Branding
Versus SEO
By 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 Fry's Electronics. Approximately 95,000
visitors search for the term "Fry's" every month, far short of
those who search for "electronics". Does this mean Fry's Electronics
(a partner with Outpost.com)
should optimize for "electronics" first and Fry's (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.
Fry's (Outpost.com)
is on the third page. But let's 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 company's 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.
Article
Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
