Friday, August 15th, 2008
The opportunities for Internet business branding on search engines has really come as a revelation to me in the last couple of years. It’s such a simple concept, but one that many SEO practitioners and companies don’t understand. This concept of branding has brought me so much enlightenment in the area of search engine marketing, and helped me to understand my overall purpose as an internet marketer.
Here are a couple of brief definitions of branding just for reference:
“in marketing, the sum total of a company’s value, including products, services, people, advertising, positioning, and culture”
“in marketing, the use of logos, symbols, or product design to promote consumer awareness of goods and services”
We all know the classic branding examples: Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Etc…
But what about branding online? To some extent, we see the same branding efforts online from many of the big companies. This usually comes in the form of banners, text ads, video sponsorships, etc. That’s all fine and good. I don’t question the supreme wisdom of Madison Avenue in this regard. But what are companies doing to brand on the search engines?
This is obviously an important question as search engines command such a huge amount of traffic and eyeballs. It would seem like such an obvious place to build brand awareness through higher visibility in search results. But sadly, so many marketers skip this step and go straight towards the “SEO drug” that so many people are hooked on these days: higher ranking.
I’m full aware of the temptation of purely going after higher rankings, it looks good, it boosts your ego, it’s impressive to show to clients… but it doesn’t always translate into more success in the long run. SEO is so much more than simply achieving higher rankings. And I want to point out some of the reasons why that is the case.
Search Engine Branding With Meta Tags
This is talked about quite often in the SEO space, but it is hugely important, and I want to spend some time covering it. Meta titles and descriptions are very important here. When you include company names and even tag lines in your Meta tags, you are maximizing your branding potential because that is what people see on the search engines.
Here’s an example for a “Car Insurance” search on Google:
What’s wrong with this picture? Everyone on the page has branded properly in their meta titles and descriptions except for autoinsuranceremedy.com Have you ever heard of them? I haven’t. But I have heard of all the other companies on the page. Coincidence?… or just poor branding?
Let’s take another example for a local real estate search:
Imagine this as a scenario: a first time home buyer is considering a purchase 6 months down the road. They have no idea what to do, and they have been researching for properties in their price range, good real estate agents, and information about the local area. They happen to use Google on a regular basis, and are doing multiple real estate related searches. This is where branding can make all the difference in the world. Take a look at the above results. Who is branding and who isn’t… Just because a title says La Jolla Real Estate, (which was the search term) doesn’t mean people are going to click it… and even if they do are they ever going to remember who you are? Of course, you may get lucky, and they might like your site and bookmark it for later. But the more likely scenario is that they will go right back to Google the next time, and the sites that displayed their brands in the results through meta tags will gain the mind/brand share.
Meta tags play a huge role in this online branding process because that is what people see in the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages).
So what did we learn here? Place your name, company name, or site name in your titles and descriptions. Here are a couple of examples of good use:
You can see that placement tends to be different based on preference. I personally prefer to have the brand in the front of the title tags on my top level pages and money pages. And move it to the back on deeper level pages like articles, and product pages. The point is that you are building brand awareness with every search result that you appear in by placing the brand in the titles and descriptions.
Not Convinced Yet? Ok, here are a couple studies that prove my point:
A report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Nielsen NetRatings suggest that “27 percent (of survey respondents) were more likely to name a specific brand if it was in the top spot of the search results page.” (Sponsored Listings Effectiveness Study, July, 2004).
And again, a report by the Dieringer Resource Group, which surveyed 3,000 respondents regarding their online purchasing habits, found that 60% of the respondents’ brand opinions were changed or enhanced as a result of online research (American Interactive Consumer Survey, June, 2004).
The problem that I’ve found with many SEO consultants is that they don’t come from a marketing background, but from a technical background. Thus, they can fall into the trap of trying purely to acheive that higher ranking, but not pay as much attention to effective search marketing in terms of results.
I admit that I am still learning how to be a good marketer first, and an SEO second… but understanding how to brand in the search engines has definitely opened my eyes to see a deeper purpose in my SEO efforts.
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Posted in Business Branding & Marketing, SEO, Searching Solutions | 1 Comment »
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
Search Marketing Regulations
The search marketing industry, in large, doesn’t necessarily function according to a certain list of regulations or enforced standards. Sure if you are blatantly violating Google’s standards by spamming, cloaking, sneaky redirects or any other “black-hat” SEO method, watch out, there could be penalties!
But, on the home front, this industry is relatively new and evolving so quickly that there are no official “codes of conduct” being strictly enforced or regulated at this time. To implement any type of regulatory agency would call for a massive effort by many and could take a long time before any real results became evident.
However, SEO’s and others are under the shadow of the search engine giants, they set the standards and regulate to some extent, what takes place in the SEO world. Tick someone off at Google and good luck!
Do standards need to be implemented?
Here at Searching Solutions we hold a strong view that Search Marketing shouldn’t be a heavily regulated industry. Why? First of all, Searching Solutions is a “real” business that operates on core sets of business values which supersede any standards out there! Even if there were strong regulations out there, just like any other business there will always be those who violate them!
Furthermore, SEO and Internet Marketing is so vast, so intricate so much more like an art form than a practice, it would be extremely difficult to regulate. As a result, your market would become like a Government agency and take months to see results if strong standards were introduced.
How We Operate
Searching Solutions strives to win consumer trust and achieve real results. We do this by working directly with businesses; we get to know your business inside and out! We are locally based in Colorado and if at all feasible, we will come to you and meet face-to-face! That would be a little difficult for those based in India or elsewhere.
Our Credentials
Who can offer professional SEO credentials? As of now, nobody! Don’t be fooled. As a business, our goals are consumer trust, real results and satisfaction always! If we can’t achieve these we may as well shut the doors. We avoid “cookie cutter” methods because every business is different so don’t expect a “package deal” with us, you deserve a deeper strategy than that. In short, we base our degree of professionalism and credentials on real results! Check out our case studies and see for yourself!
Posted in Search Engine News, Searching Solutions | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
Being that Searching Solutions is still less than 6 months old, we are still learning alot about what companies look for in an internet marketing company. Everyone’s needs are a little bit different.
But one thing that we have universally found is that each company we talk to is really excited about the fact that we are local. There are so many faceless marketing and seo company’s out there, it can be overwhelming when trying to decide who to use. But one thing that can make that decision easier is knowing that there is someone that can work with you in person.
So, if you are in Colorado and are looking for an internet marketing company that can help with search engine optimization, pay per click management, and local brand awareness, let us know. We’re here to help and promise to give you the personal touch you’re looking for.
Posted in Searching Solutions | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
We’re excited to announce the launch of the Searching Solutions Blog! From here, we hope to provide you with great tips, insights and commentary about the world of blogging, Social Media & local SEO.
We love what we do, and we hope that this blog will be useful for you in your journey towards running a successful small business.
Please feel free to leave a comment anytime, and if you like what you’re reading, please subscribe to receive future blog posts delivered to you via email. Enjoy!
Sincerley,
Searching Solutions
Jay Clark ~ Justin Smith
Posted in Blogging, Searching Solutions | No Comments »
Thursday, September 21st, 2006
Ok, so, does anyone use an online bookmarking services like Del.icio.us? It is a great tool that allows you to post all your bookmarks or “favorites” as they say in the dark world of ie.
Here are some useful things that you can do:
1. Import all of your existing bookmarks instantly
2. Create a a free account so that you can login from any computer to access your bookmarks
3. Share your bookmarks with other people through your “network”, and through a customized URL given when you start your account: del.icio.us/hismove
4. Tag your sites with keywords for easy future lookup
5. Give all of your bookmarks descriptions.
6. Browse popular subjects and topics and discover sites that are popular to other users.
7. Bookmark your own site to see how many other people have it saved.
8. There is evidence to show that Google may look at sites like del.icio.us in the future to see what sites are popular and it may become a part of their search results.
9. Intall the Del.icio.us button on your browser so you can easily add your bookmarks.
10. Send private messages to other users with these 2 tricks: 1, 2
11. Create an RSS feed of your bookmars to let others know when it has been updated.
Here are a few tips on how to best search through del.cio.us:
- Tags: http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/
TAGNAME
- Combined tags: http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/
TAGNAME+TAGNAME
- Popular: http://del.icio.us/rss/popular
- Popular tags: http://del.icio.us/rss/popular/
TAGNAME
- Users: http://del.icio.us/rss/
USERNAME
- Someone’s inbox: http://del.icio.us/rss/inbox/
USERNAME (hint: use YOUR inbox)
- Media: http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:media:MTYPE+
TAGNAME
- Filetype: http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:filetype:FTYPE+
TAGNAME
Have fun…
And, oh, don’t forget your anniversary…
Posted in Searching Solutions, Social Media | No Comments »
