Tuesday, October 18, 2011

SEO bugaboo

[caption id="attachment_1289" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Icon from the AMC show MadMen"][/caption]

You might be surprised. You've worked on your company's SEO and are feeling pretty good. (Or moderately good.)

But hang on a minute... you may be missing something.

Take our own firm's experience as an example. Differentiating a marketing firm in a few words (e.g. search terms) can be surprisingly difficult. Standing out in online search engines from the four zillion competitors within Western Massachusetts (even just greater Springfield) is an ongoing, albeit fun, project.

One reason? The search terms people use to search for a firm like ours are not always words vSA would first or ideally use to describe itself. In MadMen days, a firm like van Schouwen Associates was almost always called an advertising agency. Despite the fact that now vSA provides value through more holistic business-to-business (B2B) strategic marketing including interactive, public relations, media relations and a whole host of other stuff that is more effective than ads alone, we find that many prospects still type in the search term "advertising agency" or "ad agency" when they Google. Even though they don't want 20th century-style straight-up advertising, but instead maybe a grassroots communications program, or eblasts or consulting. Even though they may be searching for what vSA does.

Do you know what search terms your missing prospects are typing in – and then finding your competitor? There are many tools you can use to find out – or, hey, just ask your "advertising agency"!

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