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I recently attended the Art of Marketing conference held in Toronto.  It hosted an impressive line-up of speakers, including Seth Godin, Dan Heath, Mitch Joel, Max Lenderman and others.

Their talks were inspiring and the examples of stellar consumer marketing campaigns were impressive.  I took away many important learnings from the conference….some brand new….some just strong reinforcements of prior learnings.

An important reinforcement was just how critical it is for your digital content to be “Searchable”.  During Mitch Joel’s talk, he reminded us that:

Every Page is your Homepage  (…and Google Controls It).

80% of all on-line experiences start with search.  Canada is predominantly a Google nation, therefore most people’s first experience with your brand (or not) is in Google search.  Furthermore, people are often adding in multiple search terms in an effort to get to the exact content they are looking for as quickly as possible.  If successful in accessing your site from Google…don’t give yourself a high-five quite yet.  If they don’t find the content they are looking for where they first touch down on your site (home page or not) they often leave.  (This is documented as the “bounce rate“…an important metric when you are evaluating your website effectiveness).

OK, so what does this mean moving forward?

It means that you need to ensure your digital content is optimized for search (referred to as Search Engine Optimization or SEO)….so that the search engines can access your content regardless if it is located on your homepage or buried in your site.  Talk to your digital partner in more detail about this…..or get in touch with me for further info.

Exercise: Get closely acquainted with the content that is served up when you “Google” your brand, generic name and other keywords associated with your brand and disease state.

If you currently have a digital campaign underway – how is your brand represented on Google search?  Are you present on the first page of the organic listings (left side)?   How about when you enter multiple search terms together?  An in-depth assessment of  how your customer will experience your digital campaign starting from the search box is a critical exercise.  Your digital partners should have taken this in to consideration right out of the gates…..so talk to them further about how you can improve your visibility within search.

For further info on this topic, check out Jonathan Richmond’s excellent post:  Pharma Search Engine Rankings Need Fixing

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