SEO- Manufacturer v Distributor
-
In respect to a safety clothing manufacturer manage SEO on behalf of, I've noticed that product distributors own 85% of the page 1 SERPs leaving product manufacturers such as my client largely under represented for the vast majority of search queries such as 'safety boots'.
Love to hear your opinion on why this is and how I can combat it? TIA!
-
Yep this is widely known. In-fact, you may be surprised to learn that even those who both manufacture AND distribute their products are also under the kosh here. I work with a number of fashion brands who produce their clothing (which in many cases is really stylish, really high quality stuff) only to see their direct sales (from their own site) hindered by larger 'pure distribution' sites (sites which just distribute loads of items but don't manufacture any)
Here's the truth of the matter. It's not that distributors get some kind of unfair special treatment. Rather, it's that distributors aren't bound by the same limitations as manufacturers, or manufacturers with online distribution
I love all the brands that I work with, I think their goods are grade A (otherwise I wouldn't work with them). That being said, they can only list their own products on-site. Users commonly search for slightly broader terms which imply that they want to see a range of products to choose from (e.g: "men's shirts", "supportive bras" or "tailormade suits"). The truth is that for a user, the distribution sites ARE better. They can see a huge range of products on these sites and compare them all to find the best deal. This is part of the 'rise of the aggregators' phenomena. Nowadays, unless you're incredibly special - if you don't aggregate, you lose out (end of)
There's a reason that giant product aggregation sites (ASOS, eBay, Amazon, Bra-Stop) are killing it. They give people a one stop shop to solve their issue, then continue their lives happy that they have got a good deal. Even the services industry isn't immune to this, just look at sites like Money Supermarket and how dominant they are in Google's SERPs
Now you might say, ok - that makes sense for category level terms, but often these guys are beating my client even on product level terms. Why is that?
Well - by being such useful sites that make a big difference to user's lives, these sites organically spawn vast amounts of digital PR and UGC link coverage. They're frequently mentioned by the BBC, Forbes... you name it, they're in there (all the time and repeatedly). This builds up a colossal amount of SEO authority, which you basically can't compete with
Finally: often these distribution-only sites, because they are so dominant, are a client's main revenue stream (more than their own sites). That's because client's get paranoid that they will offend their distributors and they will then refuse to stock their products. That could be a disaster! But due to this paranoia, they often give distributors better prices for their products, than even their own native sites (if they are manufacturing and distributing directly as well - some do, some don't)
Due to this, they lose EVEN MORE product-level listings, as Google knows their listings are the worst deal for users. These patterns of thinking, keep the dominant distributors on top and leave crumbs for the rest of us
In the end, their success on Google is really a business decision and NOT a pure-SEO decision. Do they want to bite the bullet and cut their distributors off from their products, keeping all the Google SERPs for themselves? Well certainly that would cut those guys out completely - but any distributor originating cross-traffic would be lost. What if a user visited the distributor site for another search query (not related to your client's product), then saw your client's product later in their journey and purchased it? All of THAT traffic (which is substantial) is going to be immediately lost. So although cutting out the middle-men might seem smart, it's an incredibly unwise knee-jerk reaction
Still, you can never grow above the distributors until you make this choice. It's a choice that WILL hurt you, but in the long run will allow you to reap revenue figures which you never previously dreamed of. So who makes the decision of when the time comes, to go through this necessarry pain? NOT you. Not an SEO person. That responsibility rests with the business owner alone and if I were you, I wouldn't seek to influence it (risky)
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why is pagination SEO such a mystery in 2021?
Hi folks. I would like to discuss pagination. I use WordPress (Genesis, specifically). I ran my site through a site scan and it flagged an error which told me that my blog was producing duplicate meta descriptions because the blog is paginated - the same meta description from the blog page is being used on Page 2, Page 3 etc. I looked into this and the Internet is awash with many other people scratching around for a solution. My understanding is that using a canonical link on the first page is not a good idea, because it says to Google that only Page 1 of the blog is important. I also read an article that states Google no longer reads the Rel=Prev/Next code that could be used to tell Google to ignore the issue. So, what's the solution? Do I even need one? As a side-thought, it seems to me that pagination is, well, pretty useless. I mean, if my blog has 20 pages and I've worked hard to create content, who is going to click through to anywhere near page 20? Nobody. There has to be a smarter way for people on-site to access content. I would love your thoughts on all of this. Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nobody16165422281340 -
Image upload SEO tips?
Is there anything I can do to my images other than naming them correctly to have with SEO? Size? File type? Maybe adding text on top of them to pick up OCR? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jamesmcd030 -
Changing categorisation effect on SEO
Hi I work on an ecommerce shop & we've discussed changing some of out categories. We have one named cupboards & lockers, but want to split this out, so we have Cupboards then Lockers so customers can browse through our main navigation like this. For SEO I know initially our rankings will be affected, but long term moving categories up a level will be an improvement & will be more relevant - has anyone does this before and could provide any advice? Becky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Yoast or Premium SEO Pack?
Which one is better Yoast or premium SEO pack excluding that one is paid & other is free. Because when we are doing SEO $39 doesn't make a huge difference as compared to the work we do right? Which one will you suggest out of the two?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
How have your SEO Audits evolved over time?
Hi guys, SEO Audits used to be so focused on the basics like title tags, meta descriptions etc. but now more than ever, SEO is a discipline which encompasses everything from content marketing to UX design. Would be great to hear from everyone how their audit templates have evolved over time to keep up with the latest updates in SEO and algorithm changes! Which new sections have you added and which have you removed?! Cheers, Daniel
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Daniel_Morgan0 -
SEO transfer to new website
My website currently has some strong SEO and i will be re-developing the website on a wordpress platform...which will change many of the existing URL. Will this affect the current pages that are well indexed in Google? Does using Wordpress or changing the URL extension (.html to .php) make a difference? If i want to make a clean transition without effecting our existing SEO...what are some essential steps i need to take? Example. Current page is www.mydomain.com/name.html .... and the new URL would be www.mydomain.com/product/name.php Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Souk0 -
Server Migration, Does it effect SEO?
About to go through a server migration. My intitial thought is that a change in servers shouldn't really change my rankings. But I've heard rumors... Can a server migration change rankings? Why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Thos0030