Market Positioning and SEO: Must There Be A Conflict?
January 27 2010 by Jonathan Lawoyin ~ 2 CommentsOne of the challenges that come up frequently in the field of search engine optimization is the perceived conflict between a company’s market positioning and the keywords that have been shown to drive qualified site visits, sales and leads. The goal of maximizing revenue from organic traffic sometimes comes up against the reality that the most valuable SEO keywords in a given industry don’t align completely with the market positioning statements that the CEO’s, CMO’s and Brand Managers spent countless hours toiling over.
To be clear, this is an issue that occurs more frequently with companies that are new to marketing on the web, and can’t see why their website should contain key phrases that they would not necessarily use in describing their products or services (See Chatter Marketing, Episode 2). But the truth is that this need not be as big a problem as it is sometimes. The key is balance.
The Conflict
In analyzing the conflict, it would be best to understand the concept of market positioning. According to BusinessDictionary.com, Market Positioning refers to:
“Efforts to influence consumer perception of a brand or product relative to the perception of competing brands or products. Its objective is to occupy a clear, unique, and advantageous ‘position’ in the consumer’s mind such as ‘the best driving car,’ ‘the most economical car,’ or ‘the safest car.’”
Now the question here is why is there such a conflict sometimes? Well, let’s face it, search engine optimization is not a cakewalk (especially in competitive arenas), and your positioning affects a whole lot, most notably:
- The way search engines view your site – your page titles, content and internal linking structure have a major effect on how relevant the site is perceived to be on a given subject
- Your site’s ability to attract links – It is quite difficult to get another site to link to yours on a subject on which you haven’t placed a good bit of emphasis
I’ll provide an example of how this conflict presents itself. Our company did some search marketing consulting work for a client that sold business casual and golf apparel a while ago. In the past, the management of this company had positioned it as a golf wear retailer, but recently wanted to be known more as a destination for business casual apparel. Our team came on about a year after this decision was made, did some analysis on keywords, and it became apparent that it would be more beneficial from an SEO standpoint to position the site as a destination for golf wear.
There was greater keyword demand, better conversion rates, and less competition overall. The truth is, the user searching for “golf polos” or “golf shoes” is probably further along the buying process than someone searching “business casual apparel”. Another notable point is that over 70 per cent of the items on the site could be classified as golf club wear. This was clearly an issue that we had to resolve. In this case, we ended up making changes to the home page and positioning the site as a place for business casual apparel as well as golf wear.
Addressing the Issue
The key to overcoming this conflict is alignment of SEO goals with overall marketing goals. This is not a problem in marketing departments where all initiatives are viewed in terms of the big picture (i.e. how they contribute to the overall profitability of the business). And each business is different. In some cases, search engine optimization may be a small part of the marketing plan (especially the case with businesses with a bigger offline presence). In others, it is absolutely vital to profitability.
One of the benefits of this alignment is improved communication. This is absolutely critical to success. The SEO strategist must understand where the brand manager / marketing director is coming from, and be flexible and creative enough to find solutions when it comes to on-page copy, title tags, e.t.c. You don’t have to over-do it with keywords anyway. The brand manager on the other hand, must realize that the site needs to be as relevant as possible on terms that drive sales. Yes, that may mean including that not-so-perfect-sounding key phrase in your home page title. If you sell blue widgets, but feel too cool to put that in your title tag, don’t be surprised when your competitor ranks higher than you.
At the end of the day, it makes no sense to sacrifice your image or the user experience for the sake of ranking well on a competitive keyword. But the good news is, in the long run, you shouldn’t have to. When SEO strategists work hand in hand with their fellow marketers to achieve business level goals, the overall results should be positive. The site can successfully convey the company’s position and mission statement while signaling relevance on your target keywords to search engines.
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