I was in a mall the other day and it crystallised a problem with many websites: they are interchangeable.

I was at an intersection and on three of the four corners were jewelry stores, each a national chain, their logo/names beckoning. However, their store layout, product positioning were almost identical; if the products themselves were not the same each had it's doppelgänger; even the price points were similar. And... if one removed/ignored the store brand signage there was absolutely no reason to buy one piece from one over the others, with the exception of the (underpaid) sales staff.

These days many/most webdevs' sites are are on WordPress or some similar pseudo-CMS and despite, perhaps, different themes they all look pretty much alike. And, unlike those mall jewelry stores, their brand signage has no inherent draw value.

These days many/most webdevs' eCom niche sites are selling the same drop ship products. And feature the same manufacturers'/stock imagery. And the same manufacturers' product labels and descriptions et al. These days the only reason to to buy from many/most eCom sites is price. Any warranty is provided by others, any service is provided by others, any just about anything is provided by others. Basically, despite all the zillions of auto-generated eCom pages, such sites are not really 'stores' but morbidly obese thin affiliates.

These days many/most webdev's Info sites are 'selling' the same information. And feature the same stock/manufacturers' imagery. Basically, such sites are MFA: they are targeting SE keywords by advertiser value. They are not writing about a subject to be a best visitor resource but to garner the most high priced clicks. The mindset cart is before the horse. And they all look and read alike. The only reason for a visitor to visit one over another is the title and description in SE results.

Despite what SE folk may say there are two query indexes: those domains that get shown and those, the majority, that don't. In those that get shown there are the 'too big to ignore' and the rest. Of the rest many/most are totally interchangeable, despite their webdevs' denial. If most are interchangeable the line between being shown high or low or not at all must be very fine indeed. The slightest change be it by the SE, a competitor, oneself, and bye bye birdie.

The takeaway is 'don't be interchangeable with your competitors'. Don't look the same, don't have the same stuff, don't behave the same, don't chase the same links, don't don't don't. You most probably aren't of a stature that your brand/domain name can make a difference.
Note: one way to assess this is whether advertisers specifically request your site via AdWords managed placements or similar. That is a large step up from the toiling masses but a huge step down from too big to ignore.

If most/all of your traffic is via search you are simply always competing for new visitors to try and convert into customers. If SEO/SEM is your idea of web marketing then CRO is probably quite a foreign concept; if CRO is in your bag of tricks are you aware that what converts repeat customers is often quite different from that which works for new? In effect you are always going to be chasing new visitors because of deliberate reinforcement.

In summary: are you one of the zillions of identical one trick ponies in your niche? Or are you the Clydesdale with the mostest competitors swear about?