Keywords (a waste)! Branding Comes First!
Keywords, Keywords, Keywords... establishing an internet
presence is said to be all about controling the hot keywords.
But the fact of the matter is that establishing your company as
an industry leader is much more important.
I did a little research on the keywords used by large companies
and found that keywords were really secondary to having a great
brand identity.
Coke.com uses a total of 3 key words, Saddleback Church uses
just 2. Can you guess what they are?
Building a great business and letting people know about it
through traditional methods can drive business to your site and
is far more cost effective than pay per click. Pay per click is
like having a store on Main Street and being charged for
everyone who looks in the window of your shop. Would you let a
city do that? What if the newspapers charged you for everyone
who read your ad in the paper whether they purchased from you or
not?
Focus on developing your business reputation and customer
service, tell everyone you meet to check out your website, then
give them services on the site that are useful, entertaining,
interesting and are updated frequently.
Why do you have a website? Internet customers are great but they
are tremendously fickle. Not only that most are just surfers.
What if you owned a business in a mall and the mall charged you
for everyone who entered your store would you bid against a
similar store in the mall to be charged a higher price for every
person who walked by your window?
Just as Las Vegas Casinos are the winners and gamblers are the
losers. Search engines are the winners pay per click clients are
the losers.
The popularity of Saddleback Church is the result of marketing
technique that is totally and completly dependant on building
relationships from small groups. The church has 2,600 links on
Google, 17,100 on Yahoo (Alta Vista) but these links were not
purchased or created on link sites. They come from real people
who have heard about the church and are interested in the
product. Coke has 10,200 links on Google and 18,000 on MSN do
you think they purchased those links. Look for Coke under the
key word soda or carbonated drinks they aren't even in the top
50.
These are companies that have worked to create their business
first and the website followed.
Go to www.sitereportcard.com and check out the keywords used by
Coke and Saddleback Church. I don't think you will be surprised.
They have built a name in their respective communities and can
be found on the internet by that name. No 499 keywords, no pay
per click, no cons or traps.... just good business branding and
great reputations.
If you want to see if your keywords are effective check out
Wordtracker.com