birddog

The Business of a Top 100 Brand

For the last decade, Interbrand has been producing an annual report on the top 100 ‘Best Global Brands’. It makes interesting reading. It doesn’t make truly compelling reading though, and it doesn’t offer much in the way of deep insight. Perhaps that’s to be expected – it’s the nature of the beast. When you’re looking for trends across 100 global brands it’s no real wonder that the common ground ends up being generic.

It’s a bit like the ‘Top 100 TV Moments’, and the ‘Top 100 Movie Moments’, and all the other ‘Top 100 Moments’ that exist as TV scheduling fillers. Whilst the journey through the respective ‘Top 100 [insert filler of your choice]’ can be an interesting one, you can be fairly certain that your personal favourite isn’t going to be number one. It is a source of constant disappointment to me, for example, that the angelic harmonising of the Von Trapp Family in the classic Sound of Music never actually makes it to number one anywhere except in my dreams.

And so, because we all kind of knew the report findings this year – the economy’s in the shitter, the financial brands have taken a pasting, no one trusts anyone anymore, social media and the digital landscape’s a bitch and none of the big brands really know how to deal with it globally… – I thought it might be helpful to offer an additional insight from Interbrand’s work that may offer some hope to the B2B community.

Seven of the Top Ten Global Brands achieve a significant proportion of their revenues from the B2B sector. Seven. Of the top ten. B2B.

I thought that was pretty impressive for the Business to Business market. IBM, Microsoft, Google, General Electric, Intel, Nokia, HP – they’re all big B2B players. Using Interbrand’s statistics, they have a combined brand value of over $300bn. That means those seven B2B brands in the Top 10 have a higher brand value than all the other B2C brands in the Top 20 combined ($271bn). Not too shabby.

So whilst we’re all scrabbling around in the muck and bullets of day-to-day B2B marketing life, it’s worth remembering that we have a significant pedigree to live up to. The next time someone tells you that ‘brands’ are things they buy in supermarkets, just remind them that, actually, the top brands are mainly B2B. (Then sniff the air, turn on your heel and exit leaving only a ‘talk to the hand’ gesture for them to remember you by…)

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Twitter

B2B Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Birddog is pleased to offer a fully bespoke SEO service, tailored for the client business and specifically the B2B market.

Structure

Birddog’s B2B Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) programme comprises of five stages. Engagement in the programme can begin and end with one, or all of the stages, depending on where the client is in the development and implementation of a search strategy.

Stage One – Marketplace Review

• Existing search engine visibility
• Competitor visibility
• Keyword competitiveness.

Research is conducted across multiple search engines including Google, Yahoo! And Bing.

Stage Two – Technical Review

• Content
• Technical structure
• Page elements such as navigation
• Semantic HTML markup
• Keyword density analysis
• Page titles analysis
• Meta data analysis
• ALT & descriptive tags analysis
• Copy / image ratio analysis

The review ensures that all areas of a website that require optimisation are highlighted, so that the correct optimisation programme can be developed and implemented into the site (stage three).

Stage Three – Content Development and Programme Structure

• Keyword planning
• Keyword density development
• Markup optimisation and validation
• On page element optimisation:
  • Page titles
  • Meta data
  • ALT & descriptive tags
  • Semantic markup (content ordering, H1, H2 tags etc)
  • Copy / image ratio optimisation

Once implemented (in stage four), this content will optimise the digital property, increasing the relevancy of the content/site to make it easier for search engines to understand what to index and how frequently to visit.

Stage Four – Content Implementation

Detailed planning and implementation of the optimised content ranging from simple updates via a client Content Management System (CMS) to more complex development of SEO optimised website code. Before any inbound link building begins (stage five), new, optimised content must be implemented into the site, to maximise any uplift in visits. Delivery of this stage comes in the form of a pre-defined programme of implementation over an agreed timeframe, lasting days, weeks or months.

Stage Five – Off-Page Optimisation

• Directory listings
• Article writing
• Content seeding
• Blogging
• Blog interaction (commenting)
• Social media -
  • Micro blogs – Twitter
  • Bookmarking – (digg, reddit, stumbleupon)
  • Networks – Facebook, LinkedIn
  • Blog seeding/directories – Technorati
  • Retweeting sites – ReTwt etc
• Web listings -
  • News aggregators – Google news
  • Google maps
  • Google directory

Off-page SEO is a gradual process, whereby the client URL is seeded on a variety of sites that are complementary to the client business and industry. The process is intentionally slow, so as to not jeopardise search engine listings through being flagged for unusual behaviour. In addition to inbound link building, the client will be provided with a monthly report covering site stats (traffic, visits, visitors, and page views), keyword exposure, referrals, positions, and Search Engine Results Page (SERP) listings.

Want to know more?

Contact Birddog