Difficult to pinpoint competitive differences
-
Hi moz,
Im currently working with a client that has a number of affiliates that work under similar URLs but operate independently. For example I work with client.com and we are concerned about SEO and ranking competition from affilate1.client.com, affiliate2.client.com etc. As it stands right now, the domain client.com has a higher DA, the homepage has a higher PA, and the equity passing links, both internal and external are much higher as well as number of linking domains, yet for whatever reason for many of the keywords we attempt to optimize for, the smaller affiliates often rank higher.
The only things ive been able to pinpoint is that affiliate1.client.com has a spam score of 2 (rather than 4, for client.com) and the homepage has more total links. External anchor text is pretty branded across the web so i can't imagine it playing into keyword associations. Lastly the sites are constructed and appear very similar so basic on page keyword best practices have been taken care of.
We worry that because affiliate.client.com has been at the SEO game longer, in addition to Google only linking two sites from a domain per search, we will never be able to rank for the keywords we want to rank for.
How else can I go about a competitive analysis if I've taken into account everything said above?
Any help will be very appreciated.
-
They have very, very similar content. Essentially its the same save for some differences due to the region differences.
-
Do these competing pages have identical or very similar content ?
-
Ok to get a little more specific, our client is a telecommunications company but let me still refer to them as client.com. There exist a series of regional sites such as region1.client.com, region2.client.com etc which i guess function as subdomains of client.com.
Our client is specifically client.com not the regional versions so all of our SEO efforts go to ranking client.com
For a given generic, yet important keyword, say "internet," a page on region1.client.com will rank higher than client.com, or sometimes client.com will not rank at all (which may be because of Google's two page rule)
Given all of the information i mentioned above (client.com having a higher PA, more backlinks, etc.) I cannot figure out why this ranking is happening
Please let me know if that clarifies
-
Getting very specific so there is no time spent explaining things that do not apply....
I need an example of the keywords that apply here. For example, if you sell flooring and have ten other branches.... is the problem that one of the branches outranks the main domain for keywords such as "oak flooring" but they are ranking appropriately for "oak flooring pittsburgh"
-
"Affiliate" is a name used for a person outside of your company who sells your products.
Are you talking about "branch offices" or "franchise locations" ?
-
Hi,
Thank you for your passionate response, however now im feeling as if "affiliate" was a touchy word. If client.com is who I am working SEO for, then north.client.com is a regional branch of the same company. However that subdomain outranks the mother tree on many keywords, and wouldn't it be better to navigate from the trunk to branches rather than directly to a branch and not be able to find your way back?
Im just trying to understand what other factors may be playing into the observed ranks when all of the metrics I get from Moz's (awesome) tools would suggest otherwise
-
Affiliates are some of the smartest people on the web -- especially the ones who have survived after Google took a disliking to them a few years ago. They are really good at optimization and they often have strong websites.
As soon as you invite affiliates into your business model you invite competition, smart competition, really smart competition. Most of the time affiliates are so good at what they do that they have no problem defeating the manufacturer, publisher, program site, or whoever offered to pay them to help produce sales. They live and breathe, SEO, optimzation, rankings, traffic, conversions, etc. The program people are usually busy doing other work and generally don't have the time or the smarts to outdo the affiliate.
How else can I go about a competitive analysis
I've been an affiliate for about 20 years. I've sold lots of stuff for lots of businesses. The best situation for me and for the people who pay me is when they value me as a member of their team. I am still with the first program that I joined but many many others have come and gone. What's the difference? The one that I am still with after 20 years values their affiliates as members of their team. They rejoice about the success of the affiliates and enjoy the rain that they make. Even thought they live 2000 miles from me I have been to their homes and to their offices for strategy meetings. I have given them opinions and advice on their products to make them easier to sell. I advise them on how to tweak the checkout process to increase sales. They know my kids and I know theirs. I consider them among my best friends and I am among theirs. Maybe your affiliates can become this valuable to you.
As soon as you start restricting affiliates, maneuvering around them, or giving them a reason to think that you view them with contempt they will start looking for another program. The last thing that you want is for them to start working for your competitor. They can be valuable members of your team, much more than animals who drag in kill for you.
It's not much different than a manufacturer or publisher allowing others to sell your physical products. Actually, most manufacturers and publishers have a higher profit margin from sales produced by affiliates than by resellers.
Affiliates are one of the most effective ways of challenging your competitors... but at the same time there will be some damage done to your own direct sales. You will always be hit with some friendly fire. Competition in search engines works that way.
It sounds like you might have your affiliates on a subdomain. I would probably allow them to use their own websites. I would even offer to redirect the subdomains to their websites as long as they continue to sell my products. Honestly, I would not work on a subdomain because I don't want to work building my fortress on another person's land.
If you have some awesome smart people selling your products, bring them in to closer collaboration. This isn't going to work with every affiliate but when you find one or two or a few like that the cooperation can benefit everyone.
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
-
Ranking for Competitive Keywords vs. Less Competitive Keyword Variations
I'm curious about situations where a website ranks very well for query variations, but doesn't rank for the query itself (or the reverse of that). For Redfin (where I work), here is the situation with regard to keyword rankings on Google (searched today from USA, incognito)... real estate search - #4 real estate online - #4 real estate site - #5 find real estate - #9 get real estate - #16 real estate - #163 It stands to reason that a site ranking well for a competitive query should also rank well for less competitive query variations - especially query variations that are non-limiting and do not demand a custom landing page (for example, I would consider 'board games' to dramatically limit the query 'games' and be best targeted with a targeted page...not so with 'real estate site' and 'real estate'). So, my question is, what are some theories regarding situations like this? Why do some sites rank so well for competitive queries but not for non-limiting query variations? Why aren't the sites that are crushing us for 'real estate' also crushing us for 'real estate' variations (to be clear...the top sites are crushing us for both)? Is it anchor text? Is it social signals? Is it offline signals, co-occurrence, or citations? What about internal linking and site structure? I realize it's likely a mix of all this, but I'm hoping we can drum up some new ideas here. FYI, on Bing we also rank very well for 'real estate' variations, but leap up to 31st for 'real estate'. Thoughts?
Competitive Research | | RyanOD0 -
Effort for "moderate competition" keywords
I'm rather new to this, and while I'm getting some sense of everything I'm trying to figure out what kind of scope of work lays ahead of me. The keywords I'm looking to rank for are "moderate difficulty" -- somewhere between the 45%-55% "difficulty scale" on seomoz's keyword difficulty report. Assuming I have a number of "A-grade" (according to SEOmoz's reports) optimized pages for these keywords, how many links of a given quality level should I be looking at building up? I mean, of course, the more the better, but if I'm gunning for high DA/PA pages, am I looking at dozens here or hundreds of such links? I can imagine that any answer isn't going to come with much specificity, but if there was just an "idea" of the scale of backlinking involved here, that'd be great!
Competitive Research | | yoni450 -
Tool to compare which links competition has but i don't?
Is there a tool that I can use that will show me a list of my competition's links that I don't have?
Competitive Research | | ballhogjoni0 -
Understanding Competitive Domain Analysis
I'm finding this site great for getting at the information that I need but I am having trouble understanding what I see as conflicting Competitive Domain Analysis and keyword research results for companies in my sector. My company is new to the sector we are in and I am tracking two really well established leaders (Moma and Poppa bear) and one company that is new to the sector (baby Bear) too. When looking at the competitive domain analysis the Momma and Poppa Bear wipe the floor with baby bear (and of course me!) on every single criteria; but when I see who is actually ranking best for the most competitive keywords for our sector who wins...baby bear; I just dont understand it. What is the reason for the disparity between the domain analysis and actual performance? Many thanks, Sinead
Competitive Research | | YGF0 -
Different SERP results in browsers / different result pages for keyword in browser
Hi, I am making the SEO reports for a travel agency and I have the following problem. SEOmoz shows me the website is on page 1, for a keyword. Yesterday, a google search with firefox showed me the same position, while, searching from a different computer on google using firefox gave me another position. The URL shown was also different. I asked some friends to do the search - the results were the same - first page. Today, firefox shows me the second URL on the 4'th page, and the result from the first page of google does not appear, while Chrome still shows me the first URL on the first page. I have no idea why the URL that was ranking well does not appear on the first page with Firefox, and why it appears on the first page with Chrome, or why the URL that was ranking bad -meaning page 4, appears on Firefox but does not appear on Chrome. Can someone give me some advice?
Competitive Research | | Netlogiq0 -
My competition is using 1px images and links without anchor text. Good or bad idea?
I've been scoping out some of my competition and I noticed the number 1 ranking site is doing a lot of "interesting" stuff. I saw a bunch of 1px blank images that they must be using for the alt tag keywords. I also noticed several links to internal pages with different keywords without anchor text so they don't actually appear on the page. Is this considered black hat? Should I be doing something similar? It feels like the work I'm doing to try to rank #1 with a clean/professional looking site are wasted when the #1 sites are doing things like this.
Competitive Research | | technota0 -
What is the difference between "external backlinks" & "referring domains" on Majestic SEO?
According to Majestic SEO's glossary, a "Referring domain, also known as "ref domain", is a domain from which a backlink is pointing to a page or link." Given this definition, I'm not sure what an external backlink is?
Competitive Research | | nicole.healthline0 -
How to gauge competitiveness on niche keywords
I'm looking to create a website selling a specific niche range of products. For example 'hair extensions.' Using opensite explorer it's fairly easy to guage the competition for similar websites focused on this niche only e.g www.hairextensionsworld.com - I just look at their authority, number of incoming links, anchortext links etc. However, I'm finding it more difficult to guage the competition if a large merchant, for example Amazon, has a page ranking for a specific keyphrase I'm after. Often the large merchant doesn't have a lot of external links to the specific page, but nonetheless it has power from being on the domain of the large merchant. Are there any good tools / metrics for guaging the competition of such pages? Page authority I guess is one? Thanks
Competitive Research | | Nicknak0