According to a recent article in The Times consumer fears over fraudulent online retail are growing. This is understandably having an effect on legitimate sites, with many companies seeing a marked decrease in sales. The way to combat this trend is to provide brand protection using ethical SEO and PPC. By boosting the profile of legitimate companies through brand protection, it is possible to flush out the proliferation of illegal sites that are taking money from online consumers and not delivering the goods.
Brand Protection
Brand protection services are not only designed to prevent unauthorised companies using protected brand names, they also stop third party companies from selling branded goods cheaper than the official retailer themselves. The Times article in question gave consumers some very basic advice regarding URLs that may indeed harm companies selling brand name goods legitimately.
PPC
Many well known manufacturers sell goods through affiliated companies, for example Denby sell their wares in John Lewis and Debenhams Stores. This entitles such stores to use the brand name in PPC campaigns. This is fine for stores that consumers are familiar with but there are also lesser-known online retailers that sell goods on behalf of big names such as Denby, and are also legitimate, and the article in question gave consumers advice that was not entirely correct. Even for industry professionals it can be difficult to tell if a site is legitimate or not at first glance; but utilising paid search to boost brand protection can help potential customers differentiate between a site offering a money-saving deal and one that will just run off with the money.
SEO
By using genuine paid search alongside ethical search engine optimisation it is possible to boost an organic listing which in turn increases consumer confidence. The result of more spending is increased revenue, yielding a desirable return on investment. It is no secret that online marketing has been one of the few sectors to weather the economic storm that has seen so many businesses fail of late; businesses that may well have lasted longer by using brand protection services offered by SEO companies.
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Great article. I agree using PPC and SEO for a new business. But I believe SEO can provide long term results.