The success of many businesses has turned on their ability to find a niche within their market. Often this has meant identifying a speciality that has not been adequately covered, and addressing that need. Sometimes, however, the answer has been for the business to be a bit different from the rest.

Take the fairly recent Cadbury advertising campaigns, for example. In the last couple of years, the chocolate manufacturer has slackened its hold on chocolate branding. One day in the advertising breaks, a music video appeared. To the opening bars of a 1980s rock ballad, the camera panned in on a figure sitting at a dimly-lit drum kit, head hung in response to the music. As the tension grew, the figure raised its head and arms, drumsticks at the ready. The entire advertisement was a lifelike gorilla devotedly drumming along to a 1980s pop hit. The company continued its campaign with a few ‘different’ advertisements in this line. The main outcome was for the company to solidify its supremacy over the chocolate market. This is an example of a company doing something different to attract the attention of their industry.

Identifying difference is a technique that has been used in the advertising and marketing industries for decades, but it has been slow to catch on when it comes to search engine optimisation. Perhaps this is because SEO is in many ways about conformity. A site needs to identify what its competitors are doing and beat them at their game. In order to achieve links and entice users to click on you in the SERPs your site needs to find some way to stand out from the crowd. The Cadbury campaign had a lot in common with a viral campaign, which is an option many SEO experts would consider for promoting your site. The real lesson, however, can be taken away without needing to develop a potentially expensive viral. All it takes is thinking a little outside the box for your solution to be found.

For example, imagine a clothing retail site. It has the entire line of a particular brand in stock, but so do hundreds of other sites. The site could contact fashion blogs explaining how great it is, but they have to compete with the other sites that are more or less the same. If the site was able to obtain an interview with a designer from the label they sell, or held a competition to win products, bloggers would be more interested.

It doesn’t necessarily take an attention-grabbing gimmick to set you apart from the crowd. An Australian-based music retail site has in recent years been edging giant retailer Amazon out of the antipodes simply because it offers free postage to Australia and Amazon doesn’t. This simple concession has made all the difference, even in reviews. You may find that ideas will jump out at you after your competitor analysis when you SEO. Talk to us at SEO Consult about how to use your analysis to provide ideas.

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