In our market report for the online baby product sector, we pitted the top 50 players in the game against each other, analysing their performance on a number of key metrics. This comprehensive resource digs deep into visibility, brand reach, domain authority and more, surveying the lay of the land in this competitive industry. In essence, this report identifies who is top of class and who’s going through some growing pains.
This report also gives some timely tips and hints for fledgling brands or those looking to solve their teething problems. ‘Baby products’ in general is a relatively broad topic – a website could go whole-hog and offer everything from pushchairs to baby clothes, or niche-down to the nth degree. As such, there’s a dense pool of keywords to wade through and plenty of products to push. Looking through the lens of volume vs competitiveness, our eyes were caught by one of the foremost offerings for new families – cots.
Cots are big business, a must-have product when preparing for a new arrival. Search volume mirrors this, with Cot racking up 15k monthly searches with the plural attracting 7.7k queries. In spite of this spiked interest, cots aren’t ubiquitously offered across the board by the top 50 sites. On the head terms alone, we’re talking hefty amounts of traffic poured down the drain without dedicated categories or offerings. There may well be a backdoor named ‘cots’ for newbies, or those looking to diversify their product offering or those.
From our report, we picked out two cot-sellers on opposite ends of the performance spectrum to compare how their sites tackle the terms. Mamasandpapas and Kiddies-kingdom were selected as their visibility scores are heading in different directions. Both sites have dedicated cot categories, which operate in similar ways – this analysis will identify how they’re targeted, the pros and cons of their strategies and why there may well be an exploitable gap in the market.
High Competition Terms
As mentioned, there are plenty of high competition keywords around cots which are searched a tantalising amount per month. While the temptation to tap into these terms immediately is there, the big boys may be cornering the market. When it comes to the head terms of Cot(s), you’re up against the generic wholesalers, such as Argos, John Lewis and Asda. Impressively, Mamasandpapas are upsetting the applecart, to the tune of position 2 for the singular and 3 for the plural. No easy feat, as evidenced by Kiddies-kingdom, who’ve recorded mixed fortunes – lost in the pack at 95 for ‘cot’, while hitting page 2 for ‘cots’
It’s a similar story for other keywords which garner equally high competition and search volume. The fork in the road between these two sites lies in on-page content and product titles. Mamasandpapas focus their product ranges based on the most searched types, such as ‘wooden cot’ etc. These products have clear concise titles, with title tags showcasing exactly what each page is about. Kiddies-kingdom are a lot less clean, with relatively jumbled product titles. This limits the strength of the signals getting sent out to Google and other search engines, undermining the likelihood of hitting heights for these head terms.
There’s also a stark difference in the types of supplementary content each site offers. Mamasandpapa’s support their cot category with informative reviews. These offer an added resource for customers and diversify the bank of quality keywords they rank for. In fact, ‘cot reviews’ itself earns 200 monthly searches. By meeting the intent behind the searches, Mamasandpapas are giving searchers in the consideration atage of their purchase journey the content they need, before funelling them through the category page. Conversely, Kiddies-kingdom have minimal cot-related supporting content and fail to hit the mark from a review point of view. This type of content could help you perform better for these high competition keywords.
Lucrative Opportunities
Opportunity keywords – the holy grail. Here, we’re talking terms which hit that lucrative sweet spot of high search volume and low competition. These are your chances for improvements and to capitalise on areas others are missing out on. On surface level, the topic of cots looks difficult to elbow into. With tweaks and modifiers added to these massive terms, however, there’s a whole host of low-comp cot terms ripe for the picking. Again, as we’ll see below, the heroes and villains of this story continue to play their roles. Mamasandpapas grab these opportunities with both hands while Kiddies-kingdom, for the most part, have a looser grip.
Targeting toddler-based keywords in their on-page content and products, Mamasandpapas are able to claim page 1 positions for numerous lucrative keywords. Toddler beds themselves have search volume of 24k and low competition, and through marketing a huge section of their product range as ‘cot and toddler beds’, Mamasandpapas are able to target this credit and capture the attention of searchers who are in that mid-range between childrens cot and toddler bed. This increases the overall organic performance of the site, adding visibility and subject authority to the cot category. Taken a rounded approach to your keywords research, incorporating semantically related terms, can provide an entry route into a competitive field.
Cots Or Cot Beds?
Both sites we’re looking into here cover their backs when it comes to both terms, although each does it in a different way. Unsurprisingly, Mamasandpapas is undeniably the most effective. Cot bed adds another 6k of search volume per month, and is well worth going after. But does it stand up as a separate product? Kiddies-kingdom believe so, dedicating a page to both ‘cot’ and ‘cot bed’. This runs the risk of diluting the quality of both pages in the SERPs.
There are potential cannibalisation issues at play here. Essentially, Kiddies-kingdom have two category pages set up selling almost identical products, focussed around similar keywords and presented with similar content. When Google go to crawl either site for these terms, the signals of priority are far from clear, especially given a discernible shortage of explanatory copy on either. While copy is also minimal on Mamasandpapas page, there’s no confusion due to the singular page.
It boils down to servicing searcher intent. When a user searches for a particular term, what is the meaning behind that? In simple terms, when searching for a cot bed or its derivatives, the intent is the same as searching for cots. Both are synonyms for the same core product. As such, is there a need for two pages for the same product dressed up under a different banner?
Mamasandpapas navigate this perfectly, with their ‘cots and cot beds’ category. They service both terms on one wider page, including both terms in the title tag, limiting the likelihood of any confusion when it comes to attributing terms to pages. From a crawlers point of view, this page is laser-focused on the term. This has resulted in the page which consistently sits in the top 3 for ‘cots’ and ‘cot’ also hitting position 5 for ‘cot beds’. Less is more and having a solid category combining near-identical items
What’s more, this throws up a simple idea for supplementary content which supports the category and gives more information on the two different terms – plus ‘difference between cot and cot bed’ offers untapped search volume of 70, another winner.
Strategies For New And Small Brands
If you’re setting up an online baby product site, the traffic and opportunities present in marketing cots may be too tempting to resist. As mentioned, there’s an appealing bunch of low competition terms which provide a entry route into this field. How can you ensure you get the most bang for your buck around these terms and stay hot on the heels of the market leaders?
Most of all, do the market research. Just through browsing the two sites under the microscope here, it’s clear where there’s pros and where there’s cons. The main point to take from both sites convergent success on head terms is don’t overcomplicate things. Cut the fat off your pages and give both users and search engines exactly what they want to see. Adding a well-thought out cot category with ample products will help baby product brands to reap the rewards of this low competition topic.
Another feature both use which does jump out is barebones levels of content on the category pages, as well as minimal supplementary content around the topic elsewhere on the site. The heavy hitters on page 1 follow a similar trend. Is this industry standard or an opportunity to tread on some toes?
One strategy to help leapfrog the competition could be adding enhanced copy below the fold, with headings posing questions which meet the intent of the purchase journey. From there, adding quality supplementary content which links to and from the category page will help increase traffic and build out a strong depth of content and linking profile. Mirror what competitors do well and fill in the gaps in their strategy.
Summary
The baby product market is an expanding sector, with an overall increase in market visibility of. A growing playing field sees brands new and old constantly shaking things up and trying to take a bigger slice of the pie. Cots, while being an essential baby product, are only sold by X% of the top 50 sites of our report. The topic itself is littered with interest and high value terms with minimal competition.
This lack of competition is an open goal for brands with the means to offer the product. Mamasandpapas and Kiddies-kingdom are taking two different approaches to hitting conversions with this term – whether it’s through optimising your existing range or manufacturing new offerings, there’s a world of traffic to be had through getting your cot strategy on point.
Are you a baby product company looking to make a splash in the online market? Get in touch with our expert team today for a chat and a free audit of your site!