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?
Currently, 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 second page. But let's take a further
look to see who is in the number 1 position: Sony.
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 name "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
nabbed 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
metatags is engaging in trademark infringement. For instance, a
site about cats would be infringing if it put the name Best Buy
in its metatags 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.
http://www.seoresource.net
About the author:
Kevin Kantola is the CEO of Search Engine Optimization Resource
(seoresource.net) and has written many online and offline
articles over the past 20 years.
