SEO.. BE MY HERO
I'm a small word inside a book, world is a huge library full of books. Will the librarian ever find me?
Back to early 2005, I always went to library to find certain book that could support my assignment.
Imagine! this whole internet world is no different than a library. But what if my brand is just a word, in a book, in a library with billion books? will the librarian find me?
According to Search Engine Land, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines. The key purpose or a brand to use SEO is to increase “visibility” in all sorts of ways in search engines.
SEO has been used by wide variety of brands, including massive brands in car manufacturing such as: BMW, Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, etc.
When you think about it, its a bit unfair how big brands always come up on top of the list, its like small brands do not have the chance to be visible to customer. According to thetoptens.com , the best car brands are BMW, Mercedez, Lamborghini, Audi, Ferrari, Porsche, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen and Honda. Isn't there so much more than that? Where is Hyundai? Mazda?
Based on Google Trends data on Australian Region, Hyundai is the least brand googled compared to its competition, Honda, Toyota, Mazda and BMW. To be more specific, I conducted more research in Victoria State, Australia. However, the result was unfortunate.
Hyundai is still the least brand googled by Australians. Will this be the end for Hyundai?
If internet world = library, as a brand, you want to make sure you are visible to the librarian and to the readers. You don't want bigger brands caught their attention, and you're left there invisible.
INVISIBLE? BE INVINCABLE!
Hyundai will still have the chance to survive! How? By setting up an effective SEO that is done through:
Branding
"Being known among people who look for your product's category is enough"
It all comes down to building the proper and effective brand image. An image that will remain strong in consumer mind - a unique positioning. According to Revolutionautogroup.ca Hyundai is known for their good safety, it has three vehicles named Top Safety Picks by the highly respected Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in 2016; they were the Sonata, the Genesis and the Tucson.
A unique selling proposition help a brand in building strong image.
Search localization
"Even if you are a small brand, tell people exactly where you exist."According to Wordstream.com , one sneaky way to improve awareness is by using location to be specific about our marketing. With Google, the local presence is often the quickest way to shoot your site to the top of search results. Regardless of how many big brands dominate them, Google is still bound to display some local results. Simply saying, it is way more specific to search for "Hyundai South Melbourne" than just "Hyundai".
Social media
"Social media may not be the most functional way to increase awareness, but when you're focusing on brand level competition, it is invaluable"
Sure, many of your customers will use it for customer service and other support related queries but what’s a better opportunity to develop your brand than by helping customers in public? - Social Media
Contests and other ways to entertain your audience are other ideas that help build connection with an audience. Stephen Brown, a renowned marketing professor said: “a brand is nothing more or less than sum of all the mental connections people have around it”
By putting efforts to improve the following three, YOU as a brand should be able to be recognized by the librarian (search engine: Google/bing/yahoo), so then your readers (web surfers, your target audience) have as many knowledge as possible about your brand.
ITS YOU, THE LIBRARIAN & THE READERS
Hi shelia,
ReplyDeleteNice post! It is a very comprehensive post that tells me what is SEO and how to use it with a specific example. I agree with all 3 points you demonstrated that helps Hyundai survive in Australian market especially the 2nd point. Leveraging locality for optimization is highly attractive for qualified visitor because they shoot to your site by searching the specific or long-tail keyword. Moreover, developing a closer touch with customer and offer personalized customer service is somehow increase customer favorable impression to brand. For the 1st point, as Hyundai is in lower ranking position in search result list, a unique brand position as safety for customer who attach importance on safety is the good way to increase visibility. However, it might be a less efficient point due to its powerful competitor Ford also target the same audience with similar brand position with safety car for family. Visitor might shoot to Ford’s site rather than Hyundai.
Hi Shelia!
ReplyDeleteGreat post you have here! I like how you bring out statistics as evidence in your finding and even put an example based in Victoria. Also, your post has a clear cut explanation on Hyundai’s current SEO problem and what they should do.
Before the Digital Marketing class, I did not know what a SEO was before. I always thought that bigger brands always appear first in Google due to the fact they’re a “bigger” brand but it actually has something to do more than that.
In a world where social media has taken over the means of communication, advertising is everywhere left and right. Companies need to find a way for people to have their brand in mind and SEO is one of the solutions. It helps improve a brand’s visibility on the web search engine like Google. You put out a great point where this will affect smaller brands and to be honest it will. Smaller brands will have another barrier of entry to the market due to the difficulty of having their brand be visible to customers in the Internet.
Hyundai needs to get on track with their SEO. SEO is an effective way in Search Engine Marketing. It has an initial low cost, which is not a problem for Hyundai. It also attracts traffic to their website. SEO also helps potential customers to their site. If someone is searching for something and Hyundai’s website appears, it’s most likely they want more information on it or they have the intent to purchase therefore SEO could help the company to generate more revenue compared to its initial cost.
From the examples that you said, the easiest to implement for Hyundai is making their presence felt through social media. It’s basically free and the brand has direct communication with the consumers. Hyundai could interact with customers and get feedback. They can put more unique advertisements on their site. The hardest one would be branding. Hyundai is already in a disadvantage when it comes to their presence online a seen by your statistics on their SEO. It would be difficult to create a new brand image in a market full of competition and with their low online presence. As for search localization, it would require Hyundai to invest more money on it. I think it’s a good idea for Hyundai to do so because it has a low initial cost and it will help generate more revenue in the long run. Their online presence would also be felt.