Why SEO is Critical to Your Ad Campaign

[tag]Search Engine Optimization[/tag] is a critical linchpin in the success or failure of your [tag]advertising[/tag] campaign. To understand why [tag]SEO[/tag] is so important, let’s take a quick look at the advertising campaigns of two jewelers.

You’ve probably heard of both Kay Jewelers and Jared’s. You also probably know the slogan for each. That is because their multi-million dollar advertising campaigns are working. Between television commercials and radio commercials, both companies have spent lots of money to build brand awareness. That is why every Kay Jewelers commercial, whether T.V. or radio, includes the short melody along with the words, “Every kiss begins with K.” Similarly, Jared has every commercial contain the words “He went to Jared.” Why?

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is often difficult to explain to clients, but in this case, it should be fairly obvious. Let’s say there is a man. He is a normal everyday man who works at a regular job, has a regular girlfriend, and so on. Let’s call him Sam. Sam doesn’t buy much jewelry. But, today is different because he wants to propose to his girlfriend. Whether Sam buys jewelery or not, and whether or not he pays attention when jewelry commercials come on doesn’t matter. Because he has heard, “Every kiss begins with K,” and “He went to Jared,” so many times, when he tries to think of jewelry stores, those two pop into his head. Mission accomplished, advertising worked, let’s party, right?

Ready to Buy, Now What?

Actually, the next step is the most critical. Now, that Sam is ready to buy he needs to go to the actual building. Unless Sam lives near one and already knows where it is, how will he find either Kay or Jared? The answer is, the phone book or the Internet. Assuming both jewelers target markets are educated, upper-middle class or higher (i.e. people with money) which method is he more likely to use to find the jewelry store? Hint: If you said phone book, it might be time to take some continuing education courses.

So, Sam jumps onto his computer and…what? First, he probably guesses. If he types in www.jareds.com, then yippee! But what if he assumes the “s” is just part of the grammar and not part of the name? If he types in www.jared.com, he ends up at some unrelated advertising page that may send him to a competitor. Think this isn’t an issue? Well, www.kays.com does NOT go to the jeweler like jareds.com does. Instead, in that case the “s” is part of the grammar so, the real web site is www.kay.com.

Now, you are thinking that it is no big deal. Surely, our hero, Sam, will just type in the other web site, right? Well, maybe yes, and maybe no. Sam might decide that it will be more efficient to use a search engine so he can just find the right site and stop messing around. After all, he’s at work and the last thing he wants is to accidentally hit some porno site by getting the wrong site. He knows that it could be kay.com, kayjewlery.com, kayjewlers.com, kaysjewelry.com and so on.

If Sam searches for Kay Jewelers, then no problem. But, if Sam decides instead, “Hey, I’m here, I might as well just type in ‘jewelers’ or ‘engagement rings’ just to see,” there could be a problem. If you search Google for engagement rings, Kay doesn’t show up until page 4, well after Sam has been reminded of several competitors, if he perseveres until page four at all. Not only that, but along the way several benevolent sounding web sites offer what sounds like unbiased information. If he decides to check out those, he may decide to buy over the Internet, or direct from China, or whatever.

Small Business and SEO

Keep in mind, these are two big jewelry store chains that spend millions on advertising. How do you think this would play out for a smaller local business without a million dollar ad budget? Cracking the first page for a search on engagement rings would be great, but at a minimum a local business needs to be on the first page for results of engagement ring +cityname. For example, if you are a locally owned store in Denver, your business should really be on the first page when someone searches ‘engagement rings Denver’. Are you? If not, that’s where ArcticLlama and SEO comes in.

Too many other companies throw around the phrase Search Engine Optimization and SEO without really understanding the full process of moving up in the search engine rankings. Yes, keyword loaded articles are a start, but that is the easy part. The real skill comes from determining which keywords or key phrases can be best targeted for you. You could spend years writing key word filled articles and never end up on the first page for searches on popular phrases that have large multi-national companies servicing those niches. Just as important is getting links to those pages. Without links the search engines don’t care how many keywords are there. After all, no one wants to read meaningless articles just stuffed with keywords. The way search engines know articles are relevant is when people think they are important enough to link to.

A full service SEO (Search Engine Optimization) firm like ArcticLlama not only provides the keyword filled articles you need, it also provides the buzz necessary to generate those all important links while targeting the right keywords. Whether you are an advertising or public relations firm working for an important client, or if you are a business owner looking to maximize your Internet presence, we can help. In the mean time, don’t forget that finding your business is just as important as knowing about it.