Brands Suffer from Negative Google PR
Search Engine Watch points to a new survey from Netimperative that looks at the negative PR impact Google results can have on a brand. For example. they found four of the 10 ten pages listed in a search for Coca-Cola on Google UK were negative. Fortune 500 companies need to tear a page out of Common Craft's Google playbook. They boosted their Google rankings by defining a niche for their blog, targeting search phrases, naming categories for each phrase, and writing effectively about subjects related to each category.
Sorry, Steve.
I don't quite think that a SEO strategy for a major consumer company like Coca-Cola will drive flame sites or consumer criticism out of the Google rankings - you can't cook the SEO results as effectively when dealing with a major brand name that receives millions of queries in a year.
Posted by: Colin Mckay | Tuesday, July 05, 2005 at 03:21 PM
It's laughable to extrapolate the results achieved by Common Craft -- a small firm that no one has heard of and is unlikely to search for -- to Coca-Cola, one of the largest brands in the world. C'mon, Steve; that's just plain silly.
Posted by: Ed Rusch | Tuesday, July 05, 2005 at 04:08 PM
As a consumer, this is a case where I'd rather SEO not take place. When I search for Coke, I want to see what people are talking about. If that's negative, then that's what I want to see. I'd rather not have artificial placement inflation that gets some Coke spin-creating-site with Flash everywhere, if the buzz is about Coke rotting teeth or causing cancer or causing global warming; whatever the case may be.
Posted by: Andrew Kaufmann | Tuesday, July 05, 2005 at 06:01 PM
What? Nobody has ever heard of Common Craft? That's because my master plan is not yet complete! :)
To be fair, I never targeted a search for "Common Craft". You're right, Ed, being a small and new firm, few would set out to find info about "Common Craft" with a Google search.
However, I did target phrases like "weblogs and business" and "online community building" because they fit with my consulting niche and match the focus of my writing.
From my perspective, what Coke needs is the ability to have a voice in the "conversation". By having (something like) an authoritative blog on the soft drink industry, they can become a more powerful voice among the negative press. They can stand up for themselves and perhaps earn better Google rankings in the process.
They should be doing the same thing that brought me to this post -- listening to what the blog world is saying and responding like a person.
Posted by: Lee LeFever (of Common Craft) | Tuesday, July 05, 2005 at 07:03 PM
what makes you think we would consider a blog from Coke to be the "authoratative blog" on the soft-drink industry?
Seems to me you misunderstand the difference between the press and propaganda. A Coke blog cannot replace an unbiased press, no matter how loud the blogsters yell otherwise.
Posted by: Ed Rusch | Tuesday, July 05, 2005 at 11:36 PM