How long is it going to take for your SEO campaign to see results? Is SEO the best way to market your company? These are a couple of questions whose answers should consider the competitive nature of your industry. Updated for 2021.
A few years ago, I took some time to research how competitive many industries are on Google. I recently updated this information for 2021. Below is what I found. I hope this helps you set reasonable goals and expectations on what it might take for your SEO campaign to succeed.
The chart shows how much more competitive some of these industries are, than others. As I mentioned, I’m using a proprietary metric I call “Oppprunity” to rank these. This considers the “Average monthly searches” but also factors-in competition and other paid search data. The theory here is: it’s one thing if people are searching for a topic but even more valuable if people are willing to pay for clicks (and how much they’re willing to pay for those clicks). That’s why some industries have high search volume but low “Opportunity” numbers- while people are searching for these industries, the industries are less willing to pay for those visitors.
This list is quite different from the top ten from 2018. I have to wonder how much the SARS-COVID-19 pandemic has affected this list:
It’s going to take a lot to compete against similar businesses to you in SEO. It might take years. SEO is never a quick marketing channel. In these cases, it’s going to take a long time before you start to see significant results. If your company needs to ramp up fast, PPC might be a better solution.
It’s also going to take a significant financial investment to do SEO for one of these industries. This investment is not only an investment over time. Everything is going to cost more. I see this when it comes to lawyers. It costs a lot of money to get listed in some of the most respected legal web directories. Unfortunately, some of these directories charge a lot but offer little value. Use caution when spending money, or you could waste a lot at the same time.
Sometimes companies that start an SEO campaign get obsessed with a particular keyword. This obsession hurts them in several ways. For one, they overlook the more achievable, long-tailed opportunities.
The long tail is a great way to compete against other flower delivery services. Sure, many people search for “flower delivery.” If you were to “rank” for that, you’d get a ton of traffic (and customers)! There are a lot fewer people searching for reasons you’d want to deliver flowers: a new baby, an apology, love, a funeral, a gift, etc. Of course, these phrases are also less competitive. The more specific and helpful content you can produce on your site, the more opportunities you’ll see. The long tail principal says there are many more customers searching for the infinite number of specific terms than are searching for the broad phrase.
Why would someone choose your locksmith company over another? Do you offer 24-hour service? Do you promise to arrive in less than 30 minutes? What makes your company better? Feature these distinctions, and your company can stand out from the competition.
Don’t try to be like everyone else. Focus on a specific group of people as your target audience. Sure, this might limit others from using your services. But, you could dominate a particular segment.
Take, for example, a dentist. What would it look like for a dentist to focus on Millennials? Perhaps they offer free Wi-Fi and have a holder for their cell phone hanging right above their seat (of course, I’m just speculating and stereotyping here). This strategy could attract many people that would otherwise not care about your dental practice.
I hope this isn’t discouraging. A successful SEO campaign in one of these competitive industries is achievable. It’s just going to take a little more time and a little more work.
Reliable Acorn will help you create a custom digital marketing strategy that does just that.
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