Marni Weinberg - December 14, 2010
Bidding on my brand name is waste of money. Why would I bid on my name when I already appear organically in the top results? There is no need to pay advertising dollars for my company name; I show up well in the natural listings…
Big sigh. Many clients often ask/tell me different variations of the above on a regular basis. Most feel that bidding on their company name is not only a waste of money, but not at all necessary. That way of thinking is entirely incorrect and this post will focus on some of the reasons why you should be bidding on your name…
- To protect and reinforce your brand
- Brand keywords are typically the least costly to bid on.
- Many searchers will misspell your name. If you have a branding strategy in place, you can bid on many variations and misspellings of your name.
- A visitor who typed in your company name already knows who you are (they typed in your name, remember?) and is more likely to convert into a sale or client than someone who doesn’t.
- Your competition is probably already bidding on your name and if not, they will be. Do not allow your competitor(s) to steal away your customers!
- You have complete control over both the ad copy that will be displayed and the URL your visitor will be sent to when the pay per click ad is clicked on. It is a huge value to send a visitor to a landing page with specific calls to action; this will help improve conversions.
- You will take up more real estate on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPS) if you appear in both the organic and the paid results. Surprisingly, there are a large percentage of searchers who do not know the difference between the paid and the organic results. See example below from Under Armour. They dominate the SERPS for their name, as they should.
If you do not already have a branding strategy in place, I strongly encourage you to develop one. Protect and reinforce your brand now by bidding on your company name!
