Canadian Marketing Blog

Google my brand

How important is Google to brand building?

If one were to type ‘brand’ into the Google search engine; it brings over 40 pages with 792,000,000 matches. The matches are ranked, so that the most relevant ones come first. But what influences these rankings? Every major company along with non-profit groups are now concerned about their Web reputation and ranking and pay very close attention to that first page of search results. The reputation of a company can be affected by their position on Google and this online presence can in effect, determine the strength of their brand. Google now ranks among the top 10 brands globally and is growing strong. More and more companies are competing for that top rank which in turn will facilitate their on-line brand awareness. So what in reality benefits the company – is it their own online brand experience or is it their presence on Google and hence Google’s method of branding?

The truth is, with the highest market share, the most visitors and the most powerful brand 2007, Google’s brand plays a major role in brand building. Presence on Google more than any other search engine has become a priority for companies, helping justify the strong effect of Google’s brand on individual brands. Investing in Google ad words and selecting your brand name keywords can lead to a boost in awareness and eventual revenue.

In my own business experience, we tested on-line brand building six years ago with Google Ad words, to see if it would increase lead generation for our marketing consulting practice. After twelve-months of paying for on-line advertising, we ceased as not a single new lead was generated through Google. Four years later, we tried again and this time, new business interest multiplied. Our brand awareness increased, new leads multiplied and our marketing investment paid off. This also goes on to show that now consumers/customers have become more trusting of online information which in effect has made superior online presence more valuable.

2008 will bring new dimensions of this shift to online brand awareness building and of course Google will play a key role in it. Although Google will of course be faced with greater online competition itself...not just other search engines but all methods of online brand building.

Google's advertising service ("Google Ad") may be developing into a more respected and well-regarded method of advertising, but it's not the only way that Google can be used as a marketing tool. A subtler way of advertising a company's services is simply by way of its presence on Google in the normal, unsponsored search results.
A company offering a webpage that has the many of the common search words that are typed in by customers seeking that kind of service can gain publicity simply by appearing near the top of the list.
Also, the same applies to companies who find themselves mentioned on other, third-party websites. The more 'hits' appearing when a company's name is looked up on Google, especially in the normal, non-sponsored results, the more credibility people will assume the company has.

Companies must also be weary of any negatively positioned websites or blogs appearing in the top few search results. It is not enough for companies to focus resources to position them as a top result or ad, but must also actively ensure the amount of negative attention appearing is kept to a minimum.

Furthermore, considering Microsoft's recent bid to buy Yahoo and firmly re-establish Yahoo as the most used search engine I think the way in which a company allocates resources in choosing a search engine to best position itself will be interesting. I'm sure the audience using Yahoo differs from audiences using Google, and About.com.

We did a small study for our client and found that consumers perceived the sites appearing on the first page of Google to be 'cream of the crop' companies in their respective field. Google contributes in a great way towards effective brand building. Simply the presence on the first page greatly increased the traffic on my client's site. In fact, most people interviewed did not even visit the second page.