How to Beat Your Bigger, Stronger Competitor at SEO

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Click to edit Master title styleClick to edit Master title styleHow to Beat Your Bigger, Stronger Competitor at SEO

Ehren Reilly | Glassdoor.com

SMX München

April, 2014


Some markets have an Established LeaderIt’s Hard to Out-rank Them


Users Often Prefer a Familiar Brand


Sometimes It’s Hard to Rank At All


Sometimes It’s Hard to Rank At All

First organic result after ads, Yelp and Google Maps is 1700px down the page!


Market leaders can get away with stuff that you can’t


It feels unfair


What Can You Do?

They are better at SEO. Don’t try to beat them at their game. Be different.

Google wants to show diverse results. Be a diverse result.

Users don’t like to scroll down the SERP. Give users a reason to pick #5 instead of #1


1. Different SEO Ranking Strategy

When the market leader has higher PageRank than you, try winning at Panda.


Winning at Panda?

One man’s risk is another man’s opportunity.

Better user engagement than the market leader More fun/interesting landing page than the market leader Every user who comes to your site finds exactly what they

expected and more

Videos > Photos > Text

Interactive > Static

Entertainment > Information


Airbnb – Winning at Panda

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60713-d220163-Reviews-Mission_District-San_Francisco_California.html


Airbnb – Winning at Panda

https://www.airbnb.com/locations/san-francisco/mission-district


Pinterest – Winning at Panda

Zero original content, very little relevant text, mostly pictures…

SEO champion!


2. Different-looking search result

When the market leader ranks better than you, try to have a different looking result on the SERP.


Different-looking search result

1. Rich snippets

2. Videos

3. Authorship with image

Which of these does the market leader have?

Have a different one.


Different-looking search result


3. Different Product & Marketing Strategy

When fighting a stronger opponent, don’t attack your opponent head-on. Attack from the flank.


Don’t attack head-on


Glassdoor vs Indeed – Attacking from the Flank

✔ Paid & organic jobs ✔ Paid & organic jobs

✔ Comprehensive coverage, all jobs that are posted online

✔ Comprehensive coverage, all jobs that are posted online

✔ 50 million+ pages of jobs ✔ 50 million+ pages of jobs

✖ 25K linking root domains ✔ 50K linking root domains

✖ PageRank 7 ✔ PageRank 8

✖ Since 2007 ✔ Since 2003



Ehren is not winning at SEO for “jobs” queries


Conclusion

Don’t try to be better, try to be different


Thank You!

Ehren Reilly

[email protected]

@ehrenreilly

mailto:[email protected]

How to Beat Your Bigger, Stronger Competitor at SEO

Marketing

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