Look - I’m #1 on Google for my own name!

To get your business blog or site found in Google, you have to use the keywords that you want to be found on Google for.

Google classicNow, for many people this will sound obvious. If, however, you’ve ever heard yourself say ‘I’m #1 on Google for my company name’ or if you know someone who has, then you - and they - are still missing the point and the following might be useful.

The Google marketing challenge is quite simple. People have problems and needs and they go to the internet and Google for solutions to their problems.

The tricky part is that they talk about their problems in their own terms, from their own perspective, not yours. This means that while you might know that professional ‘change facilitation’ will help their staff team adjust to the recent American corporate takeover, they don’t. This means that so long as your blog is full of references to ‘change facilitation’ you aren’t going to get in front of them.

Why? Because they’re in their offices typing something else.

The Google keyword challenge is all about discovering (through experience, intuition and primary and secondary research) what those people are actually typing. You have to find out how they express that problem, that ‘pain’ for which - ideally - you are the perfect solution.

So remember, getting your own name or company name at #1 in Google means absolutely nothing. Google is great at picking out very particular strings of words and letters. Doing a Google search on “Google is great at picking out very particular strings of words and letters” will return this blog at #1.

What does that mean? Just that Google has found that string in this blog. From a computing and marketing standpoint, it’s totally unremarkable. Your name or company name is just a sequence of letters that Google can find easily.

That’s great if your potential American take-over customer somehow happens to type in your exact company name. But the reality is that isn’t going to happen because if it did, it means they already know about you so you don’t need to the web to market yourself. No, the reality is that they’re going to sit down and type something like:

“how to manage a staff team unhappy about corporate takeover”

Which means you need to be writing the keywords “manage” “unhappy” “staff” and “takeover” into your posts.

June 9, 2008 | Filed Under SEO, business insight, marketing 

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