Another Keyword Driven Domain Question
-
So we have a client that has a ton of great links, solid social profiles, content with good keyword-to-content ratio (7.5-9%), etc. This site has been around for a while and performed well.
Recently a new competitor showed up with a very long keyword driven domain and has been outranking our client (and everyone else) for a large quantity of keywords. We own a keyword driven domain that could be used, but should we switch? I am always for branded domains vs keyword, but in this case it appears to be working and undefeatable. We have waited for 6 months to see if it's a fluke, but it has only gained additional ranking.
The site in question has bad backlinks, many spam items, and stuffed content on the homepage. We will not copy that format obviously, but should we take one more step and beat him at his own game?
Our client has Yext Premium, MOZ local, AdWords, social paid campaigns, location targeting pages, fast load time, etc. Overall a good presence. He seems stuck around the 3-5 position on page one, and is looking to push into the top 3 consistently.
-
Hey David!
I like your thinking on that, but from what I have seen, the top 10 results for most established businesses tend to contain all kinds of different things in the description portion of the SERP entry. For example, one will have part of a user review, another will have hours, another will have part of the owner's description. Take a look at some SERPs and you''ll likely see this.
Again, not trying to discourage anyone from writing unique descriptions - just saying that the ROI on doing so may not be great, given the way that descriptions are going to be duplicated downstream + the fact that you will not control what information ends up in the SERP display description field for most 3rd party mentions of your business.
-
Miriam,
Thank you for your reply.
They are about equal in terms of location. While I can't supply specific details, they are both located well within the "border" of the major target area. Geographically, Google should be able to interpret their business location and apply it to the desired search area.
-
Under normal circumstances, I completely agree. The largest roadblock is the client in this case, and that we are allowed to edit very little in terms of content and focus, and especially visual. At one point we had the site ranking higher with a slightly more aggressive use of keywords, a cleaner visual design, and he had us revert the entire site back.
It is my hope that would could use this method to sidestep the client (although he knows that the domain choice is an option and has approved if we deem it necessary), but also add more location and keyword "targeting" for the business and website.
-
You can bet on a keyword domain or focus on how many times words appear on page.
If this was my site I would, instead, be focusing on the message that appears in the SERPs and how it strikes the potential visitor. Then I would focus on the landing page and on giving the searcher what he is looking for when he clicks in.
These are the things that mean almost nothing and everything in my opinion.
-
Sent you both domains.
-
Some of the titles may have changed recently as the client has access to the site 0_o
I find it hard to believe that a site with that few pages and that small of a backlink profile has been given the green light. Call me crazy, but I think it has to do with the "exact match" of many of his elements.
- Business name matches keyword phrase
- Domain matches keyword phrase
- Business name can be listed on site as name, meaning keyword repeated over and over without penalty.
- City is listed 55 times on home page
- Corporate is listed 33 times on homepage
- When I search for the biggest keyword phrase, the competitor's entire domain name is bolded.
I am wondering if since we have so many of these other items in place for our client if that would catapult him to a higher position? I know the person who built the competitor site, and he is known for the quick "clone, wash, content, repeat" method of launching sites. All using the same EMD method and they do great.
I agree the "I" word is a stupid choice, but the client is very particular in the way he does things. Switching to the new domain name would remove this issue.
-
In my opinion, your competitor has the title tag that I would click. I like it better than any other title tag on the first page. It uses clear common language and gives options.
The message on their site appeals to me. I don't find it a bit spammy. In a previous life, I was a regular customer of this industry. Too regular. I needed a roustabout product instead of an executive product. The competitor's message described what I would buy -- but I my experience is very different from this market.
Overall, I like what the competitor is selling and I like how they are selling it.
I don't like the "I" word in the client's name. Huh? I think that people who are in the position that I was in are going to stumble on the name. If you say their name to the person who helps you arrange your affairs they are going to ask you to spell it. If I owned this business I would change the name for that reason, not because my competitor had a better domain. The client's name would have never occurred to me. The only time I use that word is when I am forced to use that word, it's too highfalutin' and I work at a lower, more common, level.
Bottom line.. I think that these guys are beating you because they are beating you.
-
Sent you a PM with the link and details. If you can offer a response I will share it here minus the client info.
-
EGOL, thanks for deciding to chime in. Please see my responses below:
"When you redirect this site about 10 to 15% of your linkjuice will evaporate in the redirect. When you change this domain you will no longer have people typing your domain into search, typing it into the broswer window, all of your brand mentions will be irrelevant, people will click your old brand links and say WTF when they land on an unfamiliar landscape. This is like sacrificing a lot of SEO, a trusted brand and walking away from your tribe."
We will do a sitewide redirect that states "any traffic to domainA.com/subpage will go to domainB.com/subpage". All pages will go to the new version.
HIS BUSINESS NAME is the keyword. This helps him in maps, search, etc. It's seriously driving me crazy. I'll send you a PM and you will see just how Shi**** this other site is. Its wild that Google is even allowing it, much less promoting it higher.
-
So we have a client that has a ton of great links, solid social profiles, content with good keyword-to-content ratio (7.5-9%), etc. This site has been around for a while and performed well.
We own a keyword driven domain that could be used, but should we switch?
HELL NO !
When you redirect this site about 10 to 15% of your linkjuice will evaporate in the redirect. When you change this domain you will no longer have people typing your domain into search, typing it into the broswer window, all of your brand mentions will be irrelevant, people will click your old brand links and say WTF when they land on an unfamiliar landscape. This is like sacrificing a lot of SEO, a trusted brand and walking away from your tribe.
Don't be seduced into doing this because you fear this new competitor.
in this case it appears to be working and undefeatable.
What ?
My sites are on awesome domains. In my opinion then are the best in their SERPs. And, they are not impossible to beat. The people who beat me got to the top because they beat the quality of my website, or they elicited more clicks, attracted a bigger tribe, created more dedication in their visitors, had more panache, or I was screwing up somewhere. Occasionally a site that I think is a pissant will get above me and that will really make me mad. A couple are making me mad right now. One has such an awesome title tag that it probably getting clicked like mad and I think that is pulling him up the SERPs. Another has content that addresses some topics that are extremely popular for the keyword that I am not willing to put on my site.
I'll create something that beats them.
I will tell you right now that the domain means very little compared to the person in charge of it.
So, every morning before you leave the house, get in front of a mirror, look straight into it and yell, "We are going to kick their asses with excellence"... then when you step across the threshold of the office you need to move and act and think like "IT IS SHOWTIME".
So we have a client that has a ton of great links, solid social profiles, content with good keyword-to-content ratio (7.5-9%), etc. This site has been around for a while and performed well.
You been doing great. Keep at it. Don't allow a guy with a biglongbullshitdomain.com to scare you out of your previous good form. Keep the hammer down. Get a bigger hammer. It's time to step up your game.
-
Yeah, EMD's are a pain, BUT they still work! Crazy.
Yes, they have the service areas listed in their site, and they have a great citation score.
We have already submitted the other site to Google twice for 2 different reasons. They are not responding to any of our requests. Some of the backlinking sites even have a score of 5 and 6 in the Moz link spam indicator. It's maddening that they allow this site to stay in number one and two positions with this type of behavior.
We have recently switched them to https and are now contemplating switching the domain. Everything else we have tried. Editing content, editing settings, compressing load times, fetching and submitting, etc.
The other company's name and domain is LITERALLY the entire keyword phrase. Google is eating it up, and that is hard to beat.
-
Hey David,
Like you, I prefer branded domains, and I totally know the frustration of seeing them outranked by low quality EMDs. Ughh - really frustrating!
Are you talking about local pack or organic rankings? If local pack and you are seeing actual SPAM in the competitor's listing, you can report them to Google for that.
Also, if local pack, have you assessed how your client is doing in terms of geography? Are they within mapped city borders for the city they are hoping to rank for? Is there a clear industry centroid and how close is your client to it vs. their competitor?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Advice needed; Scrap mature .co.uk and move to .com, or run two separate domains?
Asked before, we have a .co.uk domain name and it has grown with rankings over many years with many quality links made to it. Since, we also have acquired the .com of our agency brand, and want to also focus on US market - something hard to do with a UK domain. However, we aren't sure which route to go from here... Should we keep the .co.uk active and allow that to focus on the UK market, and grow the .com from scratch with a site that looks the same with slightly different content and interlink the two with regional flags. Or move across to the .com totally and scrap the .co.uk. I know we could do a redirect and save a good number of the links made on the .co.uk, but is that worth even doing? And what would the risk be of having two sites the same with similar content? Since this isn't an area I've dealt with before, we are interested to get some real advice to understand which decision is right given the scenario.
Local SEO | | thewebpreneur0 -
Keyword rich domain names -> Point to sales funnel sites or to landing pages on primary domain?
Hey everyone,
Local SEO | | Transpera
We have a tonne of old domains we have done nothing with. All of them are keyword-rich domains.
Things like "[City]SEOPro" or "[City]DigitalMarketing" where [city] is a city that we are already targeting services in. So all of these domains will be targeted for local cities as keywords. We have been having an internal debate about whether or not we should just host sales funnel pages on these domains, that are rich in keywords and content......... ... Or ... ... Should we point these domains to landing pages on our existing domain that are basically the same as what we would do with the sales funnel pages, but are on our primary site? (keyword rich, with good and plentiful content) Then, as a follow-up question... Should these be set as just 301 redirects on these domains to our actual primary domain so the browser sees the landing page domain instead of the actual keyword-rich domain? ( [city]seopro.com ) Thanks guys. I know for some, the response will be an obvious one. However; we have probably way over thought this and have arguments for almost every scenario. We think we have an answer but wanted to send this out to the community first. I won't post what we are thinking yet, so that the answers can remain unbiased for now and we can have a conversation without it being swayed any one way. We understand that 301 redirects would be seen as a doorway page.
We are also only discussing in the context of organic search only.
If we ran the domains as their own sites, they would be about 3 pages of content only. Pretty static, but good content. Think of a PAS style sales funnel. Problem -> Acknowledgement -> Solution.0 -
Adwords Forecasting Question
Hi Guys, First time question. I'm going to be creating some Adwords search campaigns. When I create these campaigns I will be targeting specific post codes in London. I've checked this and all is fine. However I need to forecast costs for my client before creating the campaigns. Google Keyword Planner only allows me to forecasts volume and CPC costs for London, it doesn't allow me to drill down any further than this. What would be the best way to try and forecast costs for these postcode specific campaigns? Even if its using a third party tool. Or is it just not possible? Thanks Dan
Local SEO | | jazzydan0 -
Two websites or a sub domain or sub page?
Hi, Our company has three branches in Canada and opening a 4th in the United States soon. Our target market strategy will differ in the States and I would like to know your opinion if we should launch a second site under a slightly different brand or not. I don’t want to do anything that could negatively impact our site’s current organic ranks. I feel I have to give some history on our company so you understand the dilemma. It is a little complicated. So, in Canada, we rent large generators and all the equipment needed to distribute and transform that power. We don’t own the generators. We re-rent generators (broker) from our partners. What we own is all the distribution equipment that typically accompanies a generator rental. We make money on the generator also, but the real money is in the distribution portion. In terms of messaging, our current site is tuned to target the end-user, the same market that our re-rent partners target. As a result, our re-rent partners and our company will bid on the same project in many occurrences. Our strategy in the United States is to primarily target the re-rent market. That is a very small segment in comparison to the end-user. From a marketing perspective, all that is really needed to target that group is an outside sales team. There are maybe 40 re-rent partners we will target in our first U.S. GEO… Texas. In the States, we will not rent generators. We will not run ad campaigns that bid on any generator rental type terms. We will not offer the same level of turn-key solutions we offer in Canada. All of the equipment we manufacture will be very generic in appearance, think Acme. Branding will look completely different than what we have up in Canada. We want the re-rent companies we target in the States to feel comfortable we are there to support them not compete against them. Regarding website strategy, I see three options: 1. We create a sub domain or sub page of www.trinitypower.com that explains the services we offer in the States. This for me is the safest solution. 2. We launch a second domain www.trinitypowerrentals.com that has similar content in-terms of the type of equipment we rent, but speaks directly to re-rent partners. That may not be enough of a differentiator though and I fear two sites owned by the same company with similar content will have negative SEO implications, if not right away, a year down the road. 3. We launch a new website under a completely different company name. This still carries some risk as I understand it, even if we have different phone numbers, company registration info, etc…
Local SEO | | TrinityPower
Would love to know your thoughts. Thanks everyone. J0 -
Duplicate content on multiple domains
Dear all, I have bought 30 geo top level domains. This is for an ecommerce project that has not launcehd yet (and isn't indexed by Google). I am now at a point where I can change/consolidate all domains as sub domains or sub folders or keep things as they are. I just worry that link building would be scattered and not focused and that it might be better to concentrate the efforts on one domain. What are your views on this? Many thanks!
Local SEO | | UpMedio_SEO
Ami0 -
Buying a .IE domain and forward to .com domain?
Hi, One of our clients currently owns a .com domain and they are interested in marketing into the Irish market. They have asked us if they should buy a .IE domain name and then forward it onto their .com one. I know that Google has been clamping down on people who use the 'Backdoor' method of buying 100's of keyword rich domains and forwarding them onto their website but would it really make a difference if they just bought one .IE domain? Keen to know if anyone has done this sort of thing before and their experience. Thanks
Local SEO | | O2C0 -
Lots of [keyword]in[city].com domains - what to do?
A client of mine had purchased a lot of domains. They all start with the same keyword following by "in" following by a cities name. The cities are all the cities around their location. They had the pages set up to all look the same with very small differences in content. A bunch of duplicate content. All of them have a DA of 8 and PA of 19. There are 35 of them total. They get roughly 30-60 hits a month each but it's mostly all spam. The idea was for users to type in [keyword] in [city] in Google and these websites show up. A competitor of my clients had done something similar which was working for them. The main website (separate of these) gets ~1500 visits per month of non spam traffic and gets ~10 referrals from these websites. What should be done with these domains? Chalk it off as a bad idea and have them 301 to the main website until they expire? Or can they be changed into something useful? If so, how? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Note: I did search for this similar topic but it was hard to search it out and I did not find an answer. Thanks!
Local SEO | | RedKeyDesigns0 -
Duplicate site content and setting up country specific domains
We look after a website which was originally just hosted on mysite.co.uk. We expanded to the European markets creating mysite.de and mysite.fr getting each product and page translated properly into German and French respectively. We have really good success on google.de and google.fr for these sites. We want to do the same with google.ie and create mysite.ie for the Irish market but as they speak English there will be no translation required. The only thing we will change is the base currency from GBP to EUR. From a duplication point of view will this be bad for both businesses mysite.co.uk and mysite.ie or will the .ie site be seen as the 'copier' and the .co.uk as the authority? Has anyone got any advice over best practice here and what would be the best thing for us to consider? We absolutely cannot risk the .co.uk site ranking wise. It's unrealistic for us to rewrite each product description and page so it means the same thing but is worded differently to avoid the duplication issue.
Local SEO | | gavinhoman0