Branded Keywords

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Start with the names of your company, products, and services. On search engines that charge a per-click fee based on the bids of other advertisers (called Pay-For-Placement [PFP]), these terms should cost only pennies [2] because there's only one brand owner ‚ you . Because no other advertisers are competing for the same terms, it's no wonder that well-recognized branded keywords yield a lucrative ROI.

[2] The minimum bid on major search engines is typically 5 or 10 cents per click.

Important

A keyword universe is the group of words a marketer has selected to promote their business.


Hold on. Not all branded keywords are created equal. Don't buy your company or product names without doing a "popularity check" first, as discussed later in this chapter. Find out if consumers are searching for your terms. Only recognizable brand names will be searched. Once your company achieves a measurable level of brand awareness, you're ready to advertise branded keywords: trademarks, misspellings, plural forms, and domains. Following is an example:

Company: Microsoft

Branded Keywords: Microsoft, Microsoft Windows , Windows Media Player, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft PowerPoint

Trademarks

It surprises me how many companies don't bid on their trademarks. Do they assume their web site appears for these words? Sadly, this isn't always the case. Especially problematic for large corporations is that affiliates and resellers are marketing the parent company's trademarks, including the company's names or slogans. These " partners " are redirecting traffic to their own web sites. (Resolving channel competition is addressed in Part VI, "Protecting Your Profits.")

One of my contacts at Overture said that his team's most difficult sales pitches are to Fortune 500 company executives who don't believe they need search engine advertising. They think consumers find their brands with no problem. Here's a fun exercise: Type brand names into search engines and see if the parent company's site appears on the first page of results. It may not. We can't assume that we aren't facing competition for our own trademarks by a host of organizations, including competitors , affiliates, resellers, fan clubs, or the media.

Figure 3.1 shows the listings that appear in a search for "fedex" in the LookSmart directory. Although the FedEx web site is number one under Reviewed Sites, none of four Sponsored Listings belongs to the official site. This is a problem; the sponsors have better positions and theoretically are receiving the branding leads and sales.

Figure 3.1. Market your own trademarks. As evidenced by a search for "fedex" in LookSmart, the Sponsored Listings are being bid on by other companies.

Misspellings, Plural Forms, and Other Variations

A fair number of companies do bid on their trademark names ‚ but only the exact form of the trademark. Internet users type all kinds of creative variations. People spell names incorrectly, make a singular word plural, and add or delete words that belong within a trademarked phrase. Although a few search engines will automatically include misspellings of a plural form and plural forms of a keyword, not all do, and not for all keywords.

Use keyword tools to monitor the new searches people try (read the "Popularity Check" section for recommendations). Shortly after the launch of a campaign in traditional media such as TV or print, Internet users frequently add " coupon " or "discount" to the trademark, if such an offer is promoted. Then as exposure to the brand increases , shoppers narrow their search in an attempt to find more exact matches. For instance, they pair the company name with the product or service name . These are all opportunities for companies to ensure their official web site is found over others.

Company: Microsoft

Top 10 popular searches using the word "microsoft" according to the free Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool (found at www.overture.com): microsoft update, microsoft internet explorer, microsoft word, microsoft clipart, microsoft office, microsoft windows update, microsoft download, microsoft excel, microsoft outlook, microsoft publisher

Domain Names

Unfortunately, it's not always possible to buy a web site address (URL) that matches your company, product, or service name. Unless it's cost-prohibitive, register all of them in the event people type the URL directly into the browser toolbar. If you're using and promoting a different domain name, consider buying it on search engines.

We shouldn't assume that customers directly type the URL into the browser toolbar (see Figure 3.2 for the toolbar location on a browser). To this day, I'm shocked when I review client traffic reports and see how many people type the company URL into a search engine instead. A handful of your potential customers are probably doing the same thing.

Figure 3.2. The toolbar on the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser where the web site address (URL) should be typed. Some people instead type a URL into a search engine.

For example, Telebrands advertises their domain name, www.inventionchannel.com, not www.telebrands.com, in their TV commercials. With more than 1,000 combined searches for "invention channel" and "inventionchannel" alone, the company is wise in buying the web site address they're heavily branding in other media.

Sample branded keywords for Red Mountain Spa could include:

  • red mountain spa

  • the adventure spa

  • red mountain resort

  • red mountain resort spa

  • red mountain spa utah

  • red mountain adventure spa

  • www.redmountainspa.com

If you purchase multiple domain names, promote the ones that support a brand. For example, pharmaceutical companies frequently buy a different domain name for each drug they manufacture. Each of these URLs could be bid on as a keyword phrase, in case people are typing these domain names into search engines. When the ad listing is clicked, consumers are sent to a separate product web site, or simply to the page within the main pharmaceutical web site that describes that particular medication .

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Search Engine Advertising. Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales
Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0321495993
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 155

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