Branding Versus SEO – Site
Branding Versus SEO
Kevin Kantola
Branding versus search engine optimization is a marketing dilemma that larger companies will need to come to grips with on the Internet. Often companies will need to decide whether to promote their own brand name as their main keyword phrase or optimize for a more generic keyword phrase.
For instance, one search engine report states that 1.3 million visitors per month search for the term "Best Buy." This same report states that the term "electronics" is searched for by 1.1 visitors per month. The obvious choice in this scenario is for Best Buy to optimize for their own brand name first and the word "electronics" second.
But, take a competitor such as Frys Electronics. Approximately 95,000 visitors search for the term "Frys" every month, far short of those who search for "electronics". Does this mean Frys Electronics a partner with Outpost.com should optimize for "electronics" first and Frys and/or Outpost.com second
At this writing August 2004, a search on Google for "electronics" will show that Best Buy does not show up in the first two pages. Frys Outpost.com is on the third page. But lets take a further look to see who is in the number 1 position: Sony. And Samsung is a close second.
Sony, with 450,000 searches per month for the word "sony", has managed to grab the number one spot for its brand name and the generic word "electronics". A search of the Sony homepage source code will reveal that this page is optimized for both words, "Sony" and "electronics." By optimizing for both words Sony has grabbed a lot of traffic neglected by Best Buy and perhaps even exceeds Best Buys traffic in doing this.
Another issue in branding is trademark infringement. Courts have upheld that websites using another companys branded name in its meta tags is engaging in trademark infringement. For instance, a site about cats would be infringing if it put the name Best Buy in its meta tags in hopes of gaining traffic from this trademarked word. Large companies have to protect themselves from others stealing traffic that is rightfully theirs. These companies cannot however protect a generic term such as "electronics" as that is fair game for all electronics companies.
So in order to create the largest return on investment, large companies need to optimize their websites both for their own brand names and for the generic, high-traffic keywords and keyword phrases relevant to their sites. Otherwise, they are letting tons of online business just slip away.
About The Author
Copyright © 2004 SEO Resource
http://www.seoresource.net
Kevin Kantola is the CEO of SEO Resource and has published many articles over the past 20 years.
Discover Which Sales Triggers Are Most Effective When Mixed With SEO! – Marketing
Discover Which Sales Triggers Are Most Effective When Mixed With SEO!
John Alexander
We all know the importance of gaining top visibility to a specific target audience on the major search engines. After all, you really need qualified traffic or those who are actually searching for goods and services that you are offering. While most of the time, we teach folks about the importance of doing good keyword research and/or behavioral research to ensure they are attracting an "ideal" target audience, there is another more natural aspect that Id like to just touch on here.
Writing for search engine robots is not enough:
Many search engine optimizers are empowered through training, with the ability to write for search engine robots and have crafted their skills to score exceptionally well for top relevancy. It surely is essential but there is another element that we need to reflect on besides just writing for search engine robots as important as that is. I am referring to the importance of compelling your visitor to respond right now once they have landed on the Web page as a result of finding you in the top results. Just what is the exact reason that your target audience will make a buying decision Why will they decide to buy or not to buy What do they need to read within your copy that will get them to act right now
There are only so many reasons why your visitors buy:
When I first started my business, I use to love to ask questions like....Can you explain why I should buy from you Invariably the client can often point out a number of important reasons why you might buy from him instead of the guy down the street. What you want to do is try asking a series of questions to help profile the clients target audience. After all, this is the most important group to try and understand....the "target audience". At our live SEO Mastery Workshop, we teach people powerful ways that they can research their target audiences behavior. But lets start by arming you with a few basic questions that should help you think about your writing style and communications.
Online or offline, most human beings have certain mindsets which can trigger buying. The challenge however, is we often behave a certain way without ever giving an ounce of thought to the REAL REASON why we buy. If we understand the real reason that that visitors respond, we can suddenly write much more effectively for the human brain as well as the search engine robots.
Lets start by listing a 5 simple reasons that will trigger buying decisions:
People will buy to save money
People will also buy to make money
People will buy something if it saves them time
People will buy a product or service if it makes life easier
People will buy something if it improves their safety
Okay, now in each of these 5 examples, ask yourself the following questions:
If people will buy to save money -
then ask yourself...
if your product or service saves them any money This is a trigger
If people buy to make money
then ask yourself...
does your product or service offer your audience any opportunities to earn
If people buy to save time
then ask yourself...
....how might this apply to what you offer
If people buyto make life easier
then ask yourself...
are you able to name some improved conveniences
If people buy to improve safety,
then ask yourself...
does your product improve security or make people feel safer
You can see how having an understanding WHY people buy, can actually change the way you present your content. These types of questions will often help you with writing much more compelling copy because you are writing with a focus that includes a reason to respond now.
But wait!...
Are these the only reasons why people buy Absolutely not! Start by creating a list of your own "triggers" or things that caused you to "make up your mind" to buy.
The more you explore your target audiences mindset, the more fascinating this can become. Of course we have not even touched on a fraction of the many "triggers" that are at work in peoples minds when they are reading Web pages.
If you want some more buying triggers to consider, Ill give you a few more
People will buy to for specific brands usually it has to do with prestige
People will buy to educate themselves
People will buy to improve their health
People will buy to settle their fears
People will buy to have some fun
People will buy to satisfy their curiosity
People will buy to streamline their processes
People will buy to prove they are right about some issue
People will buy to improve their image or appearance
People will buy to improve their quality of life
People will buy to uniquely set themselves apart from the crowd
What other reasons can you think of that will compel your target audience to buy now
Best regards,
John Alexander
About The Author
John Alexander is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with Robin Nobles. Together, they teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive "hands on" search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. John also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and he
There Should Be More to your SEO Consultant Than Rankings – Site
There Should Be More to your SEO Consultant Than Rankings
David Leonhardt, SEO Consultant
Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions in SEO is that ranking at Google and Yahoo is all that counts in search engine optimization. Potential clients come to me with a single goal: "Get me a top-ten ranking at Google." Some will also mention MSN, and a few will rhyme off a list of search engines and want to rank well at the top 200 of them.
It is time to separate fact from fiction.
Yes, your SEO consultant can get you a top-ten placement at Google. But...
If the placement is for "dirty brown shoes", it probably wont help your shoe store one bit, even if I get you the first place ranking. Few people are actually searching for that term.
Being number ten might not help much either, depending on the term. People searching for "Essential Nectar liquid vitamins", will probably click on the first result they see, or at least on one of the "above-the-fold" results that do not require scrolling. On the other hand, someone searching for "liquid vitamins" might check through two pages of results to familiarize herself with the options available.
If your title tag reads like a cheap list of search terms, it will not be enticing. For instance, if it reads: "vitamins, liquid vitamins, multivitamins, multi-vitamins", you might skip over it in favor of the next result that reads "Liquid vitamins from the Liquid Vitamin Supplements Store".
If your description tag is a mess, people will more likely skip over your listing, even if it does rank number one, in favor of one that sounds like what they are looking for. Google and others use the description tag usually when the term searched for is found in it, so make sure to include your key search terms in a description tag that actually reads well.
I recently responded to a forum question, which went something like this: My site ranks number one for this term at this engine. The term is searched this many times per day, and the engine has this percentage marketshare. Can I expect this many visitors
Thats not an SEO challenge; thats a math problem: searches x marketshare = visitors
I responded with a few factors that override mathematics in the SEO game, including the sites title tag and description tag, as well as whether the term lends itself to scrolling. I also pointed out that it depends on the title tags and description tags of the competition, too.
Another factor that makes predicting traffic difficult is the abandonment factor