Ranking for competitors brand name

[Signofgrey]

Hello,

We had a discussion about ranking on competitors brand name. We have created pages about our closest competitors and written (pretty) unbiased articles about them.

The discussion is how to successfully rank for their brand names. My take is that we include all possible information that a customer might want we searching for the brand name (what they offer, opening hours, contact info, comparison to us and other companies etc).

Does anyone actually have experience of what works here?

 

[mickyfu]

I'm ranking close behind a sort of competitor.
The site was xxxcasino.com so I bought xxx.casino. was easy to rank the domain with very little issues. The site is still not where I want it, but should easily achieve getting it to rank under their site, which is a 30k+ term.

 

[speed jet]

It's Completely do-able, but you should open yourself up to a possible lawsuit which I believe is the biggest risk & bad idea.

Why is it a bad idea?

1. It will be difficult
2. a high percentage of any traffic you get will just bounce

if you search for xhamster then you want xhamster. If I search for Blackhatworld then I want Blackhatworld.

These are navigational search queries, the user is trying to find something they know exists so if you manage to somehow persuade google you should outrank the brands themselves for these terms in this brand driven SEO landscape (hint) then it will likely be a huge waste of time anyway.

 

[vmh]

I'm ranking close behind a sort of competitor.
The site was xxxcasino.com so I bought xxx.casino. was easy to rank the domain with very little issues. The site is still not where I want it, but should easily achieve getting it to rank under their site, which is a 30k+ term.

is the ROI good? Since the brand name belong to someone, I bet less ppl will click the 2nd spot of google. Worse if the brand name has site link.

 

[mickyfu]

is the ROI good? Since the brand name belong to someone, I bet less ppl will click the 2nd spot of google. Worse if the brand name has site link.

It takes fair good money, and it isn't even ranked proper yet. I just wrote a better title to draw people away from the oroginal, plus the snippet has four offers in it, that pull people in. The name of the casino actually targets a casino game, and the offers target that casino game, so it should convert well.

But still yes, I guess a lot less people will click it, than had it been ranking for just a normal keyword.

However once the keyword is ranked and pulling decent traffic in, it will help to rank other pages in the site which aren't related to the casino title, and that really is the main goal.

 

[Tikkanen]

I tried ranking on brand name once and it ranked too ahead of official website. but it was not exact brand name. it was "Brand name Review" and "brand name feedback". Their was many search query and people were looking for review, so i did tht. later on the brand itself offered to buy that domain and i sold for some easy cash

 

[maildigger]

I do this all the time.

 

[Signofgrey]

Ok, thanks for your replies.

In this case, we offer a similar service as the brandname we want to rank for. We are sure that the customers will convert if they visit our site - it's possible that they have tried our competitor before, searched for it, sees us and want to try something new.

So the question here is really about how to optimally rank for a competitors name. Should we just throw up a 3000 word article with basically all information we can find about our competitor, or should we keep it as a standard article and send backlinks to it? That's why I'm asking if putting their contact information on our site for example.

 

[vmh]

It takes fair good money, and it isn't even ranked proper yet. I just wrote a better title to draw people away from the oroginal, plus the snippet has four offers in it, that pull people in. The name of the casino actually targets a casino game, and the offers target that casino game, so it should convert well.

But still yes, I guess a lot less people will click it, than had it been ranking for just a normal keyword.

However once the keyword is ranked and pulling decent traffic in, it will help to rank other pages in the site which aren't related to the casino title, and that really is the main goal.

good strategy, I'm trying to do the same, but I afraid the traffic from branded kw will cause high bounce rate.

 

[mickyfu]

good strategy, I'm trying to do the same, but I afraid the traffic from branded kw will cause high bounce rate.

Yes I'm also wondering if the site will be short lived due to bounce rate. However it has more than paid for itself up to now. But have a feeling it may tank before I get it to where I want it.

You need to offer something more than what the branded keyword offers.

In my case the keyword is a casino game + casino. So say for instance they have roulettecasino.com, I bought for example roulette.casino. Then made a site around offers for the given game. So whereas the original casino will only have one sign up offer. I have packed the site full of offers for the game in question at many different casinos.

 

[maildigger]

Just make a page about your competitor and link to them at the bottom. Put your own offers at the top. Some people will buy from you instead.

 

[Signofgrey]

Would never link to our competitor directly, just mention them and internal link to other competitors.

 

[Yaqsuk87]

Just use them lightly just quoting them a few times you dont want to spam them with later on being sued by them.

Keep it natural and if you can say good things about them and link to them it will benefit both parties as that worked for me , sometimes.