So Someone’s Stealing Your Name

What if a competitor decides to use your brand name to generate leads? You wouldn’t be pleased. Yet, in the online world, it happens all the time. And here’s what you can do about it.

When marketing to today’s consumers, your name and your brand mean everything. And home improvement is no exception. Through your advertising and marketing, you’ve likely made a major investment in your company’s name.

So, what if a competitor decides to use your brand name to market his company and generate leads?  You wouldn’t be pleased.  Yet, in the online world, it happens all the time.  And here’s what you can do about it.

With Google, the Only Constant is Change

They used to say that the only thing you could count on in life is death and taxes. Well now there’s a third— that your Web site’s ranking on Google’s search results pages will change.

I hear from home improvement companies all the time that “My Web site dropped in the rankings.” Or, “Some days I can find my Web site easily on Google’s search rankings, and other days it’s nowhere to be seen.”

That’s because Google, as well as Yahoo and Bing, constantly change how they determine how to rank Web sites on their search pages. It’s a never-ending process for the search engines. They are constantly trying to improve their users’ experience, and are always testing different algorithms to improve users’ results.

The Myth of First Page Search Engine Rankings

Is your Web site listed of the first page of Google’s search results? Good for you.

Now you get to figure out if that ranking has a prayer of translating into any sales leads.

Ever been approached by an Internet consultant making this promise?: “I’ll get your Web site listed on the first page of Google!”

A listing on the first page means that Google displays a link to your Web site on the first page of its search results. First page rankings are important because most searchers never look beyond the first page of their search results when deciding what links they’ll click on. That means that the Web sites Google lists on the first page of its search results get the substantial majority of traffic.