SEO:Dare To Use Your Competitor's Brand Name?

Ok guys,it's been quite a time since my last post.I have been really busy in the field and rarely had time to update (Blah blah blah...).

One of the greatest fun doing SEO or online marketing is that you always find some thing new and inspiring.And the findings are almost every day.

The other day I was doing keyword research using Wordtracker.Out of curiosity I wanted to know what other people say about this fantastic tool and searched for it.

I typed in Google search box the phrase "wordtracker" and got below result:

Wordtracker's home page is No 1.This is typical,right?I then checked the rest of the 9 results,just to look some thing fun.And I found Wordtracker's twitter page,Searchegineguide talking about it,Digitalpoint forum discussing it,etc,nothing unexpected.

But wait!What is this?

Wordstream?What is it doing here,being one of Wordtracker's big competitors?It squeezed into top 10 of the search results for phrase "wordtracker"?What the what?

In its title,it read:

Wordtracker: Need a Free Wordtracker Alternative? Try WordStream ...

This is a little bit risky (putting a brand name that does not belong to it in its title) and...clever.Wordstream here posed itself as Wordtracker's "alternative" and (most appealingly) "free".

The description stated:

WordTracker does keyword research, but where do you go from there? Our Wordtracker alternative offers advanced keyword research. Try WordStream FREE today!

Very well written copy!I've been a long time user of Wordtracker and could quickly understand the meaning.Wordtracker DOES stop at keyword research (although it does provide advanced keyword research tool,Wordtracker Strategizer,but it requires extra subscription fee).

When I clicked,it took me to a landing page that gave further explanation and information on Wordtracker alternative.


This is something new and a refreshing SEO tactic.


We all understand it:when doing keyword study,choose relevant and less competitive phrases to quickly gain ranking.What I do is to firstly choose KWs directly relate to the product/service,and then complement with related KWs that does not contain the product/service name.


For example,if we are selling boots,we can then create a list containing all phrases that include the word "boots",such as "mens boots","womens boots".And then we can go further by including phrases like "mens footwear","men's shoes",etc.Doing this will increase your search market share and drive more relevant traffic to your site.


But using competitor's brand name?This is a declare wars against them.And I could never think of it.


But Wordstream did it and well done.


And the tactic is almost effortless.


Using SEOmoz's Opensiteexplorer tool,we can see that Wordstream only built links from 8 domains,with main anchor texts of "wordtracker" and "wordtracker alternative".And most links are from its own domain (wordstream.com).


To conclude,what did Wordstream do to rank on page 1 for competitor's brand name?Only the use of the brand name as KW on title tag,description tag and page copy,plus a few inbound links with the anchor text of that name.


I am really shocked.


Dare you use your competitors brand name?