Is it still possible for small businesses to rank well in google

[Dill]

Hi

I've been playing around with ecommerce sites for a few years now and although I am no expert I'm not a complete novice.

We used to do quite well in google but recent changes have halved our number of hits.

I have noticed that over the last year google has given priority to large brand names as opposed to relevancy.

For example, if you search for the term 'bridal jewellery' (google UK) you will see that apart from one or two the majority of placements are taken by big compnies who offer very little bridal jewellery.  One or two pages at most.

My question is, is it still possible to rank well against these brand names or has google made it impossible for small companies.

PS we only practice ethical seo as suggested by seomoz.

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

www.kerryblu.co.uk

[GuillermoOrtiz]

I think Google will give a slight edge to big brands, as  Eric Schmidt of Google famously stated that the internet was a cesspool and needed brands.

That being said, I think there is room to disrupt the market with a lot of hard work. If you look at the third result, Tejani, they have less than 200 root domains propelling them to that position. A closer look at their link profile shows a link from glamour.com referencing the bride's earrings.

Dillards and Nordstrom have thousands, and thousands of links, but with less than 200 root domain links, they got up there. It can be done, just won't be easy

Also, just my PPC OCD but I would run a PPC campaign for that keyword first to determine how profitable it is first before undertaking any SEO. How that helps!

[Dill]

Thanks for the input.

I should have mentioned that I am running searches through google uk

[GuillermoOrtiz]

Ah, I did miss that minor detail! Hope you can still gleam some insight from my answer.

[EGOL]

I agree with Guillermo.... That big brands seem to have an advantage in the Google rankings.

Small businesses can still rank well but they have to throw the same resources into their website as the big brands are spending.  Those resources can be content, creativity, SEO and smarts.

It is a lot easier to compete against the big brands if you pick products or categories where you have lots of expertise and can create content about them that becomes valued and popular on the web.

Content pages are much more likely to become linked, liked, tweeted, etc than product pages.  So, in my opinion a content site with a store is the best way to fight the big brands.

[Dill]

Thanks

Makes sense and will give it a try.  What do you mean by smarts ?

[EGOL]

Great question.  Smarts is what separates winners from losers.

"SMARTS" include any of the following (this is not an exhaustive list).....

• on-page optimization ability
• an ability to identify article topics that can become extremely popular
• an ability to identify article topics that are extremely valuable but not popular yet
• an ability to write best-on-the-web content for those topics
• an ability to acquire or create great images to illustrate your content
• an ability to present your content in a way that "hooks" the visitor
• an ability to promote your content effectively to the right people
• enthusiasm and verve

whispering   this stuff is off the radar of most SEOs

[Dill]

Sounds like a hard to do list but will give it a go as google are putting me out of business at present. Thanks.