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Competitor has my main keyword as company name, how to deal with it?
I’m running a niche SaaS company and the most searched keyword is “someservice online”. Relatively low competition and low search volumes. A competitor has claimed the domain “someservice-online.com” and is also trading under the company name “Someservice Online” and is ranking #1.
I thought the lack of an actual brand would be a disadvantage for them since it must be impossible for Google to know if a user is looking for the service or their company. But in this case it seems like Google favours the exact domain match.
I haven’t seen many successful examples of an exact keyword domain match, so I’m wondering if it’s a good long term strategy or if it can backfire?
What would be a good strategy to compete with them and how important is the exact 100% keyword match in titles and text?
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9 Replies
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I have the same issue but for local SEO in a large city. I still put out great content and have a great SEO geared website.
The competitor appears 1st in the top 2 keyword searches on name alone and my site 2nd. I used many of the long-tail keywords and other keywords outside the top 2 and I appear 1st in those searches.
So you can definitely rank higher, it just takes keyword research and strategizing.
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>how important is the exact 100% keyword match in titles and text?
It helps but it’s not everything. Google tries to serve high-quality results to users.
Provide better utility to users and you take the cake.
Scene:
1. A user visits #1 result “someservice-online.com”
2. The user isn’t satisfied with the content provided
3. He comes back to the results page and clicks #2 (it’s your website).
4. This time user stays to consume your content.*This happens over and over*
Now google is watching this and it observes; you seem to be better than “someservice-online.com”. Better start ranking your website #1 to provide more relevant content to users.
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The scene part was probably unnecessary but hey you understand how it works now 😀
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It is a problem but modern web search is semantic.
So, it more depends on context. To provide the semantic research of competitor’s website, other websites in your industry. To identify blank spots in competitor’s content. To create better content than competitor’s content.
Improve UX of your pages. It depends on your industry and a website, so you can use inter linking+content marketing, backlonks or other tactics to improve a visibility and to manage your web reputation. But, if it is a local business, you should create a strong offline reputation. Honestly, the word-of-mouth is still the best marketing strategy.
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>I haven’t seen many successful examples of an exact keyword domain match, so I’m wondering if it’s a good long term strategy or if it can backfire?
Backfire how? There is nothing wrong with what they are doing. They established the term as their brand name.
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>What would be a good strategy to compete with them and how important is the exact 100% keyword match in titles and text?
You compete with them the same way you would compete with them if they didn’t have the exact match domain name. Nothing should change about your strategy.
Also, if your entire digital marketing strategy revolves around one keyword, you may want to take a closer look at how you are doing things.
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In this particular battle, they have the high ground. You’ll need to work harder to rank for the main keyword. Consider running some PPC on it in the meantime.
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Its always been a decent ranking strategy but the lack of a brand name might hurt them with customers. In SEO there are a ton of city/SEO companies out there. I have some clients in medical who have done the same thing and it helps them rank and they do well getting clients with that name but they also have a competitor in the same building using the same basic name they just added another word. So you could pull the same thing just add another term to the name but there will be confusion with customers when you do that.
Google did their best for a while to kill emd’s but it seems its back in full swing these days and has been for a while.
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I have a question about this strategy. Say I wanted to buy a domain for ” key word”
Would it be better to get “key-word.com” or “thekeyword.com” or “keyword.net”
What would rank better for this strategy in the search? -
Branded matches (ie Company name) are less important for searches from a barely branded company. You will just want to continue using keywords that are relevant to the products to be found.
Branded search is more for voice and, “brand + near me” searches.
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>But in this case it seems like Google favours the exact domain match.
>I haven’t seen many successful examples of an exact keyword domain match, so I’m wondering if it’s a good long term strategy or if it can backfire?
Regardless of what I’ve read from experts, it works really well and always has, especially for low volume and low competition keywords.
I have sites ranked #1 right now that literally have no content and just a fresh WordPress install because of the EMD.
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