Let me spin you a little bedtime story.
Once upon a time there was a client who was growing by leaps and bounds. As any smart client should, they decided to do some market research and plan their growth based on reliable data and strategic thinking. Their marketing team determined that the best direction for their brand was to move into an entirely new (but closely related) business category.
To go along with their new brand position, they decided to build a spiffy new web site. They hired a crack team of web-building-and-marketing gnomes to create this spiffy new site. Since they were an extremely smart client, they included search engine optimization services in their project specification.
The team of gnomes enthusiastically began working on all the different elements of the website: the design, the usability, the information architecture, and the copy.
They sent the client digital sketches and comps. The client loved the digital sketches and comps.
They sent the client site maps and wireframes. The client loved the site maps and wireframes.
They sent the client copy. The client loved the copy. Except one little niggling detail.
“Um… we’re not using that terminology for our services anymore.”
It seems that the research indicated that the most commonly-used term for their top-selling product had negative emotional associations for consumers. It didn’t fit their new brand direction and goals. All their print materials had been changed to reposition this product with a new, less negative term. They wanted the old term eliminated as much as possible from their web copy.
Only one problem: that particular term was generating most of their search traffic.
So what were the hard-working gnomes to do?
First, they had to be honest with the client. Most clients, even the big ones, remember that they hired experts to handle their web development and search marketing. They trust those experts to warn them when decisions made for one reason can negatively impact another area of their business plan. Just “giving the client what they asked for” without warning them about potential trouble is just plain unprofessional. And it won’t get you any slack when they want to know why their shiny new site dropped like a rock in the SERPs or why their traffic went straight to the basement.
Second, they had to keep the big picture in mind. Rather than just ignoring the client’s research and overall brand goals, the gnomes worked with the client to figure out where and how to place the now-off-brand-but-highly-searched term in the copy so that the site could maintain relevance with minimal impact to the new positioning goals.
Third, they had to get creative. Yes, losing the ability to put the most highly-sought keyterm on the homepage was a blow to the SEO efforts. However, there was plenty of ground to be made up elsewhere. Researching and adding new keyterms that were on-brand. Adding more valuable content overall. Improving usability and content focus to increase conversions.
In the end, the gnomes had a happy client, and the client had a shiny new website that met their goals for both improved ROI and overall branding. As Search Marketers, we hope that our clients place the same weight on our efforts as the rest of their marketing considerations, but in the real world, that’s rarely the case.
In overcoming those unexpected complications, we become more creative and skilled at what we do, and our road-tested ability makes us capable of bringing happy endings to more clients.
