhoods.
4. Go deeper and provide more value with content than what your big competition can afford to scale
You can invest more in a single piece of content than Expedia or a big brand ever could. So when you take your small niche and you say this keyword or this set of keywords is extremely important to me. This search intent is extremely important. I'm going to create 10x content. I'm going to put 10 times more effort and energy and resources into building that than what my big brand competitor can do. If they are a two-star resource, I'm going to be a five-star resource.
5. Build relationships 1-on-1 that big competition will never invest in
In addition to that element of building better content, you can also build better, more direct relationships with the people you need those relationships with. So Expedia goes through their PR team, and they have their teams of folks that do their relationships. But you can go direct. You can say, "I'm Rand's Travels. I'm going to go meet with people in Istanbul while I'm there and forge those relationships personally and build those relationships up on social media and have conversations and leave blog comments, and that will reinforce my authenticity and my niche appeal."
That's a huge advantage as well, and that can help to amplify the reach of your content and to get you visibility on these keywords and this content that your competitors simply can't touch because they're too big. They need to do this stuff at scale. When you need to do things at scale, you simply can't focus in the same way, and that's where your big advantages come from as a small website._
https://moz.com/blog/small-businesses-websites-compete-big-players-seo-whiteboard-friday
Rand Fishkin with suggestions for small businesses to focus on their competitive strengths.
5 ways to compete
So, five ways to compete.
1. Target keywords the big sites are unwilling, unable, or so far aren't trying to compete on.
First off let's talk about keywords. So in the SEO keyword universe, there are going to be keywords that a big brand, like in this example Expedia, is unwilling, unable, or has chosen not to target yet because they have an indirect path to ROI or legal issues or PR issues. Those can be things like:
Long-tail keywords. So maybe Expedia is definitely targeting something like "Istanbul city guide," but they are definitely not targeting something like "best shops to visit in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar." By the way, I looked that up, and I could not find a great list. So if someone wants to make a list of those, that would be real handy because the Grand Bazaar, very hard to find things.
Comparison keywords. So Expedia can't go after their competitors' brand names, and they certainly wouldn't choose generally to compare themselves to another brand. So Venere flights versus Expedia flights, they're just not going to have a page on that. But you can have a page on that, and you can compare those things to each other. That's an advantage that a small website is going to have over a larger one.
Editorial keywords. So Expedia has business relationships with a lot of different hotels. Therefore, it is not in their interest to rank hotels in a particular locale from 1 to 10 or from 1 to 100. As a small website, you don't have that constraint, and you can go after those types of keywords that your bigger competitors bias against doing, and that can be very powerful as well.
2. Aim for authority and brand association in a very specific niche
So like we talked about, Expedia is focused on travel. But Rand's Travels can focus on city-specific itineraries or ranking travel destinations or some other thin slice of a niche that Expedia can't build that same brand equity in.
3. Pursue indirect/harder-to-monetize content
So Expedia knows that they're generally pursuing not just keywords, but content that helps people buy directly from Expedia, and they're going to be looking at that path to conversion. But you might say, "I don't care if it takes three visits or four visits or five visits for someone to convert. I want to build trust. I want to build authority in my niche. Therefore, I can go after content that Expedia would not go after." They might be hotels, flights, cars, and cities. You might be recommended websites and travel education and news and tactics and tips and neighborhoods.
4. Go deeper and provide more value with content than what your big competition can afford to scale
You can invest more in a single piece of content than Expedia or a big brand ever could. So when you take your small niche and you say this keyword or this set of keywords is extremely important to me. This search intent is extremely important. I'm going to create 10x content. I'm going to put 10 times more effort and energy and resources into building that than what my big brand competitor can do. If they are a two-star resource, I'm going to be a five-star resource.
5. Build relationships 1-on-1 that big competition will never invest in
In addition to that element of building better content, you can also build better, more direct relationships with the people you need those relationships with. So Expedia goes through their PR team, and they have their teams of folks that do their relationships. But you can go direct. You can say, "I'm Rand's Travels. I'm going to go meet with people in Istanbul while I'm there and forge those relationships personally and build those relationships up on social media and have conversations and leave blog comments, and that will reinforce my authenticity and my niche appeal."
That's a huge advantage as well, and that can help to amplify the reach of your content and to get you visibility on these keywords and this content that your competitors simply can't touch because they're too big. They need to do this stuff at scale. When you need to do things at scale, you simply can't focus in the same way, and that's where your big advantages come from as a small website._
https://moz.com/blog/small-businesses-websites-compete-big-players-seo-whiteboard-friday
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