The daunting prospect of winning on the search engines against large corporations like Amazon, can be off-putting for smaller businesses. The truth is, however, that there’s room for all. With a targeted, strategic approach, it is possible for smaller players to make a big impact online.
What are you up against for organic search?
A multi-million-pound marketing budget? Yes, possibly. But organic search isn’t always about investment.
More important challenges to consider are:
1. Competing with the establishment – high ranking businesses have usually been around for a long time and their search engine position is influenced by their ‘domain age’.
2. Backlinks – big players benefit from daily backlinks from major domains such as news sites. This has a significant impact on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
3. Rigorous optimisation – a big budget allows for full-on SEO attack. Each page can be optimised within an inch of its digital life for specific queries which significantly enhances its ranking.
What you can do to compete with major players for search ranking
Declare your niche
Firstly, before you begin with your content, you may want to decide on a niche focus for your business. Instinctively, it’s natural to want to broaden your reach and target as many people as possible; this is where many businesses go wrong when trying to compete on search engines.
To increase your online visibility, you need to start by focusing on a niche product or service. Covering too many areas of expertise can dilute your impact in key spaces where you need to be seen and heard.
Unique content
Once you’ve decided on your niche, create engaging content about that product or service that answers typical user questions. By being super-specific and establishing yourself as a big fish in a small pond, you can compete with large corporations whose content doesn’t drill down to the same level of detail.
Top tip: Identify the keywords you want your business to rank for. Search for these keywords on the search engines to find which content already ranks for these keywords. Review their content and see if there are gaps you can fill. Create relevant pages on your website with this targeted content.
Keywords for SEO
Using specific keywords and phrases (also known as longtail keywords) will take you into a world of SEO where large corporations don’t need to tread. Why? Because they risk sacrificing the ranking potential of highly popular keywords. With your niche target, this won’t matter to you; the longtail keywords will give you maximum ranking potential through less popular, but more targeted keywords.
As an example, if you’re selling a watering can, instead of focussing on general keywords such as ‘gardening’ or ‘flowers’, use phrases such as ‘how often should I water my garden?’ or ‘when do I need to water my plants?’. Think about the kind of questions users are searching on as part of their purchasing intent. Keywords and phrases that answer user questions also generate more backlinks which radically enhance a website’s optimisation.
Local SEO
Another way to be more targeted in your approach to optimisation and compete with big players, is to keep it local. Local search is becoming more relevant. Even if your business is national, by targeting local areas for specific products or services, you can capture a niche market. Being the best in a local area is better than being average nationally. Attend local events if possible and post about them, using local-specific keywords where possible.
You can’t always beat larger organisations on the search engines, but there are many ways you can still be competitive and win extra traffic to your website by targeting some of the ‘lower hanging fruit’ that these companies will be overlooking.
Get in touch
Code Galaxy UK
Code Galaxy is a website and software development agency. We can help you increase your online visibility to attract and engage your ideal customers. Contact us to find out how we can help you become more competitive online.
