The Blog

Corporations and large businesses invest hundreds of thousands of dollars on their websites, yet smaller competitors and review sites – even sole traders – are dominating the search engine results in their niches.

The thing is though, often they don’t even realize this is the case because when they view their websites it is often the result of using a bookmark or entering the URL directly. They are looking at their websites through tunnel-vision.

This is rarely how their clients, prospects, customers, competitors, potential JV partners and consumers search for them.

Printers and Ice Cream

Here is an example. Today I searched for “best laser printer” expecting to see the major manufacturers appear on page one of the results in Google – each fighting for the coveted number one spot. What I found though were a lot of review sites, technology ezines, and online shops. It wasn’t until I got to the bottom of page 2 that I found Xerox Canada, and, like most people, I stopped searching at page 5 – with no other manufacturer in sight.

So I decided to look at “ice cream”, again expecting one of the multinationals in the market to be sitting at number one. Instead Wikipedia is there which many might accept as reasonable, but at number two is a men’s clothing line! Ben & Jerrys (a Unilever company) finally waves a corporate flag at number 3.

Is it that HP, Canon, Unilever and Haagen-Dazs – and so many other corporates – don’t see the need to rank number one in their niches? And is this the result of corporate arrogance, or ignorance?

Even at the local level, businesses need to be aware of how their clients and prospects are searching for them. When I searched for “xxx(my town) supermarket” I found directory listings in the first few pages – not one of the retail giants that have market share in this locality appeared.

In an area that relies heavily on the tourist dollar, it seems inconceivable that those retailers are not targeting such a simple keyword (and do the same for each of their locations nationally). Their failure to do so creates an amazing opportunity for a smaller store to target that keyword, to go through the relatively inexpensive exercise of dominating it – and bank those tourist dollars.

And with the growing number of savvy SEO (search engine optimization) consultants targeting clients with just this potential, it WILL happen.

The SEO Content Gap

What I’ve found, and helped many of my clients overcome, is that while corporate websites may look professional and comprehensive, when it comes to their key terms with the search engines, they are wearing an invisibility cloak.

Their websites often give great exposure for their business and product names, but by focusing on these alone, they are leaving the door open for those very savvy niche marketers to dominate the search engine results for niche terms.

The good news is that because their sites are sound, it may be only take a few months to turn the situation around.

Corporate SEO Content

Some of the strategies that I implement for my corporate clients include:

• The creation of keyword focused content, that is constructed in a way that search engines love, which they add to their websites, on a consistent, regular basis. This content should not be confused with the static websites pages though; they are specially crafted articles, which need not necessarily appear in the website menu, but exist in an ‘articles’ section.

They do not need to be created by public relations professionals or journalists – they DO need to be written by an SEO content specialist. Their purpose is to wave a virtual flag that says “look at me” at the search engines like Google

• Leveraging these articles in ways that improve the search engine optimization of their websites, including publishing these to article directories and networks and bookmarking them.

Very rarely are corporate marketing departments or website designers skilled in SEO content creation, which is one reason why the importance of ranking for niche keywords is falling through the cracks.

Developing a program of regular SEO content creation will go a long way to improving corporate online visibility in an era when online search has become the first option for consumers looking for goods and services.

Why not make a list of some of the terms that you believe people use to find your company, and enter these into a Google search box? If you don’t like the results that are returned, then the time to take action is yesterday.

>> Enquire about my corporate SEO content programs.