Jack is new to SEO. There is a lot he doesn’t know, but he’d like to keep his job so he asks a lot of questions. The “You Don’t Know, Jack?” series of posts highlights some of his most interesting.
Welcome back to your favorite L2T blog series, “You Don’t Know, Jack?” If you want some of the hardest hitting search engine marketing questions this side of the Mississippi, you’ve come to the right place. With each installment, I’ll highlight one of the questions that I’ve asked a co-worker throughout the week along with their luminous response. It’s genius, right? Let’s get started.
This past week, we were faced with an interesting question at L2T Media. If the pay-per-click side offers a competitor campaign that allows ads to show up in competitor specific searches, why not attempt to show up for competitor’s names in organic results as well? Interesting! To dive into this question, I’ve called upon the only person in the world I would trust to write my meta data, Dave Buesing.
___________________________________
"Jack, there are a number of reasons a car dealer – or any business for that matter – won’t want to concentrate much of their SEO resources on specific competitor names."
1) Searcher Intent
The first reason is fairly simple. If a searcher enters a direct competitor name into Google, what are they probably looking for? There's a good chance it's... that direct competitor. And nothing else.
Not even fluffy pandas? Ok, maybe they're looking for fluffy pandas.
For example, let’s say a customer searches online for “Car Dealer X.” They are not looking for general vehicle information, or maybe “Car Dealer Z”… at least not yet. Instead they are looking for “Car Dealer X.” That is the website they are going to want to click first.
So what does this mean? Trying to rank first for a competitor's name is not going to lead to a lot of clicks that convert into anything meaningful. Plus, it is highly likely that the dealer already has an unbreakable lock on at least the top 3 spots for their own name. Based on the similar location and business, your dealer may show up on this results page anyway, but not until the bottom half of results.
This could be beneficial if the customer has a poor experience on your competitor’s website. If they return to the search results page and find you in the top ten it may then lead to a visit. Ranking above the competitor for their own name, though? Well…
2) It’s Shady
Let’s say, for the sake of example, your competitor has an absolutely pathetic dealer SEO campaign. You're able to outrank them for their OWN name. You do this through a combination of page title rewrites, backlinks, and onsite content. What have you actually accomplished?
A) Now when searchers look for "Car Dealer X" they get "Car Dealer Z." The general reaction will not be, "Wow, that sure is some impressive search engine optimization!” It will be, "What in the hell?"
What are you trying to pull here?
B) You've dedicated a substantial chunk of time to building up your site's rankings for a term not beneficial to your business. The hours you've put into this could have been spent building quality links for more general, early cycle search traffic. Capturing traffic for "new Chevy for sale" in your geographic area is going to lead customers to your site before your competitor's. Capturing traffic for "Car Dealer X" is going to lead to... confused and potentially angry customers.
C) If you're really gunning hard for a competitor's name, you might add the name to your own page title and meta data. Aside from being wildly confusing (it'd be like a man named Peter introducing himself as Wolfgang), including a competitor's name in meta data can get you into trouble with brand compliance issues. And possibly even big, bad Google.
3) SEO is Different From PPC
You may counter all these arguments by saying "Well then how come our PPC campaign targets competitor names? What's the difference?"
The difference is this: PPC ads allow for a custom message based on the search. If a searcher types in "Car Dealer X," you can place a PPC ad on the page that says "More like Car Dealer WRECKS - Visit us for a better price" and then link to your own site.
With organic SEO listings, customization for a specific term is less practical. You can't tailor your message to combat the competitor without sabotaging the rest of your search presence.
Have an idea for a “You Don’t Know, Jack?” question? Feel free to e-mail me your suggestions and I’ll do everything I can to find an answer from one of our many experts. Remember - he who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. At least that’s what I’m told.
