The Challenge of Achieving Brand Recognition in Google
In 2008 Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, dropped a bombshell revelation on the Web marketing industry. Schmidt told members of the news media that all the problems with Websearch were due to non-brand Websites. In Schmidt’s view, any Website that isn’t a “brand” quality site must be spam, that bad stuff that clutters up search results and degrades Google’s profits. Naturally many small business Website owners took umbrage at Schmidt’s remarks.
Now zoom forward to 2010: Google appears to be favoring so-called “brand value” Websites in its search results. Many Web marketers now complain of having lost traffic from Google because their Websites don’t have the kind of “brand” value that Mr. Schmidt seems to feel would satisfy searchers’ queries. This downgrade in the quality of Google’s search results has come about in spite of growing efforts to adopt best Web practices in business and in government for all types of Websites.
Given the current state of search engineering priorities, it is becoming increasingly clear to people that some sort of expert SEO services are needed to help business owners compete for search visitors. The conundrum for those business owners is that they don’t know enough about search engine optimization to figure out which SEO services providers are the right ones to work with.
Some people now teach SEO classes even though they don’t actually do SEO themselves. These professional SEO teachers are spreading bad ideas and nonsense but because they are so popular and personable they don’t lack for students. And what is it that these gurus of good feelings teach? That you should just go out and get as many links to your Website as you can.
The lack of rhyme or reason to the outrageous marketing claims that these non-SEOs make when teaching their SEO ideas leaves some experts in the field quite cold. Although criticisms have been directed the companies that make outrageous marketing claims, their marketing hype is repeated so much that the noise-to-signal ratio drowns out most of the really good SEO voices.
And that is unfortunate. Many people are signing up for SEO services and lessons that really won’t help them as much as they deserve. So maybe Eric Schmidt was on to something after all. When everyone who follows sham SEO advice floods the Web with poorly thought out link requests, the real brand sites will just scoop up more search results traffic because they are focusing on solid business practices, not hype and outrageous claims.