Is Reddit Rankings Increase Hurting Your Site Visibility? What can you do about it?

Is the increased visibility of big UGC websites like Reddit, TikTok, and Quora that we have seen gaining rankings since last year's updates actually hurting your commercially focused website's visibility? And if so, for which queries? And what can you do about it? Is it actually worthy for you to move forward to create informational content to fulfill those needs with your own expertise? In today's Scrolling Monday video, I will show you the steps to take to identify all of this. First, a little bit of context. We have seen how since last year, Reddit, TikTok, Quora have increased their organic search visibility by a lot. And you have probably might seen them ranking across some of the supposedly commercially focused queries that your website target. When asked about this, Google has justified this organic search visibility increase by saying that Users actually like this type of content that they are looking for firsthand user experience and also expertise. So what can you do about it? First, identify the actual threat from these players. For this, you can use the organic search competitors functionalities from tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, Sistrix, etc., that give you a list of websites that are ranking for the same keywords that you are. These tools will also allow you to go back in time and see the historical data of this. So you can not only see the players that are ranking for the same keywords that you are right now, but also go back and see how they have shifted. So an example here, homedepot.com. Right now we can go and take a look here at the competitor at the moment, and we have Amazon, Walmart, Lowe's, YouTube, and surprise, surprise, we have Reddit in the 5th position. We can go back in time and take a look if these were the same players that were overlaying ranking with Home Depot back in January 2023, or if there have been shifts giving us signals that Google is giving more visibility to this type of content. So for example, here we can see that back in January 2023, we had Amazon, Walmart, Lowe's, eBay, YouTube, Pinterest, and surprise, surprise, Reddit is not in the top even 20 here. So there has being definitely achieved here, giving more visibility to this type of content. We can do a comparison like this and seeing the before and after of the websites. So we can see YouTube and Reddit increasing in visibility, especially Reddit increasing by a lot. I have done something similar here for REI, for which Reddit was nowhere to be found in the top 20 again, and now is the second player overlaying keywords after Amazon. With the third being YouTube. If we go and take a look at another e-commerce website, very commercially focused, Walmart, the trend is similar. In January 2023, we had indeed in the top 10 websites like Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook, and now we have Reddit in the top 4. So yes, it is very evident that Google is giving more weight in particular to Reddit that is very rich in UGC. So let's take a step forward to take a look at which are those queries where we overlaid with Reddit. For this, I like to use the Keyword Gap tool from Semrush. And I also know that there are other tools, again, like Ahrefs and Sistrix that provide a similar functionality that you can also use. And I go and take a look at, in this example, on DeepPod versus Reddit versus YouTube that are rich in informational content, UGC content, to take a look at which are the queries for which all of the domains here are ranking in the top 20. So they are somewhat relevant. But for which in particular Home Depot, my fictional website in this example here, is ranking worse with the weak filter. So we can take a look at which are those specific terms for which Home Depot is falling behind, is ranking from the top 10 to top 20 while Reddit or YouTube are ranking in the top 10. The same with REI versus Reddit. I can go and take a look which are the queries for which both are ranking top 20 but for which REI is not ranking as well as Reddit, and we have terms like camping, best running shoes, how long is a marathon, Adidas running shoes, best travel backpack, bicycle shop. And you might tell me, Aleyda, but is there a real opportunity here? Should we just go ahead and create guides and informational content that try to fulfill the same need that is now fulfilled by Reddit? Let's take a deeper look at which are the pages ranking from your own website versus the ones ranked by these other players. The best way to assess this and identify the patterns are taking a look at the search results directly. So when we export the keyword gap data, we will get not only the rankings information that we saw there, but additional information of which are the ranked pages. So we can assess if we already have even informational content that is somewhat already ranking well, but not as well. And just need a little bit of further optimization rather than starting from scratch. This can be a low-hanging fruit. Or if we have only product pages or listings ranking for queries that have a much higher informational intent now, for which Google is now ranking better threads and tips from these UGC websites. So we can incorporate this in our content strategy. Of course, to validate, it is always important to go and take a look at the SERPs, especially for those queries you thought that had a very high commercial intent and you want to double-check how it is being ranked. What is the format? What are the characteristics in the SERPs? Also to showcase and communicate the importance of this to your clients and make a case of the traffic that these pages are attracting and how you are being left behind. So for example, Cricut machine, these are keywords that have 110K in average search volume in the US every month. And if we take a look at which are the websites, the pages ranking in the top position for this query, we can see how there is a mix of more commercially focused pages, product detail pages, as well as informational content. And of course, the amount of traffic that these are bringing. A little bit more obvious for other queries too, like best running shoes or best travel backpack, for example, for which the blend here is definitely more informational than transactional, but it has been difficult for you to get support in order to invest in the same type of content. So you can show how those players ranking above you are actually guides providing support for the decision-making journey to purchase that product and the amount of traffic that these pages are getting. I expect that with these simple steps, you're able to identify how much of a threat are really these big UGC websites for your commercially focused clients in particular on one hand, and then if so, which are those queries for which they are ranking you that need your attention because they need a much more informational approach. I want to thank Content King for sponsoring this Crawling Monday video. If you don't know Content King, go and take a look at it. It will allow you to keep updated of any change in your website. Finally, if you don't want to miss any other tips like this, go and subscribe to my Crawling Monday YouTube channel and my SEO FOMO newsletter where I feature not only tips like this, but all the latest in SEO news and resources. Go and take a look. Thank you very much, and until the next Scrolling Mondays. Bye-bye.