Major supermarket brand, dismal SEO

Snippet is "This site uses frames"

[Mohamed_E]

I was searching for a product made by a leading manufacturer of products sold in supermarkets, people who are wizards of offline promotion.

The product is admittedly a niche product, but its nitch is health related and many potential users might want more information before buying it (in a supermarket, not online).

Their brand name is a fairly common phrase, "kw1 kw2". A Google search showed them in position #9 using quotes, Lord knows where they would have been without the quotes.

The snippet was short and to the point :) "This site uses frames". Cache says "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: " for both keywords.

OK, I know that the toolbar PR is broken, but it showed a PR of 3 for the site. One link from a blog, none from the rest of their giant corporation.

After all that, not much useful information on the site.

It seems that some major manufacturers of consumer products are totally unaware of what the web can do for them!

[rogerd]

Time for a sales call, Mohamed! :)

[edit_g]

Write to them, email them or cold call them. How do you think their CEO will feel when he types their name into Google and they're not first - he'll want to do something about it. What's that? Can you fix it? How much?

[ritualcoffee]

Man - I got that once from an executive typing in a keyword that we didn't rank for.

funny though how he used an internal name for something in an external engine! ;)

[Robert Charlton]

I was searching for a product made by a leading manufacturer of products sold in supermarkets...
(Emphasis mine...)

I think you've perhaps explained the reason for the problem... Large corporations can be slow moving in any event, but it's been my experience that those who sell only in brick and mortar retail can't see how the web might help them.

Many such companies regard their websites as nuisances and drains on resources, not as profit centers. Even when you have strong inside connections, it's quite a challenge to get these companies to change their thinking.

[tbear]

¡Caution!
Mohamed_E, if you go on a sales cruise with this company, be sure not to let the cat out of the bag.
Keep your skills under your hat until you are contracted........ :)

[anallawalla]

I don't see where Mohammed said he was going to sell them some SEO. I agree with some of the other comments made. I know a major company that has been arguing with its incumbent SEO company for 4-5 months but it only gets visits from people who know the brand name. The site was PR3 at its peak some 4-5 months ago but is presently showing PR0 and ranks about 25th for its own name. About 5% of its html pages are indexed but an amazing 150+ pdf files are indexed as well. It has over 100 quality backlinks.

This company's SEO doesn't have the technical nouse to spot the problem that would be obvious to most people here at WW. I can only guess that the company makes more money than it anticipated, so it is not hurrying to fix the low visibility problem.

[Opportune Moment]

I recently had a conversation with a major online advertiser about how poor their site was in terms of SEO design. Response: "We are not considering seo at this time".

You're not considering 'free' traffic? Smart company.