Question

Topic: SEO/SEM

Seo Rules For Smaller Companies

Posted by melissa.paulik on 2/3/2011 at 12:05 PM ET 250 Points
I write copy for several clients with very limited name recognition. Often, they provide software applications such as warehouse management that are "add-ons" to business software from companies like Microsoft and SAP.

In their DIY SEO research they always look for terms like "warehouse management software" that get a lot of hits. However, given the amount of competition they have, they are never going to be on the first page of an organic search using that common of a term.

Are there any guidelines that you have used to make SEO meaningful for lesser known companies with fairly common products?

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RESPONSES

  • Posted by excellira on 2/3/2011 at 12:32 PM Accepted
    It's challenging for smaller organizations to compete on head terms with mammoth sites with strong authority. Expanding your keyword research and moving more mid- to long-tail would help.

    Also, carefully consider the commercial intent of the keyword terms you select as well as relevance, search volume, exact match competition and intitle competition. It's a balancing act though if you consider these and perhaps other signals you can then make selections that you are more likely to succeed with.

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 2/3/2011 at 11:31 PM Accepted
    Can they position themselves as specializing in a niche? Competing head-to-head with deeper pocketed companies is a fool's game. Figure out what will make them unique and attempt to dominate those search terms.
  • Posted on 2/4/2011 at 7:11 PM Accepted
    I would advise that you broaden your keyword research particularly focusing on KEI (Keyword efficiency index) . There are other key phrases out there that have less competition and better traffic. I just keyed in "Managing warehouse" and the 3rd organic listing is an article about WMS on a sub domain that has 89 inbound links which tells me with the right SEO and patience you can rank for this too . When you want an advantage try optimizing for local as the "big guys" are not likely targeting locally . Hope this helps . Remember that SEO is FUN and rewarding:)
  • Posted by melissa.paulik on 2/7/2011 at 11:26 AM Author
    David, I've been using Google's Adwords tool to check for search frequency and relative competition. Interestingly, I signed up yesterday for Hubspot's 30 day free trial to see if it was intuitive enough for some of my smaller clients to use it to create their website, and subsequently use it to track inbound marketing. The jury is still out on that.
  • Posted by melissa.paulik on 2/7/2011 at 6:39 PM Author
    Very good response from Webmaster to use the Keyword Efficiency Index. The left side of my brain just loves anything that can be reduced to a formula, although the right side accepts that not everything can!

    Here's a decent post giving an example of how to calculate the KEI if anyone is interested. https://www.lawyercasting.com/2008/04/what-is-the-key. (If it doesn't come through as a link, just add .html to the end)

    The KEI formula should help those companies with lower name recognition choose better keywords.

    Jay, I appreciate your response too. That often works in my space when differentiating one company from another. Unfortunately, it's not been as useful for SEO because the keywords for the niche don't register hits. It can work, but not as often as I would like it to.

    Melissa
  • Posted by excellira on 2/7/2011 at 10:04 PM Member
    I do a lot of keyword research and have found over the years that KEI has not been a reliable selection criterion. When I compile a list I'll take a cursory look for high KEI but as I mentioned in my earlier post, other signals are more valuable.

    Consider a scenario where the keyword phrase has 10 searches per month but only one competitor. This would reveal high KEI but is keyword relevant? Does it signal user intent? Is there sufficient ROI to invest in the creation of content and promotion on this search volume? It's possible, but unlikely that this term would help the client achieve their objectives.

    Conversely, a low KEI phrase might be spot-on in terms of relevance, intent, search volume, and might be somewhat competitive but not enough to reject the term. Rejecting this term might be a mistake.

    From my perspective, relevance and intent are where I focus first. So, while I agree that KEI might turn up an interesting term or two, look to other signals in order to develop a complete solution.
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