By Gary Finn
Account Executive
At many large companies, a brand manager's responsibilities usually include developing a brand's long-term strategic marketing objectives.
Typically, brand managers don't understand how search engines work. It is generally not one of their primary marketing responsibilities. Many brand managers with successful brand name products assume it's easy for their Web sites to rank highly in search engine results. In many ways, this is untrue.
In order for many big brands to have high search engine rankings, the challenge is to get the brand manager to use some of its resources on an organic search campaign.
For example, many brand marketers love building standalone brand sites. However, problems arise when there are twenty plus brands in a portfolio, some brand sites created simply to better target different market segments but with no real embedded SEO principles or content consistency. In effect, this creates issues a search marketer must resolve. Ultimately, effective standalone brand sites should be an entertaining format designed for lead generation and community building. Building e-commerce capabilities and flashy entertainment functionality into a brand site should often be overlooked in favour of helping a brand manager determine that less is more when building a successful SEM strategy.
In addition, many large companies often have different brand managers for different business divisions, regions etc. As a result, it is important for many large companies with multiple brands to use the simple act of communicating to build a unified search strategy.
Furthermore, organic SEO and usability elements should be core building blocks when a new brand site is being developed. For search marketers, the time to get involved in building a brand site is before, not after, the site is launched. Too often, search marketers are called in to "fix" a brand site with underperforming search results.
In summary, building a unified search strategy for big brands takes communication and education about how search engines work. Brand managers should work hand in hand with SEM staff towards achieving a common objective.
References:
Building brands using SEO, P.J. Fusco, Oct 12, 2005
Big brands equal big SEO opportunities, S. Thurow, March 14, 2005
Back to October's Newsletter
