Posts Tagged ‘Search Engine Optimization’

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Cheryl Cole And SEO

‘Super Cali Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious’ – what a mouthful! This is one of the most well-known puns printed in the last decade and helped The Sun to shift more copies than it bargained for after a superior Inverness Caledonian Thistle side beat a woeful Celtic team 3 – 1 in the Scottish Cup, February 2000. Although winning widespread critical acclaim and kudos for creating a sharp, witty and memorable headline, such a title would prove to be useless for a news publisher today looking to get their story increased online exposure on a prominent search engine such as Google or Yahoo!.

The importance of titles cannot be underestimated in search engine optimisation. The print industry is having to adopt SEO measures into their stories to generate revenue in a trade which has been badly crippled by falling advertising revenue and an influx of third-rate bloggers. Page impressions are now as important as the money generated from subscriptions and shelf price, and unless journalists fall in line then the time spent writing their reports will effectively have been wasted as they will sink into an online abyss.

Cheryl Cole is an excellent SEO example. As one of the UK’s most publicised celebrities, most browsers looking for key up-to-date gossip and information on the split between Cheryl and her husband, Ashley, will be scrambling across the internet for instant breaking news, feverishly searching Google for the latest updates and gossip. Keywords on most people’s minds will be entirely subject-related. Think along the lines of ‘Ashley Cole Cheryl Cole Divorce’, or ‘Cheryl Cole Marriage Split’.

An online news agency will therefore need to adjust their titles to accommodate these search habits. Many journalists have cleverly incorporated the title of Cheryl’s debut number one single into her personal life – headlines triumphantly shouting that ‘Cheryl will no longer fight for this love’. Though it may look boring, a headline such as ‘Cheryl Cole to divorce husband Ashley’ will fare much better than its rivals and generate more traffic than its wittier counterpart.

It doesn’t mean the death of the pun by any means – it can easily be inserted into the strap as a lead to the story. But for the news agency wishing to build a stronger readership with search engine optimization, they simply won’t be ‘Aloud’ to lead with cutting remarks online.

To discuss this post in further detail, you can visit our SEO Forum.

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Posted in SEO Copywriting on March 8th, 2010 by John M | No Comments »

Using SEO To Promote Brand

Companies habitually spend huge amounts every year promoting, upholding and controlling their brand. The spread of the internet has changed the way that brands work. Not only is it much easier for a small business to create a strong brand presence on the net, it’s necessary for them to do so. The good news is that your site’s search engine optimisation can be one of the strongest tools for online branding.

Why worry about brand in the first place?

Brands have been around pretty much since consumption became a mass pastime. They’re a handy shortcut to everything about your business and products. Think about some of the brands you know. Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, for example, offer essentially the same product, namely large supermarkets. Yet when you think of each name, you think of entirely different things. That’s the power of branding.

Companies spend millions of pounds each year building their brands, but that’s simply not necessary for the internet. On the net, you can achieve a decent amount of brand awareness through your normal activities, particularly through your SEO.

Advertising can’t create your brand

Marketers are hard-working people, and they often achieve miracles. They also have a tendency to think that marketing can achieve everything you’d want for a business. It can’t. Marketing is held back by its own reputation, and internet users are highly intelligent when it comes to detecting marketing talk.

For this reason, marketing and advertising can’t promote your brand that effectively on the net. Sure, if you post big splashy ads all over websites saying ‘Soda is cool’, people will become more aware of your product. It won’t make them respect your brand. The most effective way to build quality brand awareness on the net is the more interpersonal contacts that are available, and the way to them is through SEO.

Use SEO for your branding

Search engine optimisation works better for branding because it tends to reach people on a one-to-one level. You’ll have noticed that as you alter your site to appeal to the search engines, you’re making changes that will appeal to internet users. Promoting your brand is already a part of SEO. Your off-page optimisation is about getting your business noticed. Branding is just taking this a tiny step further, and working brand image ideas into your campaign. You can talk to us at SEO Consult about this.

Use your brand for SEO

Internet commentators have noticed that searches on your brand keywords can bump your site’s ranking up as well. The theory is that if Google notices people are looking for you, your site rises in value.

Your brand can also return SEO dividends in the form of links. SEO experts have noticed that sites with a strong brand presence tend to get links more easily. Part of this is the relationship factor. If someone is aware of your brand, they already have a relationship with you. People are wary of providing links to those they’re not connected to. If they know your brand, the connection is already there.

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Posted in Internet Marketing on March 7th, 2010 by Nick | 1 Comment »

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