Ron McCoy September 15th, 2010
Almost every business or company would like to be on Google page #1 in connection with a search on the keyword or phrase most descriptive of their company’s line of business. However, typically only 10 organic search engine results will appear in a given search. An arguable implication of this reality is that worldwide (or domestically) no more than 10 organizations can effectively compete in a given keyword-defined market segment. Just as the difference in importance of the position between #1 and #10 is significant, perhaps even greater is the difference between #10 and #11.
In the classic marketing publication The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout the authors list prominently ‘the law of category’ … if you can’t be first in a category then set up your own category you can be first (i.e., Google page 1) in. For example a local or regional business selling cars is not likely to achieve a Google page 1 ranking in connection with the search word ‘cars’. But competing on the phrase ‘luxury cars’ or ‘luxury cars Denver’ is much more realistic as the competition for search attention on these words is progressively less.
So for those organizations that want to compete online but were not among the first in their respective markets to promote themselves on the internet and achieve a prominent ranking, there are still ample opportunities to position your sites as effective lead generators. One of the keys is to redefine your market (or markets) by trafficked keywords where there are openings. Using the automobile industry example again the search keyword ‘cars’ may get lots of traffic, but buyers of cars are more often focused in their selection of keywords. The keyword ‘cars’ may be attractive in terms of absolute search numbers, but are these searchers the best sales prospect for a local or regional car selling business? Probably not.
SEO is still a viable approach to online promotion and lead generation. Picking your keyword defined market categories intelligently is a good place to start. And remember that markets have a tendency to sub-divide over time so the selection process is an ongoing one.
