Backoff! Get your own Brandwich – Brand Hijacking

There’s so much hype and material out there from the blogs on Blackhat SEO to the material on the web where people are constantly trying to leverage the brand equity that others have built when not enough time is built creating their OWN brand equity.

I really do think that if you’re in a situation where you need brand exposure and visitor loyalty that – just as these very businesses folks steal from – did in the begining, they built a business the old fashioned way. You start off by creating an answer to people’s problems. You develop resources and supportive help materials (pamphlets, blog entries, web content, videos etc) to support the product. Things that help people even if they don’t buy from you… People love you so much they talk for hours about you and the message spreads… It’s that easy!

Now, even trustable and reputable guys like Seth Godin are stealing people’s brands and making money on them… All at the same time folks are building brilliant SEO campaigns all designed to borrow link equity to rank for the brand, make and model of products to sell those products at a commission of the sale. It’s getting ugly.

Truth is, all of these efforts to borrow searches for another person’s name are short term strategies. You can’t make long term money that way and you won’t build a long lasting business. People who are devoted to YOU… not Guess Jeans, not Ferrari motor cars, not Fender Guitars are going to come back to YOU over and over again… People who have a brand addiction are just that, addicted to that brand… The next time they want something the chances of them coming to you are like zip, zero nada.. So why keep doing it? Fishing for customers that won’t buy again and again? I Dunno.

Yet, leveraging brands (Like the Apple recent launch of the iPad) could be quite beneficial if done correctly. Using YOUR service and your products to enhance an industry product, does get your name out there, your brand and your products. Quite a wild idea. Check out how one guy used the iPad to sell diamonds.

Imagine the amount of links their site is getting from this beautifully executed link building campaign concept.

Daniel J Deyette