Sometimes it pays to leave your own brand out of keywords, Lego says
To place high in paid rankings for well-known products, it usually pays to include your company’s brand name in keyword phrases. But sometimes it pays to leave your name out of the picture, says Lego Shop at Home vice president Steven Hawco. "We’ll take a risk without having ‘Lego’ in our paid search keywords if we think we’ll get enough leads without it," he says.
For example, he says, Lego has gotten good search results with keywords describing its Millennium Falcon toy spaceship kit for Star Wars fans. Because it has extensive content on its site regarding Millennium Falcon toys, a category not as common throughout the toy industry as it was in the past, Lego has been able to realize high placements in Internet searches by using keywords describing it without also using its Lego brand in the same keyword phrase. "When you have a large market share of a product category, it’s OK to take risks," he says.
An advantage of this strategy, he adds, is that it can prevent Lego’s listing from being bumped lower by other marketers, including retailers that sell Lego products and include "Lego" in their keyword phrases and creative descriptions.
But he cautions that because keyword bidding constantly changes, the strategy requires constant monitoring. "We can only do this as long as we’re getting hot leads," he says.
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