Is it possible for one man to go against industry leaders in serps?

[activitysuper]

Hi,

Is it possible for an individual to go against the big boys in a industry sector?

Lets say flowers in the UK, all the massive flower companies go for 2 keywords:

'flowers delivered' (30,000 ems) and 'flowers by post' (30,000 ems)

Would it be possible to start a new site and within 6 months (July) be up in the top 5?

Scrap any exact match domains as there gone, I'm talking about creating a brand such as flowerpower.co.uk picking a term and going for it.

Is this possible?

[AlanMosley]

Possible yes, probable no.
I would look at the quality of the big boys, big companies do not always have good SEO, some are very spammy.
Just me maybe, but If i was looking for flowers, i would use a term like "Florist London"

[AWCthreads]

Hi Activity. Your question is interesting in that the two search terms you presented suggest two different types of business - or perhaps one business offering two types of service.

"Flowers delivered" suggests search results would produce florists specializing in delivery (who knows some of these businesses may not even take walk-in business). "Flowers by post" obviously suggests this business would mail them to you before they wilt and turn brown.

Alan's keyword "florist London" suggests to me I would find a florist in London that I could walk or drive to and buy some flowers on the way home from work.

Perhaps the first question is not whether you can conquer the giants, but what is the business model you or your client intend to pursue?

Once you've identified what kind of business you intend to run, do your keyword research for your niche/approach and build it from there. Giants were babies once too.

Unless a person has a boatload of cash to spend on PPC, then felling the giants or taking some of their business will be challenging in the timeframe you suggest.

Include in your research a little work in Google Insights after you've identified your business model. You may get some good keyword ideas for localizing your SEO at startup.

Finally, check out this thread on creating the perfect website: http://www.seomoz.org/q/seo-list-for-creating-the-perfect-website.

[EGOL]

I really like this question!

If you are a content area expert and your competitors are not making that type of investment in their sites then a one or two man shop could effectively compete against huge corporations in an information niche.

Huge corporations usually produce chest-thumping content but you will produce altruistic, evergreen, informative content - that will have enormous appeal to the people who are using the web in your niche.

Most people can't do that.

On top of that.... you need one or two people who have (in addition to the content expertise) an ability to do all of the SEO, development, photography, video, research, etc... superbly well.

This constellation of content expertise, presentation ability, SEO savvy and usability skills rarely occurs in one person, or even a small team or even in most large web-savvy companies.

So, that is my answer to the question in your title....  in your post you say that you are in the retail "flowers" industry.

To that, my answer is......  if you have everything that I described above.. you better have it in awesome proportions because you are going up against some very savvy, aggressive, hungry, well-established, brilliant, well-funded, and very powerful Goliaths.

You better practice with your sling, have a really strong arm, and pick up some really good rocks.

You might be able to carve out a city niche... maybe... I am not betting.

[onlinemediadirect]

I was able to single handed start my business in my back bedroom with a dell PC and £400 in a business bank account. I took my company site to the Top 5 for Internet marketing in the UK in competition with companies with thousands of investment.

I think you have to look at the positives a single guy or smaller team has over a larger organisation. You can act right away without waiting for a boards decision or internal decisions on budgets.

In the longterm you will learn that as EGOL mentioned you need to start building a team where people can cover different skills.

No one person can cover all areas or has expertise in all.