There’s an excellent interview at iMediaConnection with Ron Belanger from Yahoo about the intersection of search marketing and branding.
A good quote from Belanger on the merits of SEO and SEM for branding:
“The first step in the branding story is brand awareness, and search is becoming the top way in which brands are introduced to consumers. If a company is not there in search, they will not make it into the consideration set moving towards brand preference and eventual purchase.”
It’s an interesting topic and reminds me of a session by Barbara Coll of Webmamma and Rob Garner of Agency.com at ad:tech Chicago that I posted on: Brand or Demand search engine optimization. Of particular interest from this session was a comment from Garner where he cited work he’s done that has resulted in higher organic click throughs as a result of running PPC ads at the same time as organic SEO, since more screen real estate is occupied. The user has a greater opportunity for brand interaction.
Another great session at that ad:tech show concerning search and branding was “Paid Search Branding and Tools” where Cheryle Pingle, Founder of Range Online Media, gave some good reasons why paid search is an effective branding tactic:
- Impressions are free
- Targeting audience to lift sales online and offline
- Adds credibility to brand because users associate top ranking with credibility
Pingle shared a case study showing how a laptop manufacturer ran a PPC branding campaign which resulted in lower overall CPC and an increased average order size of over 20%.
Lee Odden is President and Founder of
TopRank Online Marketing, specializing in organic SEO, blog
marketing and online public relations. He’s been cited as a search
marketing expert by publications including U.S. News & World Report and
The Economist and has implemented successful search marketing programs
with top BtoB companies of all sizes. Odden shares his marketing
expertise at Online Marketing Blog offering
daily news, interviews and best practices.
