A good method of leveraging these assets and reap the overall benefit, namely high rankings, is to organically embed one within the other, thus creating a comprehensive image of the company, built on the offer it presents and easily diggested by the customers.

As Matt pointed out, there are companies that just want their name poping up all over the web when their niche market is mentioned. Dealing with this expectation is really a matter of logic and common sense. For SEOs things are cristal clear.

Thanks, Matt for this solid entry.
Cheers!

- Rudi

It almost seems that a client without any knowledge of web marketing could totally submit to the idea of “web-speak” in relation to keyword selection. But at times companies with just enough web marketing understanding can many times handicap themselves by force there company-speak to their online audience. Which of course happens because they don’t know, what they don’t know.

So many companies shoot themselves in the foot everyday by doing just what you are advising against.

On point 1, I certainly agree that the brand/company name shouldnt be the only thing in the title tag, however I do believe brand/company name does need to be displayed. Placement of the brand in the title tag can also be debated, in the front or at the end. My view is that it all depends on the power of the brand. If you have a powerful brand, place it at the front. If you have a week brand, place it at the end.

Point 2, Call it how it is? In this day and age a strategic approach to SEO is a must. With increasing competition for high rankings on high trafficked keywords it can be almost impossible for small companies with limited budgets to rank for competitive keywords. Thus there are occasions when developing your own keywords for products or services are appropriate. Using your sites content and your other marketing communications to brand these keywords can often payoff over the long term with targeted traffic.

A well branded page that doesn’t rank for relevant terms that convert is worthless.

A poorly branded page that ranks for many valuable keywords will sell products. (I know, I have a bunch of these)

I go where the money is.

Keely – isn’t it amazing how simple and easy it is?

DaveO – Fantastic! I love hearing about people’s success. Especially the in-house guys that hold out and finally get results.

Traditional agencies have made a living out of branding, and unfortunately, it just doesn’t work the same way in search.

If a new company/product, then focusing on branding will result in poor SEO as nobody will be searching for the term.

If an older company with an established or semi established brand, I would be certain to include it in the primary page’s content and code.

Business generated from the website stood at about 60K/pa only. It was very much seen as an informational website.

Since I have been given more autonomy by the MD to create ad-specific and demographic-specific landing site/pages with optimised titles, headers and content, that has increased in just 3 months to a projected annual figure of over £1m.

Nuff said!

I was wrapt.

Thanks for all your good advice.