23 replies to this topic

[Jill]

I really, really like this article:

Build Brand Equity for Search as it makes so much common sense!

I especially like the part about the domain names, but I like the whole thing.

Branding IS important for search, and for every aspect of your business.

Here's a little snippet where Fredrick's friend tells him:

"I searched for 'mortgage refinance' and 'mortgage rates,' but most of the [search] ads [and results] were from companies like www.refi-your-home-mortgage.com and low-rate-home-mortgage-right-now.com," she complained. (Note: Domain names have been changed so as not to offend anyone.)

"I've never heard of those companies, so I didn't even click!"

Thoughts?

Jill

[Steve Sardell]

Frederick is on the money. To make the sale, branding always has been important. The more the name is in view, the easier credibility can be created. As G has recently demonstrated, search centric strategies are not a sure hit. Even when positioned in the SERPS recognizability plays a key role.

As numerous studies have indicated Naming, one of the major components of branding, should not be an after thought. Always included in the BS studies, the 70s faux pas of GM. For those too young to remember, GM tried to maket the Nova compact in South America. Not a smart choice of names.

After naming, get a Logo, and a Slogan. You want to create continuity.

Use the Name, Logo, and Slogan in all your marketing efforts and reap the benefits.

Everything one does creating a good site should parallel branding. Colours play role as do fonts. Marlboro cigs once came in a pink package and were initially marketed to women. It did not work, but the red pack and the dude in the sheepskin coat sure did. In this case it was the packaging which helped create the brand.

Branding is like a reputation, one strives for a good one.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

[Randy]

In my book Branding is a must for any business. Your brand, and the emotions evoked by mention of the brand, are deeply ingrained and have an effect on everything. Traffic, clicks, sales, ROI, customer service requests, complaints, etc. So while branding is nothing more than a perception, it is usually a perception based upon facts and is a very important factor in the success or failure of any business.

Those who have created an effective brand treasure it and protect it at all costs. They understand that their brand is intregral to their success. Those whose brand leads to a negative emotion have to work at least twice as hard in order to keep up.

The hardest part of building up a good brand is not coming up with a catchy name. That's the easy part. It is just a name in the end.

The hard part making sure everyone connected to the brand lives and breathes what it stands for every single day. Master that one and you (and your brand) will eventually become widely known for all of the good things the brand you want it to.

[Steve Sardell]

Hi Randy,

I agree the name is not difficult, but one needs to be sure the name does not stand contrary to what one is attempting to establish. I know that point sounds elementary, but a poor choice can lead to trouble down the road.

A recent name fitting your fine points is Lexus. The name now stands for luxury, reliability, and a darn fine ride. Initially what did the name mean? Absolutely nothing. A totally fabricated name turned into a brand by some super marketing efforts.

[websage]

For me branding is the total experience and its recognition.

There are so many companies whose logo is a variation of the Nike swoosh but none of these logos conveys the same powerful message.

[Scottie]

That's the trick of branding- to make a name mean something. Many, many local brands are simply someone's name- you don't build a brand because you've got a great name, you take a name and build a brand around it.

What if Lexus had decided to name their company luxury-car.com? It just doesn't evoke the same feeling.

[Jill]

What if Lexus had decided to name their company luxury-car.com? It just doesn't evoke the same feeling.

Not even if they named their company that...it would be stupid of them to create that for their domain name also, even if there was some chance it would help their rankings.

This is exactly what I've been trying to say for years regarding keyword rich domain names. There's a whole lot more to having a Web site than gaining the ever-so-slight possible rankings boost.

That said, yeah, you gotta be found to build your busines, but not at any expense.

Jill

P.S. I hope this finally gets some people to understand where I've been coming from on the whole keyword rich domain thing. You wouldn't believe the arguments I've endured on this over the years, when in reality, all I was ever against was the fact that they look/sound stupid and you lose that branding with them. (I've said that, but not in the same exact words.)

[Craig B]

Great article.

For some of our clients, it's more like... brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, offer!

-Craig

[Alan Perkins]

This article reflects my thinking circa 1998, when I set up an SEO company called e-Brand Management.

To be most effective, all of the channels in which an organisation markets itself need to work together, not against each other. Often organisations fail to leverage their brands - or worse, put their brands at risk - by using some blinkered or dodgy SEO company or technique.

[Steve Sardell]

What if Lexus had decided to name their company luxury-car.com?  It just doesn't evoke the same feeling.

Absolutely Scottie.

In the Lexus case, Toyota spent millions to come up with a rich sounding name, one which resonated when spoken. Then they followed through putting it all together.

[Paul J]

They don't realize how much greater click-through and conversion rates would be if their brands were recognized and trusted by that same search audience.

That part stood really stood out. I originally came to Internet marketing and SEO from a "traditional" marketing perspective, so I'm a bit biased on branding. I'm not going to blab about the 4 P's from Marketing 101, but I do keep them in the back of my mind. I can't imagine any long term success from a mortgage-rates-buy-discount... URL without utilizing other on or offline marketing efforts.

I'm pretty curious how the article would relate to "repeat customer ratios". Customers that simply type your URL or click to you from their favorites. I've never dug too deep into that (although I think I want to).

[cline]

I wish I'd saved my original keyword research for my longest term client so I could show numbers. The original research showed very few searches for their business name. Now it's searched on about ten times as much as it was 3 years ago.

In that time their PPC and SEO efforts have dramatically increased, whereas there has been little change in their other marketing efforts, except for improved email marketing. I'd have to conclude that there is a branding effect from those PPC ads. Maybe it's repeat visit from them. Maybe they saw the ad, didn't click, but remember the name. Whatever the case, the search behavior suggests a lot more people know the business's name now than 3 years ago.

[peter_d]

Thoughts?

Good article, and yes, brand (read: identity) is very important. Your brand doesn't need to be flash and expensive, but it does need to be in sync with your overall marketing strategy.

The importance of brand will also change depending on the service.

For high end services where there is a lot of money involved (i.e. currency exchange, mortgages, finance etc) people will tend to go with reputation. Would you exchange 20K on a site that looked like it had been designed by a child and had copy like this: "Get your currency exchange here! If you're looking for currency exchange then we are the currency exchange experts. Currency is what we do!"? A No#1 ranking for the term "currency exchange" would do this site little good. To convert, it would need to establish trust and credibility, and not read like it was written by a moron.

Brand matters least when the buyer is shopping on price, and where the risk of the transaction is low. However, the site will still need just enough brand credibility to convey the fact that "yes, we are competent enough to deliver and no, we won't sell you cc number".

In short, people always make judgements based on your appearance.
That's an old maxim that doesn't change just because you're online.

[SearchRank]

Great article!

That is why it is important in SEO efforts to include the company name in the title tags. "But it takes up space ... I want to stuff as many keywords in my title tag as possible," one would argue. Phooey I say. When you have your company name in your title tag along with keywords, even if people don't click on your listing in the SERPs or paid results, they see the name. This is why we will always develop title tags that look something like this:

<title>Keyword Phrase | Company Name</title>

How often though do we see a title tag like this:

<title>blue widgets, green widgets, red widgets, brown widgets, black wi....</title>

Looks silly, huh? Doesn't do much for branding.

[LeafsRule]

I've never believed branding on the internet was effective. For instance, name 10 brands other than a search engine and Amazon that were built solely using the net or leveraging the value of its technology or services. Most were built with offline media playing a huge role.

IMO, Most "web" branding is ignored by users since they scan pages and tend to ignore banners or anything that looks like an ad. Brand not only equates to "recognition" it also is about loyalty which Internet users are more interested in service and price point then the brand itself, consumer products and "recognized" offline brands being an acception. Loyalty IMO, is indicated by repeat business or use and few can argue there is a lot of that because they have a catchy or easily remembered url, it helps but it isn't the be all, end all, because user loyalty is reflected in the bookmarks of every user, not whether they can recall your domain name.

I work for a large real estate developer. They use every media type in their advertising and all media use the domain name (it's name starts with HR, so human resources sites had the name covered 5 ways from sunday) and we use a dashy domain in all media, funny thing is they have other divisions in the same category without the dashes and they don't generate 1/10 the leads the dashy domain does. The Company name is very well known in the area, if users search on that all the dashy domains come up, each with the company name(- the dashes) in the Title/link and decription in the SERP. IMO, that is the most important part of the branding not the domain name. The URL text is so small it reminds me of an advertising disclaimer.

As to the article Mr. Merkini points to the dashy domain but that wasn't the problem. IMO, they didn't "recognize" the names, at least that's what they said. They made no references to the dashes. That, IMO, was an assumption on his part. To think that joeblowsbikes.com is any more "recogizable" than joe-blows-bikes.com based solely on the - domains is strecthing things a bit. IMO, Neither is "recognized" unless joe blow is combining that with other media or driving people to the site where they see the content and remember the name/url because of it or more likely bookmark it.

Only people in the business know about the dashy domains IMO, users don't look at this the same way or pay much attention to what is in the SERP beyond the title in the link and the description. Segregated PPC ads are possiblity better than algo results for branding, IMO, simply because they are segregated so they draw more attention to them.

The bottom line is branding is more important for some sites than others. The gains from a dashy domain are not that great but if it means you get a name that describes your business and the ones without the dash are gone I'd rather have the dashy .com then the non-dashy .info TLD. That IMO is much dodgier looking than a few dashes.

I've yet to see any research on branding in SERPs likely due to what was covered in the article. Until such time as it is more than a guess or what I may think when I see the link with the dashes, I'll ask the client what they want. I believe you can brand on the site by giving users what they want. They'll remember that better than your domain name. I'm still of the opinion keywords anywhere in a url matter and it is no better to have them in the domain then it is to have them in a directory or filename. Should I leave - out of them as well for branding purposes? I think not, but it's not only my decision. I leave that up to clients to decide after I provide them with the pros and cons.

I suppose I'll take some flak for providing a contrarian view but... not the first, nor last time, that will happen!