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
-
Multiple keywords in one article?
Hi guys! I will be soon getting my article published in local newspaper (online edition) with DA 50. They told me i can choose whatever anchor text I want. The article is about towing business and my keyword is going to be also "towing". Is it smart to add another keyword in the same article (which is similar and is also a money keyword) ? Thanks!
Local SEO | | Suksinho0 -
2 Websites Targeting Similar Keywords
One of my clients is set on setting up another website targeting some of the keywords/services on the main site. One of the services they offer gets traffic from natural search and also Adwords but doesn't convert well for this service. For other services (which are often utilized at the same time by the customers) the site converts well. My client feels that... "people are not converting on the main site because they click on the page and realise that we are a wider company. From this they probably work out that we don’t actually produce Green Widgets and we just buy them in. Therefore we will be more expensive than a company who does manufacture Green Widgets (although there are only a few in the country who actually make them)." The new site "...will have more of a manufacturer and specialist feel. There will be a small mention of other services. People visiting will think we are specialists and that we make them, whereas at the moment they may feel that they are just being cross sold a product. We have also noticed that we are not being found earlier enough and we are contacted to do other work only to find that another company is providing the Green Widgets." I did something similar back in the day, but here we ran a local website and a national website covering the same products. We tried hard not to duplicate the keywords we targeted minimising this as much as possible. I don't think we cared much about the local site as the national one went crazy busy. In essence, my client wants to do the following: Main Site...
Local SEO | | GrouchyKids
Blue Widgets Bristol
Red Widgets Bristol
Green Widgets Bristol (This would be retained) New Site...
The new site would focus on Green Widgets In time the new site would include content for...
Green Widgets
Green Widgets Bristol (As per the main site)
Green Widgets Cardiff It would also make mention of Blue Widgets and Red Widgets as possible addons. The new site would be at the same address but have its own companies house registration, emails and phone numbers. My feeling is that we should take an above-board, risk-free approach and remove the Green Widgets service from the main site to ensure it doesn't upset Google. In other words go out of our way to minimise targeting of similar/same keywords across the 2 sites. My client strongly disagrees showing evidence of others using similar tactics (we have had the EMD debate as well). I am also concerned about Google Places and how this might be viewed here. Opinions please, also any idea of what if any action Google would take if we push forwards?0 -
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 -
What is the 2020 Google ranking weight for EMD (exact matching domains)
I know EMD's ranking factor have been significantly reduced in the past decade, but do you think it can help at all in 2020? Thanks, Ryan
Local SEO | | RyanMeighan0 -
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 -
Adwords Express Keyword Ranking Hack
I heard a rumor that Adwords Express offers a tool that lets you check real time Marketing Google ranking results (colleague brought this up) Has anybody heard of this?
Local SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Keywords & Domain
I need some advice. We are a real estate company that offers real estate sales and rentals. I have a domain (for example lets pretend there is an imaginary island called Pumpkin Island) - pumpkinrealestate.com (as many people just refer to pumpkin island as pumpkin eg. I am going down to pumpkin this weekend). pumpkinrealestate.com will be a website that offers all the properties for sale, local real estate community information, buying process, selling process, etc for the Pumpkin Island real estate market (we are a brokerage). I am also beginning to build out a new website that will be for our vacation rentals at "pumpkin island". I have a domain called "vacationrentalspumpkinisland.com" Question taking this factors in account: EMDs work well in our area IF the content is good. So assuming I will have a good link profile and good content, on page seo and offpage - - - pumpkinrealestate.com will have a decent amount of traffic naturally while vacationrentalspumpkinisland.com will have very dramatic increases of traffic during the winter, spring and summer (due to people planning vacations) would it be best to have the vacation rental website under its own domain vacationrentalspumpkinisland.com and the sales site under pumpkinrealestate.com OR have the sales site as pumpkinrealestate.com and the vacation website a subdomain of it for example: vacationrentals.pumpkinrealestate.com?? (maybe helping to leverage the traffic for both sites for benefit of one domain). Puzzled and need some thoughts, advice or suggestions. Thanks!!!! CHris
Local SEO | | topsailislander0 -
Google's rel=publisher tag question
Hi, i have a question about the use of rel=publisher tag on a large retail website with multiple local stores. There is 1 e-commerce website where i want to put the rel publisher tag from the main Google + businesspage. There are also 60 local google+businesspages, And on the main website every store has his own store-page. Is it good to put on all the 60 storepages their own rel=publishertag connected with the localbusinesspages on google? Or should i Stick at the main rel=publisher tag connected with the main google+page? Thanx, Leonie
Local SEO | | Leonie-Kramer0