Defeating a Brand name

[Guest]

This post is deleted!

[EGOL]

It would be really difficult - almost impossible - to defeat a very strong brand like McAfee in the organic rankings for their branded products.  The cost of defeating them would most likely be higher than almost any individual or company could afford - and that assumes that they have an SEO staff capable of doing the job (which might be a more likely failing than having the required budget).

I would not try to defeat them.  I doubt that you would get ROI.

However, it is still possible to make a lot of money competing with a powerful brand.  For example.  Let's say that The Brand  has authorized resellers who are able to sell at a discounted price.  They could rank #2 in the SERPs, shout the discount price in their title tag and pull enormous sales away from The Brand.  They could also shout important value propositions such as Free Shipping or Immediate Shipping or Free Upgrade (if available).

Keep in mind that ranking #2 for big brand terms can be very costly because you will likely be competing against other big brands and authoritative websites.  Also, doing that while charging a discount price could slash your profits into the red.

Be sure you check your reseller agreements before doing battle with a brand on their own products.  if they get mad at you they can cut off your supply.

[Devin_Anderson]

Hi there,

From an SEO point of view, McAfee have a pretty solid hold on their brand name SERP. If you were going to have any chance of competing with them you would first need to get your hands on a domain name with mcafee in the URL, Eg. www.mcafee.somethingobscure that they don't already own. From there you're going to need A LOT of authoritative back-links which point to you with Mcafee-orientated anchor text.

However, there's more to SEO than just rankings. Hypothetically, if you managed to outrank Mcafee for their own brand, and get clicks, you're still likely to disappoint your visitors. They searched for Mcafee specifically, and you're not giving it to them. If they don't immediately like what they see then they will just hit the back button. It might be a good initial tactic for getting your name out there as an alternative to Mcafee, but I wouldn't expect a miracle in terms of conversions (sales).

Also, Google put a lot of effort into making their search results as relevant to their users as possible. They will try to weed out false brand representations and won't want you to outrank Mcafee. Your quest to outwit the Google bots here will most likely lead you down the Black Hat SEO road.

Getting traffic through Adwords would probably be easier, but you would have to bid against Mcafee for the clicks. An advantage of this tactic is that you'll find out pretty quickly exactly how much money you're losing.

It would be far more efficient to target people who have not yet decided what brand of security software they want to buy. Converting web users who have their heart set on Mcafee is going to be much more difficult than converting people who are searching more openly for "antivirus software".

Dev

[TheARKlady]

Recently I had to ponder this issue for a shopping site that was competing with the major brands they carried. The site is still rising in ranks.

This took a while to assess and ponder before implementing any work.

SEOMoz peeps already explained some of the issues related to working on a main brand kw term but I want to mention a few other problems you may face.

• As mentioned, beating a brand that has domain longevity is going to be tough based on the PR, authority, established presence, links, and budgeting for advertising to drive traffic.
• using trademark and brand name targeting for a domain name or URL might have legal ramifications.

What you might consider is doing a long-tail analysis to find out what variations people are searching and then assess the competition to target those keyword phrases you have identified.

As another SEOMoz peep suggested to me, "go broad." Another answer in this thread mentioned that you might target competitors as well to help people select the right choice--and I think this is applicable to your case.

Don't forget to optimize your social media as well and use some of those options available to help your site.

Most of my work is for smaller businesses but the site I did in October was a national one and so you might consider geo-targeting options (as most small businesses do) as well to give your site an edge.