But if We Brand it, Won't That Be Permanent? That's the Plan
Posted by tim on February 25, 2005 at 01:19 PM
Beating an established brand name in the search game is not an easy task.
Why then, wouldn't you want to use your brand online if you have established it in more traditional channels?
We hear from potential clients pretty regularly about some of the strategies they are putting together for SEO. They'll tell us what a great brand name they have and how well known they are. Music to our ears, really. Then they go on about the new microsites they are planning and that we'll need to help them gain position and traffic on those, but not once, anywhere, do you see the brand name on the microsite.
???
Building a brand takes a lot of work. A lot. Besides pouring money into putting your name everywhere relevant, you've got to back it up with great product and even better service. Then, once it starts to breath on it's own, if you keep pushing great product and better service, this whole notion of brand starts to snowball. You get a rep among your consumer base. You can start to branch out and just your name will be enough to convince customers to work with you.
So why, oh why, don't you want to use your brand on your new site? Imagine, if you will;
A company decides to diversify into a new market. Same products and service they've been known for, just a new market. A beautiful, useful site is built to support the new channel. Careful, strategic search marketing is implemented. Great positions are gained and solidified. But...and here's the catch...the site has a brand new name. Carefully researched and selected to target the new market. But it's a new name. After several months of top ten positions, the site has seen minimal traffic, even when the company know it's other properties do great and all because customers don't know who it is.
Use your brand. Leverage your brand. Embrace your brand.
Isn't it Just Six of One, Half Dozen of Another? No
Posted by tim on February 24, 2005 at 03:35 PM
No way to deny it, picking the best strategy for search marketing can be a real headache.
On the one hand, there is an avenue onto virtually every search engine and search site on the Internet with pay-per-click (PPC). Between Overture PrecisionMatch and Google AdWords (and the networks each supports), you can reach nearly 90% of all those who conduct a search. Add in the next layer of PPC engines like FindWhat, Kanoodle, and vertical PPCs like Business.com, and soon pretty soon you've cast an pretty decent net. PPC can be attractive too since it lets you choose thousands of keywords (if that's what you'd like) and you can put your site in whatever position you like (or can afford).
There's a lot to like about PPC.
There's also a steady output of cash to the engine to keep your ads up. Every market is seeing the cost per click prices rise across the board. Competition is getting more intense every day as more and more advertisers jump in. The engines are doing a great job of getting PPC into the mainstream so even more advertisers will be clamoring for the number one spot until they learn better. Margins are getting tighter and tighter.
And just like that, PPC doesn't look like so much fun.
Then there's natural optimization. Your site appearing in the natural results. Traffic coming in at no charge. Establishing yourself as a brand to be recognized and trusted. Establishing your status as an expert on topics, not just terms. As many as 80% of searchers clicking your natural listing. Seeing long term stability without having to worry about someone moving you from first to worst with some automated bidding and deep pockets (or even fraud schemes).
Not to say natural hasn't got it's own hurdles. It takes time. It often takes a significant upfront investment, both financially and in terms of man hours. Engines are fickle, and they constantly play games with the elusive algorithms taking you on a bit of a roller coaster ride with no rhyme or reason.
Maybe you've just got to try and figure out what search marketing's all about. Is it branding? Is it direct marketing? Is it advertising? Is it customer service?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Search marketing is about building identity. You can introduce yourself, you can advertise your goods/services, you can build your brand, and you can reinforce trust with your customers through search marketing.
Don't approach these as one or the other solutions. Integrate them both, create synergy (I had to borrow that one, I promise). Really though, the best campaign is going to take advantage of a balanced campaign. Track everything, measure all of it and zero in on your targets.
When Local is National
Posted by tim on February 16, 2005 at 10:29 AM
Many times the push for search marketing in a company is driven by one person or a small team, desperate to show the rest of the company the value of this marketing opportunity.
Perhaps the most common misunderstanding about search, and thus argument against it, is from companies that feel like they can only serve a local area. To them, search seems too far reaching, too global to justify the expense.
I can't argue, there is some validity to that. A well designed site, rich in content, and based on solid, fundamental coding practice, can gain position for a wide variety of search queries, even those outside the scope of a professionally implemented campaign. This will put a website in front of potentially thousands of people who may not be able to work with that company right away.
I think this is seen as a waste by many regionally based organizations. They would never run a traditional marketing campaign that didn't specifically target potential customers in the home market.
This argument is a little bit flawed. The focus is too much on potential clients that can't be served, rather than those that can and will be served. Well executed geo-targeted campaigns are successful. An ancillary benefit of the campaign is increased exposure for the company outside the region. Rather than a waste, this is a bonus.
The increased visibility works to reinforce the brand. I'm not sure creating an interest in, and a demand for, a company is a negative. Further, by establishing a reputation nationally, many companies will reap benefits close to home. They'll be recognized among industry leaders and customers will have more confidence in the company.
Any reputable shop that designs a regional campaign will present a strategy and budget appropriate for reaching the local audience. Any thing that falls outside of that scope becomes 'free' traffic, not wasted traffic.
Impression Fraud, I Dub Thee Keyword Hijacking!
Posted by tim on February 15, 2005 at 09:37 AM
Last month, in writing about click fraud, I had briefly touched on the idea of 'Impression Fraud'. At the time, there had been very little talk of it, and even through today, we haven't really seen any evidence that leads us to believe any of our clients have been a victim of this attack.
It comes as no surprise though, that this tactic is already picking up speed and gaining attention. Several sources, beginning early this month, have been talking about this. The tag being applied is 'Keyword Hijacking'. Bots are being written to take advantage of primarily Google AdWords and the relevancy formula with that engine. These bots perform keyword searches over and over, exposing the ads, but never taking action on them. Eventually, the AdWords system makes the assumption that 'searchers' see no value in the ad, because it's been shown potentially thousands of times with few or no clicks.
While this won't cost an advertiser any money directly, it is extremely damaging as it stops ad delivery. Many times, that means no one will visit an advertisers site since they'll never know it exists. A direct impact on the bottom line.
Again, it comes down to tracking and vigilance. It's like a mantra. Repeat it to yourself over and over; tracking and vigilance.
Wide Right!
Posted by tim on February 09, 2005 at 08:49 AM
Last week I was wondering about how well all the Super Bowl advertisers would do moving their high price TV ads into an integrated search marketing campaign. According to Reprise Media, they didn't do all that well.
No great surprise. In looking for a silver lining though, it's great that this is being talked about. It probably bodes well for the future. More and more of the mid-size companies that take a gamble on something like the Super Bowl are going to understand the value of a mixed campaign like this. I'm hoping that big companies actually lead the way with this sort of strategy, since they have the resources to make this really work well, but I wonder if they are willing to change so quickly.
Time will tell and marketers have another year to get ready for Super Bowl XL.
...And the Falling Costs of Paid Search
Posted by tim on February 04, 2005 at 10:00 AM
A few weeks ago we were clued in to a report from Fathom Online about the rising costs of PPC bid prices through November and December.
I wondered then, as I'm sure many others did, whether or not much of that could be attributed to the holiday season. I certainly wasn't going on out a limb with that one.
Fathom has compiled a new report looking at bidding for January (as reported by MediaPost). It comes as no great surprise that there has been a dip. Now I'm not sure prices are "crashing" across the board, but there are certainly verticals that will see a more dramatic downturn now that the retail bonanza of Christmas has closed.
Still safe to say though that prices on the whole will continue to rise as more and more competition enters the market. The rise probably won't be quite as meteoric as it has been the last couple of years, but I'm sure prices at for Christmas 2005 will be higher, across the board, than they were in 2004.
