You are what you search
November 20th, 2007 posted by Lorena CrowleyWill SEO finally put corporate marketing jargon to rest? Could public relations professionals be on the brink of securing universally clear and concise messaging at last?
The Web is an undeniable force when it comes to marketing, but this puts corporate jargon and marketing speak in quite a predicament. The vague terms and complex — yet meaningless — phrases that organization leaders have hidden behind for years to avoid establishing definitive messaging will not bid them well on the web. Although it may have never made good business sense to describe a product or service as an “innovative solution,” it may become a bit clearer to organizations when they realize that they aren’t making friends with search engines using such indirect and empty language.
That’s because people are searching in terms of how they speak. Unless you’ve ever caught yourself conducting a search for the term “revolutionary product,” why would you think your potential customers would? The whole concept of SEO is to help your customers find you faster and more easily than your competitors, beginning the B2B sales cycle. Then why populate your Web copy, press releases and other searchable content with blind puffery? Define your organization, products and services in words and phrases that actually identify and represent them. When it comes to language and word choice, think in terms of search (pun slightly intended) then find balance with clear and strong writing. And in three to six months … Google and Yahoo may just take notice.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Great insight. In fact we just had an SEO meeting with a client yesterday and one thing that came up was using their press room and PR to expand the program. You may not be able to optimize your whole site for something very specific, but you can write a release or article about it. And, if you post that to your press room, like you said, in 3 to 6 months it will probably be showing up in Google and Yahoo results.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Ashley, press rooms are evolving into a great entry point for company’s Web sites. Not only can all the content be optimized (bios, backgrounders, etc.), but any new press releases posted are classified as legitimate news updates that can ping search engines. Sites like http://pingomatic.com/ are great tools for ensuring that a press room’s fresh content is being recognized by search engines.