It might be the case that we are the major player in the market, and have developed sophisticated enough SEO over the years to have a search engine presence commensurate with our status. When people think of widgets, they think of our company, and when they search for widgets, they find our company dominating the search results.
But that’s probably not the case.
If we find ourselves up against better-known names in the search results, or similar-sized ones who just seem to be much better at SEO, what can we do?
The answer is to be more thoughtful about what we target. We shouldn’t assume we can somehow barge our way into a broad search results page for “widgets”, when we’re already a distance behind the competition. Think about smarter searches, like “widget suppliers”, “best widgets”, “widgets for aerospace” and the like. These may give much more granular results, and ones we can gatecrash.
To do this, we’ll need really good content, with something individually targeted at each search term, and of course all the usual support infrastructure like the on-page SEO basics and some quality external links. Yes, it’s work, but if it wasn’t, everyone would already be there.
Finally, the targeted pages we’re creating need to convert, so ensure there’s a clear next step at the end, especially when they’re educational.