How can a small business compete with a larger business?

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I work for a web and graphic design company. We're not a huge shop but we do fairly well. We're starting to dig into SEO, especially for ourselves. Our biggest problem is our backlinks and competition. We need to be able to rank for keywords like "web design boston" and "graphic design boston". Yet our competition has those locked down and only because of their backlinks. Normally I would say well okay lets look at what they're doing and do it better. The problem is most of their backlinks come from their clients websites that they themselves have designed and put a link on the footer of each page. We do that too but because we're smaller we don't have anywhere near as many clients as they do.

I know I can try and rank for more "niche" keywords. But I want to know in all honesty what my options are for these same keywords. What realistic methods can I use to achieve the same kind of rankings they are?

[KevinBudzynski]

Most of those backlinks are probably not that valuable (especially if they are not contextual relevant and/or non-authoritative).

The bests solution is to create unique, compelling and valuable content for you visitors and to use as link-bait. Do your keyword research and focus on kw/topics that will give you an opportunity for rankings  They obviously have a start on you, so it's going to be difficult.

[john4math]

Have you tried any paid search traffic?  That could have you ranking #1 by the end of the day.  If you know of some niche keywords you think would work well for you, you might try some paid search out first and see if the traffic converts well before embarking on an SEO campaign to rank for those terms.

[BrentAllison]

You can actually use the competitor ranking to your advantage.  By forcing you to focus on more long tail keywords further down the purchase cycle, you can actually end up generating better leads than focusing on those broad keywords such as "web design boston."  Find the niche you can fit into and exploit it.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Steve

You state that your biggest problem is backlinks but that probably is not what you want here. Search results are becoming ever more localised so if you are based in Boston and target Boston customers you will be able to gain more visibility by focusing on local SEO strategies and the GetListed.org site is as good a place as any to start.

I am in the UK but we are seeing more and more 7 packs of local results above the organic results for localised search queries and for specific service based queries (plumber, web design) where the user is in the location they are looking for.

If we search for graphic design boston or web design boston I am seeing some localised results and yelp listings but if I search for "graphic design in boston" and "web design in boston" then there are even more so.

This is what i would do.

1. Survey the landscape - search for your key terms: web design, website designer, graphic design, graphic designer + then localise them and then localise them including 'in'. Look for localised results in the organic listings and look for results pulled from Google maps. Make yourself a little spreadsheet and keep note of localised results and 7 packs.

2. Ensure your pages targeting graphic design and web design are localised and have the location you are targeting in the page title.

Graphic Design Company in Boston - YourBrand.com
Web Design Company in Boston - YourBrand.com

3. Look at Local SEO and make sure you have that sown up.

• Ensure your name, address and phone number is standardised (NAP)
• Optimise your site and use schema markup on the contact page
• Add your NAP to the footer of every page
• Start looking at building high quality citations
• Optimise your Google+ Local listing (fill it in)
• Start building reviews and create a review policy
• Try to build co occurrence of your keywords in your citations
• Get creative with your citations and make sure the big social platforms are utilised (get your address in your Facebook about us section, get your city, postcode and phone number in your twitter bio etc).
• Try to build some local links from important Boston sites and directories
• Look at industry vertical directories
• review top competitor citations and get them yourself

There is plenty of info out there about Local SEO and https://getlisted.org/ is a good starting point. In my experience, most companies that do link building are lazy when it comes to local so the door really is wide open. You need a policy to build reviews and gradually add citations but there are plenty of

Some good tools

• https://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder/
• http://www.brightlocal.com/

Some More Reading

• http://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/blog/name-address-phone-number/
• http://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/blog/quality-not-quantity-citations-for-seo/
• http://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/blog/find-your-competitors-best-citations/

Steve - I did some quick searches and most of the top 7 from the local results have no Google+ reviews which is likely a good sign that this is not mega competative and with a bit of work you can easily compete. This is real small business SEO that we do every day at BowlerHat.co.uk for UK folks and there is some serious David and Goliath fun to be had here.

Hope this helps!
Marcus

[TakeshiYoung]

Sitewide footer links are not valued that highly by Google, so your competitor may not be as strong as you think. If you can get links within the content of a post or the about pages of your clients, that may carry more weight than a sitewide footer.

If you are looking for link building ideas, here is a good list:

http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies

Link building isn't about money, although money can help. It's about being creative, standing out from the crowd, and doing the outreach necessary to get people to link to you.

[Zoolander]

How much of webdesigners business is from people seeing them linked on a website they made I don’t know.  If you know then you might be able to decide if my following advice is useful.

Find a website with poor design that has been around since the internet was born, has good backlinks, a load of traffic, and offer to make them a website free of charge and get yourself on their footer.

Maybe a silly idea, if I missed something I wouldn’t know. One site like this I am looking at with really amateur design has 96,724 per month SE traffic for google US according to SEM rush. Often sites like this use ads to make a bit of money, so that might make them more likely to say “yes” if it increases direct and referral traffic, and ad revenue.