Advertising is a competitive world. With the sheer amount of brands out there, everyone is trying their best to get the most eyeballs and potentially more customers. Google’s number one position in the search functionality is by far one of the things that brands compete over the most. That sweet number one spot on the top of the page could be the make or break factor when it comes to the audience because let’s face it, who clicks on the second link when all they want is available in the first?
In 2008, Google made it legal for brands to bid on another brand’s position for the number one spot. Seems simple right? Well, more often than not, companies are significantly affected by this, resulting in considerable losses for the brand. Remember Samsung’s big against Apple when their iPhone 67 came out? When anyone googled the iPhone 6s, the first result that they would see at the top would say “Awkward. You Obviously Mean the S6’ which would then redirect them to the Samsung website. A brilliant marketing strategy indeed, and a considerable amount of people who were looking to buy the iPhone 6s made the switch to the Samsung version. If you own a brand or are trying to advertise a brand, you are bound to find yourself in such a situation, which is why it is good to know a few things in this scenario what you can do in this scenario to bring your brand back from the fall it just experienced.
First things first, they want to keep it up
If it’s a competitor who has taken your number one spot on Google, it is because they want it, and have paid a good amount of money for it. They aren’t going to take it down even if you send in a nice little letter explaining the situation to them. What they have done is completely legal, thanks to Google’s bidding system. So now, what do you do?
Google Search isn’t the only one
Sure it’s sad that your spot got taken on the search functionality, but there are other Google functions that your competitor may not have thought to look into. Sites like AOL, Ask.com and a few others are good sites to get the number one position on so that you can drive your traffic to your brand.
There’s always Bing
Yes, we said Bing. Even though it may not be as popular of a search engine as Google, there are still a good amount of people who use this. They can be your potential customers as well. Check with other search engines, and try to get the number one position on all, or most of them at least, so you have a security net to fall back on.
Buy an ad space in Google Search
Even though people tend to click on the first link more, the ad that appears is always a good way to attract customers. If they are searching for something and your brand comes up with an ad and a link to that exact product, there is a high chance they will instantly click on it, directing traffic your way.
Target their keywords
Every brand that takes up that number one spot if bound to have certain keywords associated with them. Get a hold of those keywords and try to optimize your search so that your brand comes up when someone googles something related to their brand.
Ezekiel Kopp 