Should Perdue.com show up in Google for "chicken?" [Archive]

jdooley

06-09-2005, 02:57 PM

seomike

06-09-2005, 03:24 PM

I know that Nut sacks shows up for the search for trailer hitch balls sacks. This is a funny example but G can definitely tie related items together.

I know Michael Martinez commented on this some here http://forums.spider-food.net/index.php?showtopic=2767&hl=michael+martinez

blabs about how a search for his name also brings back a location as well. Google ties the name Michael Martinez to a location because they are related in some form or another.

jdooley

06-09-2005, 06:52 PM

Thanks for that delightful example, Mike. I just performed a search for "trailer hitch balls sacks" in Google and you are absolutely right, the other site comes in at #5 (it took all of my willpower not to click on it).

I went to look at the Michael Martinez thread, but see it's very long, so I will come back with some comments on that after I've had a chance to read it.

Google ties the name Michael Martinez to a location because they are related in some form or another.
This is an interesting point because it implies that the fault for these top websites not showing up for such obviously relevant generic keywords is Google's and not the respective companies. In fact, a colleague of mine at Acronym Media (an SEM company I currently do a lot of work for) brought this up to me today when I pointed him to this thread. I may actually write another article that focuses on this aspect of blame (for lack of another word). Is it a problem with the spider, or a problem with the website? I'd always hesitate to answer that question until I took a look at all facets involved, including site design, link placement, competition, etc. etc. Well, you know. All the standard things.

Thanks for your insight.

Best,
Jackie D.

Marcia

06-09-2005, 07:45 PM

jdooley

06-09-2005, 08:20 PM

Perdue.com didn't show up in the top ten when I just searched Google for "chicken" so I'm not sure what the point is, but I don't think Subservient Chicken (#1) is the type I'd personally want to cook.
Hi Marcia,

Well, the point was to get your attention so you'd read the post. Perdue doesn't show up in the top 100 listings in Google for "chicken" which is their key product. Perhaps their only product (I don't know enough about the company to know what other products they offer). So the title of the post was sort of a glimpse of what I wanted to talk about in this thread. Which is, namely, that big brands such as Perdue, Zales and Fortunoff are not owning the search results for keywords which are supremely relevant to the things they sell. Should they be? That's the question I'm exploring.

Thanks for your response!

Best,
Jackie

Marcia

06-09-2005, 08:38 PM

what I wanted to talk about in this thread. Which is, namely, that big brands such as Perdue, Zales and Fortunoff are not owning the search results for keywords which are supremely relevant to the things they sell. Should they be? That's the question I'm exploring. Jackie, organic search operates by relevancy-based algorithms, and for companies that are "relevant" to "own" the SERPs for their products, it would take hand manipulation of the SERPs by the search engines, who would have to make editorial decisions on which one was or wasn't. That could open up a huge legal can of worms.

If companies don't meet algorithmic scoring/ranking requirements, then if they want to show up for appropriate searches then they need to optimize their sites themselves or hire professionals to do it for them. According to search guidelines of course, but nevertheless, they deserve no special, preferential treatment that's divorced from the same algos that other sites are.

So after looking at their site - no, they absolutely should not be.

Elisabeth

06-09-2005, 08:39 PM

As I was telling Jackie via PM, this is one of my favorite topics in SEM -

Of course, one of the key issues with big brands is identifying core themes. Who decides what's most important to that company & WHY do they deserve to rank #1 for it?

Ok, so let's look at Jackie's examples of "cheeseburgers" - is McDonalds really the first thing everybody really thinks of? Burger King or Wendy's could fit the bill. Unless we're searching for 'finger chili' - then we know who should be #1... lol... ok bad joke. but that's even another example of how Big Brands MUST be aware of SEM as part of good PR/crisis management.

So, is 'cheeseburger' too generic? Sure, MickeyD's comes to mind, but I also most closely identify the company with Ronald McDonald, or "Happy Meals" - which is appropriately #1.

another example, zales.com is not who i'd expect for 'diamonds' - in fact, I think they have poor quality diamonds- but that's beside the point - I personally expect "DeBeers" to be there somewhere , and they aren't - but that's mostly personal perception,. Also, jewelry is an ultra competitive category, as well as some others on Jackie's list, and there are only so many slots. So those who take SEM seriously will always have the advantage.

However, I'd assume the big corporations could easily craft a solid campaign around what their customers associate with the brand, if they wanted to.

I, for one, am kind of glad search results don't always show bias towards big corporations. any of us who have ever worked with a startup can probably agree with that too.

My area of expertise is with the Ski/Snowboard industry, i've spoken at industry conferences & contributed to articles about why major ski resorts don't focus on SEO to rank for '_____ ski resorts" or "_______ ski vacations" and related regional terms for both summer and winter seasons. They rely on their brand identity only, and are missing out on undecided visitors, because there's so many 3rd party sites or smaller outfits taking advantage.

They are missing out on huge opportunities, because the industry is so traditionally print focused. Of course there's also a lot of ego-centricity in the biz. They ASSUME they are the best for this, or that, and will naturally draw visitors based on their brand. But sometimes it requires more than that.

Major ski companies, active clothing and accessory manufacturers have this same problem. But some of that is channel conflict too - they are only just starting to do ecom sites themselves, and haven't really gotten the idea of how to SEO product catalogs just yet.

jdooley

06-09-2005, 09:15 PM

Okay, first to address Marcia.

Jackie, organic search operates by relevancy-based algorithms, and for companies that are "relevant" to "own" the SERPs for their products

Let me clarify that I fully understand what SEO is. I've been in the business for nearly eight years and I am a regular contributing writer to SEOchat.com. My articles generally focus on helping small businesses with SEO and PPC management. I realize that Google and other SEs should not manipulate the results in favor of big corporations, that's not what I'm implying with my question or via this post.

Actually, Elisabeth hit it right on the nosie.

They ASSUME they are the best for this, or that, and will naturally draw visitors based on their brand. But sometimes it requires more than that.

She is referring to ski resorts, but really this is EXACTLY the point I'm trying to make by listing all those companies on my blog and also the companies I list in my article which will be published Monday. Actually, the "cheeseburgers" thing was from the article and not the website list. There are a couple of other HUGE ones in the article that I don't want to give away yet. Okay, maybe one - Victoriassecret.com does not show up in Google for "underwear" or "panties." I mean COME ON.

Of course, one of the key issues with big brands is identifying core themes. Who decides what's most important to that company & WHY do they deserve to rank #1 for it?

That's a very good point, Elisabeth. Who indeed? Someone at Victoriassecret.com is really missing the mark here. Is it the CEO? Is it the VP of Marketing? I can only assume that the company does not consider search important and this is why the site doesn't show up for these keyterms. That's not to say it's not showing up for other terms - "bra" for example.

I personally think that this a huge opportunity for those of us in the SEO/SEM industry. There are so many big brands that, based on the lack of presence in the search results for their key product or service, do not seem to "get" the value of both organic search and PPC advertising that they are ripe for an education. And Elisabeth, you are absolutely right, these companies have the budget for comprehensive SEM campaigns - the goal of which should be 100% inclusion of all their website(s) pages into Google, MSN and Yahoo.

So my take on the whole thing is that it's really the company's responsibility to be there in the search results, more than it is for Google to put them there just because they're the #1 underwear store in the U.S.

Best,
Jackie

mcanerin

06-09-2005, 09:25 PM

I once watched in awe as a friend of mine, acknowledged to be a computer wiz, convinced a room full of otherwise intelligent people that he was capable of turning the lights on and off simply by writing a program in his computer and "hacking the electrical system through the UPS."

They didn't even question it. They just demanded that he find a way to stop "outside hackers" from doing the same. :eek:

It never fails to amaze me how many people can't tell the difference between technology and magic. I'm reminded of "Clarks Third Law":

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961

I wonder how people think search engines work? Elves?

As for companies who think they should show up because of their brand - they do: for their brand. If you market your brand instead of your product, then you should show up for your brand, not your product.

Ian

Marcia

06-09-2005, 10:15 PM

Okay, first to address Marcia.

Let me clarify that I fully understand what SEO is. I've been in the business for nearly eight years and I am a regular contributing writer to SEOchat.comUnderstood, and whilst I've only been in the business myself for about five or six years and was an admin/moderator at WebmasterWorld for about four years with over 7K+ posts (not articles) tallied and then some, that and $1 will just about buy me a cup of coffee at Woolworth's.

My articles generally focus on helping small businesses with SEO and PPC management. Me too, and a lot of others around here as well; the only difference being that I and some others don't do PPC, we only do organic SEO for SME's.

I realize that Google and other SEs should not manipulate the results in favor of big corporations, that's not what I'm implying with my question or via this post. My sincere apologies then, it looks like I must have entirely missed the focus of what the original post and thead title was about. I thought it was about why a certain site (or sites of that nature) does not (or do not) rank for a certain keywords and the reason for that is a foregone conclusion with one glance. So I suppose it's perfectly understandable that it could be mis-construed to imply that the site you cited *should* be ranking for *chicken* when it actually should not be; or why other companies that may be "major players" are not ranking for anything.

Sites like that don't rank simply because they don't contain the necessary elements with which to rank. It's quite simple and quite white hat. :)

kctipton

06-09-2005, 10:42 PM

some big companies are missing the SEO mark by not showing up in Google's top 100 results for key brand identifiers. For example (as the thread title indicates), Perdue.com does not show up in Google for "chicken", Kleenex for "tissues"and Zales for "diamonds."

One-word searches, especially for generic terms, are pathetic in getting you what you want. Two words, if you pick the wrong ones, are equally unhelpful.

These guys aren't missing the SEO mark in this department at all. There is no mark.

kctipton

06-09-2005, 10:47 PM

Who decides what's most important to that company & WHY do they deserve to rank #1 for it?

Reminds me of the Jew vs Jew Watch campaign. Who decides? The linkers. Who deserves it? Depends on who you ask. Many people thought that anybody but Jew Watch should have the #1 spot on Google for "Jew", but the only way to dislodge them was, probably, to have a campaign to have jillions of people link to the same site, in this case the Wikipedia entry for Jew. The campaign seems to have worked - for now.

Gurtie

06-10-2005, 03:26 AM

These guys aren't missing the SEO mark in this department at all. There is no mark.

90% of the time I agree totally. Why would you want to rank for 'chicken'? However much of it you sell, as a converting query it must suck.

I'm more surprised by the diamonds and underwear examples, but then with high quality diamonds you would tend to search for the brand (at least I'd look for DeBeers, or I'd look for 'cheap diamonds online') - to me there's not really much point in attracting people who want to know about tessalation.

Funnily I work with a lot of ski companies at the lower level than Elisabeth - the ones who are chasing "______ ski holidays" (different country same issue) - they still get a huge % of SE traffic through brand name searches and given the spend to get high page 1 for the competitive resports there's a good argument to be made at that level to spend the money on promoting the brand name, which of course you do rank for, and get people to actually look for you in the same research session as the big boys.

Perhaps most of the real big companies have been through this or something similar and the ones which became/stayed successful decided to reassign their budgets. Now they'd probably have the pull/budget to get the top spot relatively easily but they've settled into the mindset of not thinking it's worthwhile.

jdooley

06-10-2005, 07:43 AM

Ian,

I love your comment and completely agree. Companies like Perdue should (and for the most part do) show up when people search for their brand. Some lucky companies even benefit from people confusing their brand with their product (Kleenex, for example, which *ahem* is not in the top 100 results for "tissues").As for companies who think they should show up because of their brand - they do: for their brand. If you market your brand instead of your product, then you should show up for your brand, not your product.

That's the crux of the problem as I see it, at least in the online space, these companies are not properly marketing their product (via search) or, as kctipton pointed out, it's not worth the effort for these companies to target one-word generic searches (great point!) I completely agree with that for some of the companies, but I do find it hard to believe that Victoriassecret.com wouldn't at least TRY for "panties" or "underwear." This is, after all, their key brand identifier and main product.

Understood, and whilst I've only been in the business myself for about five or six years and was an admin/moderator at WebmasterWorld for about four years with over 7K+ posts (not articles) tallied and then some, that and $1 will just about buy me a cup of coffee at Woolworth's.
Wow! That will also buy you a lot of respect. I'm (quite obviously) new to forum posting, although I have been bouncing from a few of the top forums for the past two years. I just don't have the time as a one-woman show with two small kids. I respect the forums immensely and even wrote an article about the top 4 SEO forums (including SEW and Webmasterworld) for SEOChat last month.

Thanks so much for your input, Marcia. The thing is, there is no wrong answer. Like Elisabeth, the question of big brands making big blunders has always fascinated me. My background is pharma - spent five years at an agency doing online marketing for big drug sites - now I'm on my own and I see the other side of the coin. Small companies with tiny budgets and the thing is, these small companies really seem to understand the value of search where the big guys don't bother with it (probably because they don't need to?)

I've always thought of search marketing as the great equalizer in terms of advertising. Any determined webmaster on a shoestring budget can put their site up at the top of the search engines by applying (white hat) SEO, crafting great content and of course doing the link thing. A great example of this is an ecommerce site created by an SEO colleague of mine that comes up #4 for "hot sauce" in Google, while the top name-brand hot sauce manufacturer isn't there at all...

90% of the time I agree totally. Why would you want to rank for 'chicken'? However much of it you sell, as a converting query it must suck.Gurtie, thanks for your response. I'd say I agree about 40% of the time. I DO believe that Victoriassecret.com would get more sales if they ranked well for "panties" - a term that got half a million searches on Overture in april. Now, who knows what half those folks were looking for, but who cares? There is also some brand value in coming up for a keyterm you want to associate your company with, don't you think? Even if people get their underwear somewhere else.

There has GOT to be some subliminal value to searching for "coffee" and always seeing StarBucks's name, for example. Wonder if there's any research out there on that...

mcanerin

06-10-2005, 01:31 PM

There has GOT to be some subliminal value to searching for "coffee" and always seeing StarBucks's name, for example. Wonder if there's any research out there on that...

Now THAT is an interesting comment. For me, the most interesting one in the thread so far.

I once helped (at a very low level, but it was still fascinating) create and run a marketing campaign between McDonalds, Coke and Disney (I did work for McD's head office at the time).

I learned a lot regarding the campaign, but I learned even more from the "off-topic" chat in the room. One thing that was made very clear is the power of branding - in many cases it's more powerful than the quality or price of the product, assuming that your quality and price are within an acceptable range.

Once it's in that range, then branding can become more important than relative rankings based on merit. For example, if you have 2 computers by two manufacturers and both have approximately the same price range/features, then a consumer will often choose the brand they recognise and "trust" over the fact that the no-name one is slightly faster and a little cheaper.

If it was a LOT faster and cheaper, then it's harder, but when they are within the same range, branding usually wins.

In the online sphere, a lot of branding is done by banners and so forth, but I wonder how effective a campaign aimed at on-topic, high volume but low conversion SE keywords would do for branding?

I think it would do very well, though it would be hard to track using normal ROI tools. Hmmmm..... :cool:

Ian

jdooley

06-10-2005, 04:21 PM

Now THAT is an interesting comment. For me, the most interesting one in the thread so far.

Thanks, Ian. I'm glad you found one useful nugget of information out of about five pages of text.

In the online sphere, a lot of branding is done by banners and so forth, but I wonder how effective a campaign aimed at on-topic, high volume but low conversion SE keywords would do for branding?
I personally think showing up for a generic keyword at the top of the search results would do wonders for branding. I've done a lot of online media planning/buying and email marketing in addition to search, and search is always sold as a response-driven tactic rather than a branding tactic. As I stated in one of my verbose and rambling responses, I think that a lot of these big brands should be in the search results for one-word generic terms that essentially define their brand. I also think it's their responsibility to put themselves there, not Google's. They certainly have the budgets to dominate the search results. Now if only they had the motivation!

And speaking of rambling, I've got more to say! I think what I'm starting to see via this thread are three related issues that this "big brand" exercise kind of brought to the surface.

1) Site owners who are not professional SEOs assume they will rank well for top keywords (even brand names) by some kind of magic SE inference. This assumption extends to the biggest companies - Microsoft, for example, is not in the top 10 in Google for "software." (hmmm - could be something else going on there! ;) ) In this sense, website owners blame the SEs for the failure (e.g., how in the world could Google have missed my site?) Of course, in Microsoft's case they may not care whether they're in Google or not.

2) SEOs are disgusted with website owners who make the above assumption (e.g., how come Google doesn't list my site for "blue widgets" when that's what I'm selling??) In this sense, SEOs blame the website owner for the failure.

3) Marketers, CEOs, VPs of whatever, etc. do not see the value of search. It's not even on their radar. In this sense, they don't care whose fault it is (until someone whispers that they're not where they should be in Google). They'd rather take the money and spend it on other channels.

And getting back to the issue of branding. I think brands that aren't there when you do a search for their key product have a very real disadvantage, particularly when everyone else in their space is there. I mean, if Starbucks is at the top of the results for "coffee", shouldn't Folgers be there too?

Best,
Jackie D.

Gurtie

06-10-2005, 06:21 PM

I'm not sure how far I agree that to be honest -

1) in my experience most site owners don't assume that they'll rank well for anything, but they have a limited budget and concentrate only on keywords they think will bring the best returns (long or short term).

2) I'll let a proper SEO answer that I guess. Disgusted seems a strong/strange word though.

3) sorry but I don't draw that inference either. They are seeing the value of search, but they just don't seem to be agreeing with you as to which words are most important. If you look at a famous UK lingerie seller (figleaves) they rank or ppc on most of the relevant terms (not panties - that doesn't count in the UK).

from your other examples, I might be at a disadvantage because I'm not in the US - but Oscar-Meyer.com for example - why would that show for 'bologna'? Google assumes Bologna is the town in Italy anyway and if I search for Bologna cold cuts I get Kraft (branded Oscar Meyer) on page 3. Not amazing placement I guess but not so bad if it's one of hundreds of products?

Lingerie and Diamonds - there's a good argument people should at least try. Chicken and bologna? less so imo. :)

andrewgoodman

06-10-2005, 07:30 PM

Hi,

I've been given permission by SEW moderators to start this thread about how some big companies are missing the SEO mark by not showing up in Google's top 100 results for key brand identifiers. For example (as the thread title indicates), Perdue.com does not show up in Google for "chicken", Kleenex for "tissues"and Zales for "diamonds." I will be publishing an article on SEOChat.com called "Can Big Brands Benefit from Search Marketing?" which contains a VERY interesting list of some top companies and brands that show up for keywords that essentially identify who they are (e.g., "cheeseburger" for McDonalds).

I am also going to keep an ongoing list of terms and companies on my Internet Marketing Blog. Here's the beginning of the list:

http://www.internetmarketingadvice.net/internet_marketing_articles/seo_articles_search_engine_optimization/seo_blunders_-_does_zales_sell_diamonds_or_what?_2005060925/

My questions for you all in the SEO community are:

1) How relevant is this anyway? I mean, is it even appropriate for Perdue to show up for "chicken" at the top of Google?

2) Is it even possible for these companies to rank well for very generic terms (e.g., "tissue" for Kleenex)?

3) Are you as astounded/amazed/stupified as I am at the large number of companies that aren't showing up for their key products or services (e.g. Victoriassecret.com for "underwear" OR "panties").

I'll post a link to my article once it's published on Monday. I'm sure this will spark an interesting discussion. Can't wait to hear from you.

Best,
Jacqueline Dooley
IMHO you are imposing a company-centric notion of what search engines "do."

Internally, many companies - especially big ones - will have discussions about why they rank where they do on terms related to key products and services. You can bet that many will hire specialists to help them rank better.

But that is a company-centric view of what they WISH the world would think, and what a search engine might see as relevant. Search engines do not categorize by industry category, and they do not rank companies. They rank pages based on very open-ended keyword queries.

On some queries, companies seem to be ranked high. Car rentals is an example. It is actually a pretty specific term. The fact that a user has typed it almost creates the "rank companies in industry category" scenario.

But if you type "lawyers," you won't get that. Typing the term "lawyers" leaves a lot more ambiguity hanging and you won't get a list of law firm sites at the top. You'll get various general resources about the law, including some companies.

"Chicken" is another term that simply does not lend itself well to companies wanting to be ranked as "leaders." When you think chicken... but wait, what kind of chicken am I thinking of when I think chicken? There are chicken burgers, chicken fingers, whole chickens from the supermarket, chicken restaurants, and chicken farms. Etc. When I think "car rentals" it is pretty hard to think of anything but that row of desks with Avis, Hertz, and the rest.

If Avis is ranking on "car rentals" and Hertz isn't, then Hertz has a big problem.

But no one will ever have the upper hand on so ambiguous a term as "chicken."

andrewgoodman

06-10-2005, 07:52 PM

There has GOT to be some subliminal value to searching for "coffee" and always seeing StarBucks's name, for example. Wonder if there's any research out there on that...
Probably this is why Google's strict policy on CTR's for AdWords is overdone. Companies would be willing to pay to sponsor keywords alongside that program... big time! We've already established in this thread that many companies are ego-driven, confused, and consider search as magic. Add deep pockets and impatience to that, and you've got corporate marketers who would pay $50 CPM's just to be up there in the rotation for "coffee" to 10 million eyeballs a year.

I notice Subway.com is still #1 in Google SERP's for "salads." What a coup.

mcanerin

06-10-2005, 08:25 PM

Something just occured to me, that's been bothering me for a bit, but I could not put my finger on it until just now.

Who the heck is "Perdue"?

I went to go check, and it turns out that it's a chicken farm. But it's not a chicken farm in MY neck of the woods. It would be "Lillydale" here (who also don't show up).

I've never heard of Perdue. If G gave me that as a result I'd be scratching my head as to why they were shown, and Lillydale was not. Since Perdue is not relevant to me, does not ship to my area and I've never heard of them, their listing isn't all that far removed from spam to me! At least there is a KFC near me - now that's a more relevant result...

Which brings me to my point.

There is an apparent mono-cultural assumption running through these threads assuming that companies well known in the US should be at the top of the list.

Why shouldn't the top chicken producer in China be there? I've no doubt they produce more chickens than Perdue. If "big" wins, then they should.

It's not just Perdue - it's the assumption that the only market that should matter is the US. It's a big wide world out there, folks - and the majority of internet users in the world today are non-US.

Any assumption that a site should have a position based on branding begs the questions of "what branding? and where?" and "who judges?".

The top chicken producer in China isn't any more relevent to me than Perdue, and chances are Lillydale isn't more relevant to US and Chinese nationals than those sites are to me.

Rather than Google trying to make all three of us happy (which will never happen), the smartest thing they could do is let them fight it out for themselves, which is exactly what they are apparently doing.

jdooley

06-10-2005, 08:46 PM

Wow. Tough crowd.

Gurtie, your point is well taken that most site owners with limited budgets don't assume they rank well, but we're talking about the big brands who have boat loads of money to spend. In my first point, I had assumed they thought their sites ranked well (or would eventually rank well) for brand-defining keywords, but in retrospect that was a naive assumption. You're right - someone in these big companies is probably checking and very well aware they don't rank for the generic terms which implies they've made a concious decision not to appear for generic terms. I suppose it is possible that search is so far under their radar that no one is checking, so that's where the assumption comes in.

You're absolutely right about the bologna thing - I did do a search on Google with the English language filter applied and Kraftfoods.com is there in the top 100, though not in the top ten. Oscar-Mayer.com isn't in the top 100 with the English-only search.

Andrew, Thanks for joining this thread. I'm a big fan of your articles. I was nodding my head as I read your response, and while I agree with most of it I can't imagine that if and when search engine positioning is discussed around a conference table at Perdue, they don't all unanimously agree that it would be WAY COOL to rank #1 in Google for the term "chicken." Even if only for product/brand identification. I mean, why would a company like Perdue optimize their site for any term at all. It's not as though you can buy chicken from any of their websites. And the thing is, they can probably afford to rank well for this term because they have a huge marketing budget, but they're not doing it. They're not there. But KFC.com and Tyson.com are.

I really don't even like chicken.

Best,
Jackie D.

mcanerin

06-10-2005, 08:54 PM

Actually, it's a good topic, Jackie! :)

If it wasn't, you would not have had all these responses - the forum posters would have either yawned or rolled their eyes and gone on with their lives.

Don't confuse a complicated issue with multiple viewpoints with a bad topic - if we all had agreed on everything it would have been a pretty short (and boring) thread.

And, as you mentioned, it IS a common assumption by marketing teams and website owners that needs to be addressed.

It's not a tough crowd - it's a thoughful one ;)

Not a bad first few posts from you - looks like you are going to be a valuable member of our community whether you like it or not, if this keeps up.

Oh, by the way - welcome to the SEW Forums :D

Ian

jdooley

06-12-2005, 07:44 AM

Actually, it's a good topic, Jackie! :)

...It's not a tough crowd - it's a thoughful one ;)

Ian

I stand (or sit), corrected. Thanks for the kind words and warm welcome, Ian. It's a bit new for me to come out of lurkdom and put myself out there to forum veterans. Writing articles allows me to dominate the conversation (heh), but this is far more interesting.

Best,
Jackie D.

jdooley

06-13-2005, 09:57 AM

The article I keep mentioning throughout this thread is now live on SEOchat.com.

http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Website-Marketing-Help/Can-Big-Brands-Benefit-from-Search-Marketing/

Thanks, all, for your comments. I have received so much great feedback, I'm considering a follow-up article.

Best,
Jackie D.

kctipton

06-14-2005, 03:14 PM

Your article is getting rather marked up by that Intellitxt.com thing.

rhmonroe

06-14-2005, 03:28 PM

Perdue.com didn't show up in the top ten when I just searched Google for "chicken" so I'm not sure what the point is, but I don't think Subservient Chicken (#1) is the type I'd personally want to cook.

ha ha ha... Subservient Chicken is already a bit cooked, but he can kneel and bow with the best of them.

As to Perdue not showing up in the google search - well thats just a plain shame since they are the third largest supplier of chicken in the USA. I see this as a good opportunity for someone to do a little optimizing for them! The email subject line could read: Nice Site, optimized poorly!

I'm just a marketing research schmuck and I see the problems with the SEO.

Robin

mcanerin

06-14-2005, 04:16 PM

you'd think they would show up somewhere - arguements as to the exact ranking aside.

If I was in marketing mode I'd point them towards this thread and offer to make sure they were no longer being used as a bad example ;)

Ian

Marcia

06-14-2005, 04:27 PM

There would be absolutely no tangible ROI as justification of paying a bundle for SEO for that company. They do not sell direct to consumers, so what would be the metric?

However - for brand recognition and increased sales in regional super markets, as with Zacky Farms or Foster Farms (which are local name brand chickens here in Caliifornia) my marketing dollar would be on purchasing banner ads on Subservient Chicken rather than SEO. Wherever you live, you will arrive at that site - and whichever brand is your local wise one who bought banners (or AdSense) there will turn up for you - if the ads are properly geo-targeted.

For name brands that are locale specific, no - generalized generic search terms are not wise marketing. Local search and geo-targeted marketing are.

Where is Chicago when we need him. ;)

rhmonroe

06-14-2005, 04:44 PM

There would be absolutely no tangible ROI as justification of paying a bundle for SEO for that company. They do not sell direct to consumers, so what would be the metric?

Perdue Farms does actually sell directly to consumers in the "frozen chicken" category. I have some in my freezer as I type this. But, I think that even without dumping a ton of cash on SEO, the webmaster that has designed their websites, doing just some basic meta tag work could produce much better results for them. After all... they are at the top for the word "Perdue" as was pointed out in the initial post. And there you even find their sites that are targeted at consumers.

Robin

jdooley

06-14-2005, 07:07 PM

I see this as a good opportunity for someone to do a little optimizing for them! The email subject line could read: Nice Site, optimized poorly! Robin, good point. It'd be interesting to hear from someone at Perdue, maybe I'll find a PR email address and submit the thread.

Marcia, as for the subservient chicken, it's owned by Burger King, so I doubt they'd want a banner or text ad on the site for Perdue. On the upside, the chicken did the moon walk for me (but wouldn't take off his mask). Seriously, your point really struck the marketer in me. I think that affiliating yourself or your brand with the top ranking websites is absolutely away to get in the back door in terms of SEO. It's one of the reasons I publish articles on SEOchat.com - the site shows up #1 in Google for SEO. I also think you hit it on the nose with the ROI comment, because that is probably why Perdue is not there at the top of Google along with Tyson for "chicken."

you'd think they would show up somewhere - arguements as to the exact ranking aside.
Thanks, Ian. That's exactly my point. I really think they should be there. I really wish there were some statistics or research somewhere that demonstrated that being at the top of the search results for a generic keyword had a positive effect on branding. Anyone know if this exists, and where?

Best,
Jackie D.

Marcia

06-16-2005, 01:26 AM

jdooley

06-16-2005, 08:41 AM

Companies like that are far better served by PPC like AdWords than organic search, because of the geotargeting and local issues - and because there is no way to track effectiveness for branding. There's no ROI that's reliably measurable when there is no actual product being sold.

The problem of measuring ROI is an excellent point. I spent some time looking for hard statistics on the effectiveness of SEO on branding, and found this report on the IAB's website which looks juicy, but for $1000, is a bit above my price range.

http://www.iab.net/resources/iab_searchengine.asp

For me, the issue is not how many people buy chicken online or if people buy this product online at all - the benefit of showing up in both natural search results and paid results for (in this case) Perdue, is in branding their name with their key product. I think the goal for Perdue (from an SEM perspective) would be to reinforce the brand name so that when people go food shopping in their local grocery store, they choose Perdue over any other brand. Since Perdue is a targeting the entire U.S. (I'm assuming), then a search campaign would not need to be geo-targeted since the product is available in supermarkets across the country.

Regarding local search and organic listings, MSN has that funky "Near Me" button which delivers results by geographic location and both Google and Yahoo have a "local" search feature as well, which enables you to search by keyword and zipcode (or address). I'm not sure that people who are conciously looking for local results are searching for the same thing when they type "chicken." Because what I mostly see are local restaurants, farms, etc. (with the exception of the Adwords ads - which actually present an excellent opportunity for branding!).

I think I mentioned above that my background is strongly rooted in the pharmaceutical industry, where the consumer can never buy a product directly either online or offline (at least with a prescription drug). It was and continues to be a challenge to demonstrate ROI with an online campaign for a prescription product, including the development of a website and any associated online media (including SEM). But with drugs, the key is to educate people about the disease, then the product and send them to their physician to ask for the product by name. Could this also work with chicken? That is, if Perdue decided to educate people about the benefits of chicken, why their product is better, how to stay safe when cooking raw chicken, etc. and drove people to a branded or even a nonbranded website, then would they sell more product?

The trick is to measure that since obviously there's a big disconnect from the web activity to the offline activity.

Sorry for the ramble, I'm going to go check out that branding thread now...

Best,
Jackie D.

Marketing Guy

06-16-2005, 09:02 AM

Try to get big brands to replace (brand) with (keyword) either in body text or inbound links is a huuuuge undertaking, usually responded to by the clenching of advertising professional's butt cheeks.

Even getting slogans / tag lines changed is a struggle, particularly when most have been reinforced for years and developed through millions of $/£ branding and hundreds of hours of work. It's unlikely MacDonalds would change "I'm loving it" to "big juicy cheeseburger widgets"! ;)

Also take the SEO industry as a whole - what percentage of SEO firms out there are actually qualified and experienced enough to develop an effective SEM campaign that can adequately deal with brand issues? I'm sure 90% of SEO professionals out there are competent when it comes to SEO (tech) - ok maybe less than 90% ( ;) )....but how many can also take into account marketing, branding, image, look feel, etc etc etc? Have you seen some of the sites out there!

I think it's niave to think that many big brands haven't looked into the SEO industry - between tech and marketing departments, someone must have brought it up! ;) More likely most are put off by the diversity of quality of service and skills offered by SEO's and are more than happy to continue with their already profitable existing promotional activities.

Plus, the underlying issue that has already been mentioned - do brands really deserve to be number 1 for a generic term?

MG

dannysullivan

06-16-2005, 09:32 AM

I covered the IAB report for our paid SEW members, and you'll find the breakdown here:

Search Can Provide Brand Lift, Study Finds
The Search Engine Update, Aug. 1, 2004
http://searchenginewatch.com/_subscribers/articles/article.php/3388891

See also:

http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3381481
http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/strat/article.php/3381241
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/3885.asp
http://www.clickz.com/experts/brand/emkt_strat/article.php/3383011

for other coverage of the report. There was also a forum discussion here, http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=603

http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3387001 covers a branding session from SES that you'll probably find interesting

jdooley

06-16-2005, 09:40 AM

Thanks, MG, good points, all.

Also take the SEO industry as a whole - what percentage of SEO firms out there are actually qualified and experienced enough to develop an effective SEM campaign that can adequately deal with brand issues? I'm sure 90% of SEO professionals out there are competent when it comes to SEO (tech) - ok maybe less than 90% ( )....but how many can also take into account marketing, branding, image, look feel, etc etc etc? Have you seen some of the sites out there!I agree there is a big seperation between the tech side of SEM and the marketing/branding side. I think the fact that the industry started as pure SEO, which was all technology-based (e.g., programming), contributes to this. In the beginning (as the clouds part), content wasn't even considered an important part of SEO it was all tags and code. Then came PPC, which has much more of a marketing taste to it because you actually have to write ad copy and now there are even multiple venues (instead of just the one - GoTo.com). Yes, I'm showing my age here. I think both are essential for effect SEM these days - you need the experts to optimize correctly, particularly with dynamic websites, but the most effective placement of your website includes well-written search engine friendly content including title and meta tags. Then there's the issue of what to do with all that search traffic once it reaches your website..

And yes, I agree that most of these big companies have probably already considered search and whether or not there is an actual benefit to enaging in SEO or SEM, but the newness of the industry and the wide variety of skill levels/quality is a huge turnoff. I am a bit naive about the whole thing because I think there is definitely a benefit to big companies who show up in the search results for very generic keyterms. After all, Starbucks in #1 for coffee...shouldn't Dunkin Donuts be there too? If you type in "chocolate" you'll see the top chocolatiers all lined up in a row. I wonder who is doing SEO for these guys??

Best,
Jackie D.

Gurtie

06-16-2005, 09:59 AM

it really does depend on the keyword though - from the begininng of this thread I think there have been two issues; the examples of underwear and diamonds are good examples of what would seem to be a word you would expect a brand to want to rank for/be associated with - while they may not convert well there's probably a reasonably high corrolation between the keyword searched and what people are actually looking for.

Chicken though is not useful to be highly ranked for. If people are looking to find information about delicious healthy chicken products they may like to eat they won't search 'chicken', they'll qualify it. Perhaps they would be served by ranking for 'nutritional information chicken', 'buy chicken', 'frozen chicken' etc but not by the single generic keyword.

Brand association is only worthwhile if it's going to work for the people who'll see it. If the only people doing an unqualified 'chicken' search are 5 year olds it's a waste of money surely?

jdooley

06-17-2005, 10:31 AM

Danny,

Thanks for the links. Very helpful.

Brand association is only worthwhile if it's going to work for the people who'll see it. If the only people doing an unqualified 'chicken' search are 5 year olds it's a waste of money surely?
Interesting point, Gurtie. I guess it'll always be debatable what keywords are worth targeting. I agree that some terms seem more obvious than others. It makes absolute sense (in my opinion) for Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts to target "coffee" or Victoria's Secret to target "underwear" but the issue gets fuzzy with a word like, "chicken."

I believe there'd be value in it for Perdue since Tyson is there at the top. As for the value of displaying an ad to a 5-year-old...well..I must say that my 4-year-old is very brand-centric! Somehow she got us to buy those silly "Kan-Doo" bathroom wipes AND the matching hand wash. Point being, there may be some value to displaying the brand to an unlikely audience.

Best,
Jackie D.

Marketing Guy

06-17-2005, 11:22 AM

It's a good subject to think about though - I feel that who is searching for x, y or z is going to become much more important soon, rather than how many are searching.

Granted a lot of people do take demographics into account when targeting specific markets, but the process as a whole (in terms of SEM) is in its infancy. The day will come when PPC evolves to bidding on "IT professionals, male, 21 to 30, based in South of England, interests in music, gaming - who search for 'widgets'", and organic search deliverables will follow suit (although unlikely to quite the same extent).

People thought that was the way things were going in the late 90's when large sites were targeting banner ads based on previous purchases - it's just taking longer to filter into the search market as most people search anonymously (or at least without giving up too much data).

When this time comes, it will enable us all to identify which generic terms are sought after by which groups - it may transpire those most likely to purchase diamonds actually search for "precious gems". And when we are this level, the real value to big brands (or at least those with the money to pay!) will become apparent.

Right now, organic search can really only sell vague offerings of miscellaneous traffic levels and coupled with lack of consumer knowledge and industry regulation, SEO isn't an attractive prospect for most.

IMO :)

MG

Gurtie

06-17-2005, 12:50 PM

As for the value of displaying an ad to a 5-year-old...well..I must say that my 4-year-old is very brand-centric! Somehow she got us to buy those silly "Kan-Doo" bathroom wipes AND the matching hand wash. Point being, there may be some value to displaying the brand to an unlikely audience.

Absolutely but she's doing that because of those horrible TV ads which she's exposed to. Now when she gets a little older and searches for hand wash perhaps there's a value for them being on page 1.

I'm sure kids also influence a lot of food purchases (no sane adult would buy cheese-strings without the nag factor surely?) but really what I mean is that by the time they care what brand of chicken you buy they will be precocious enough to refine their search query. ie the kid telling mummy to buy purdue chicken will be typing 'purdue chicken' into the search engine.

Demographics are undeniably a factor in SEO (look at the differences in conversions between Google visitors and MSN visitors for example) and all the personalisation that we're being pursuaded to adopt is edging it a little closer. Once your g-mail account is associated with your Google profile and your local search profile that IT professionals, male, 21 to 30, based in South of England, interests in music, gaming - who search for 'widgets becomes not too far away and then Purdue probably want to rank top for 'chicken' for certain demographics because if they can get profiling, or even clustering, working we'll all become sloppy searchers - we won't need to refine our initial searches.