While doing keyword research for a client I discovered that one of the client’s primary keywords was dominated by megacorporations with established name brands in her niche. Virtually all 10 of the page 1 listings for that primary keyword were taken up by top name brands within her niche and it would have been very difficult for her to have broken through. Not impossible; I don’t believe anything is impossible. But it would have taken a long time.

After a little digging I discovered that there were plenty of opportunities for this client with smaller, less popular keywords. Smaller name brands were left wide open. More generic keywords matched with other words that could help her establish a niche within a niche were left wide open. The big players weren’t even trying for those phrases.

This is why I think small businesses have a little more advantage online. The big guys are all focused on broad generic keywords and brand names. Less so are they concerned with smaller, less popular opportunities. But you can be.

When performing your keyword research, don’t go after the broad generic terms, especially if you see that large corporations within your niche have the front page of Google wrapped up. Instead, look for the long tail. A small business can build a profitable enterprise by capturing the top positions for 3-5 mid-level generic keywords and associated phrases. You can call it ‘stealth marketing’, ‘guerrilla marketing’, or whatever. But it’s the truth.

Tags: keyword research, keywords, online marketing, small business

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 7:58 am and is filed under SEO for Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.