Why branding in SERP's puts Google in 2nd place. What will you do?

[Whitey]

I've long since held the view that business' dependent on search engine rankings alone are vulnerable and doomed. Business branding is not about chasing Google in the SERP's. It's about doing something great that people will want to find you for. And finding you on the SERP's is the cherry on the cake, but it should only be a consequence to doing something unique.

For those of you involved in running a small , medium or large enterprise, just take a look at this fascinating and simplistic presented article from a couple of Harvard contributors. It may give you some inspiration towards creating quality tactics to bring about change to the way you do things, leading back to surfacing great results in the SERP's.

Here it is : [hbr.org...]

Who and what is inspiring you in meeting these opportunities ?

Thoughts ?

[jon_uk]

It's called 'being human'. Not something that any big company can manage in reality. Small companies should depend on it, as it is should be their main thrust. But you have to reach the customer in the first place. Relying solely on WOM is a slow journey to the top of a steep mountain.

Google cannot measure customer service. Google represents 80-90% of independent e-commerce transaction value in Europe. Google is unable to give small businesses brownie points if their customers love them. And therein is the circle of despair for 80-90% of SMEs.

Branding is good, but it's very expensive and difficult.

A nude man/woman in Trafalgar Square with sandwich boards could be the answer to an SMEs branding attention deficit, but it's cold in winter and the novelty would wear off <sic>. The sensible answer is a 100% controllable product micro-niche with plenty of madly outstanding content potential.

Love what you do.

[Selen]

Facebook is trying to co-create the Internet through Internet.org ;) It may work for established and virtual brands, but for the other 80% it's not feasible and cost-prohibitive. For most companies, co-creation starts and ends with choosing available models/options at the time of purchase.