Last week, comScore issued a press release with an interesting find:

“The most effective online marketing tool for both patients and prospects is the brand’s Web site.  It’s important to realize, though, that visits to a brand Web site are achieved through the use of a variety of offline and online tactics, such as online banner ads, search and offline advertising. This is why it is essential for marketers to develop fully-integrated campaigns that not only raise awareness and educate consumers but that also drive visitation to a site.”
- Bridget O’Toole, comScore Executive Vice President

comScore researched web sites and internet marketing techniques in the pharmaceutical field and found that previous exposure to a Pharmeceutical brand through online and online advertising increased brand awareness and favorability: those critical ingredients to dominating the competition.

What does this mean for small businesses?

That means if you’re using a weak, un-branded template web site that everyone and their neighbor has seen dozens of times, you’re going to lose to your competition with a more branded web site.

Using cheap (hopefully free – it’s just a template!) templates is never cost-effective. There are some nice templates that may be close enough to your brand to pull off, but the number one reason I would never suggest using a template is because using a template gives the impression of being completely finished – buttoned up.

Just as Ms. O’Tooele points out, however, your website is your most effective online marketing method, and like all marketing campaigns, it needs to be tweaked, optimized, and fine-tuned to maximize it’s revenue-building potential.

The second reason why you shouldn’t go for the cookie-cutter template: you lose your identity. I’m always disappointed when I come to a template site because I wanted to see that company’s identity, not a yellowpages column. What makes your company unique? What’s your USP? Make your site communicate that effectively. The reason is obvious in these two screenshots:

I searched for “attorney lincoln nebraska” and found these two results near the top: guess which one I would trust with my business?

This is in response to Matt Ellsworth’s post Branding is Dead; Long Live SEO because his blog comments are either turned off or dysfunctional.

I completely agree with the huge (and rarely understood, at least by business owners) impact good SEO can have on business, but I disagree completely that branding is in any way dead, or dying. The fact that Google recently opened its Website Optimizer to all users proves that branding (a significant part of website optimization), not just SEO, will continue to play an important role in the future.

A significant part of website optimization is reducing the unease that many internet users still feel about giving out their personal information and giving out CC numbers; and what can beat the influence of a recognizable brand like Amazon or Walmart when shopping on the web?

Today, [finding products] is quite different. Looking to buy a new MP3 player in 2008? With a search engine, that’s about all you need to know. A search in Google for “mp3 player” brings up C|Net’s MP3 Buying Guide. After reading some reviews, you decide on a flash memory player and then on the Creative Zen 16GB. You might then check out the prices quoted on C|Net, or search for “Creative Zen 16GB” in Google, or in a price comparison engine like Google Product Search or Shopping.com. And you’ll likely end up getting the Zen from whichever store has the best price and seems trustworthy.

Branding still matters somewhat. After all, you might recognize the names “C|Net,” “Creative” and “Zen.” But you didn’t find them based on their brand; you found them via search. In fact, the branding that matters the most were those of the tools you used: Google, Google Product Search and Shopping.com.

Matt is forgetting (the coveted) brand recognition. The Creative Zen mp3 player is ideal for shoppers whose top priority is price, but nobody (speaking generally here) is thinking about buying a Creative Zen when they start shopping. Shoppers that want to buy a mp3 player, realistically, aren’t thinking of anything but an Ipod. Whether or not that is what they actually end up buying, Apple has the corner on brand recognition when it comes to mp3 players – like it or not.

What does that mean for SEO? More users are just going to search for ‘ipod’ than for ‘mp3 player’ because the brand is what first comes to mind when a user wants to buy a mp3 player.

Proof: compare 14,514 daily searches for mp3 player vs 52,518 daily searches for ipod source.

My last point: a good, well-researched brand beats out the competition. We have all resorted to the trusty back button after a Search Engine Results link has sent us to a poorly designed site that a Jr. High Schooler likely put together for free – and we ended up using another site that looks professional, trustworthy, and as expected.

Brand isn’t everything (and it isn’t going anywhere), but neither is SEO. The only way to compete online is to win at both.