SEO Won’t Work For An Unheard-of Product. What Then?

When the traffic lights are green

SEO works only if there is search trafficfor terms related to a product. For example, if you use a keyword tool to analyze traffic for the term ‘Nike Free 3.0’, you’d might discover that that term gets a few thousand searches a month.

Now turn back the clock 6 years, before the iPhone came along. If you had done a keyword analysis for the iPhone back then, it would have returned zero results. No one would be searching for it because no one would have ever heard of it. So, in such a case, there is no point using SEO and PPC.

For companies like Apple, who have a niche following for their other products and a fantastic platform – Macworld – to launch new ones, creating a buzz, and thus, search queries was never going to be an issue for them.

But what about companies which do not have such a platform? How are they going to create a buzz for their new products online?

Fortunately, all is not lost. There are lots of ways to get word out to the masses and stir curiosity.

The first thing you need to do is prep your store. Make sure it is setup to showcase the feature of your product. For example, early Lamborghini press shots always showcased their scissor doors. They don’t do that now as scissor doors have become synonymous with the brand even though only their flagship model has it.

You still need to optimize your site even though there is no search traffic for your product as yet. Use terms which are related to your product and use your product name itself. For example, the first iPhone page was probably optimized for the terms ‘touch screen phone’, ‘smartphone’, ‘Apple phone’ and ‘iPhone’.

Next, get all your social pages setup and start building rapport with owners and visitors to related sites, blogs and forums. Slowly begin leaking information to those sites. In the mean time, invest in a few good teaser and  product videos.

As the launch date gets closer, starts posting those teaser videos on video sharing sites and share them on social and micro blogging sites. Start hinting what the product could be called. This is called creating social media buzz. This will be the impetus for the search term for your product.

Then get a press release ready. Since no one has heard of your product, you can pretty much dictate the keywords you want your product referred to. Include videos and images with the press release. If you can afford it, use a paid press release service like PRWeb. It would be really good if you could get journalists to review your products. But sometimes, an exclusive from a really popular site works better.

When you post product videos on video sharing sites like YouTube, be sure to optimize them as well. Your target keyword should be in the Title, Description and Tags. Create multiple videos and link them all together and then link them to your store.

You can create even more of a buzz by offering the earlier mentioned blogs samples of your products to test or use as gifts for any competitions they might have.

If you’re lucky, your efforts might even go viral. But please understand that higher traffic does not necessarily equate to higher sales so please ensure your store is also optimized to sell.

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