• Search Engine Land, Friday, November 7, 2008 4:01 PM

New York-based Conductor, which provides organic search solutions, released a report this week suggesting only 8% of consumer-facing Fortune 500 brands, such as AT&T, Verizon and Wal-Mart Stores, demonstrate a medium-to-strong presence for the SEO keywords they buy. Given the resources dedicated to competing in paid search, the study reveals many are ineffective when it comes to leveraging their brands in organic search.

Let's face it. Many big brands don't typically put much thought into SEO. Historically, it never seemed necessary as long as their brand names turned up in the first few listing of the search engine results, according to Jill Whalen. Times have changed. "The level-playing field of the Internet and seeing what smaller companies are able to do with SEO have caused many big brands to start taking notice," she writes. "The problem is that SEOing a big brand site is not the same thing as optimizing an ecommerce site."

Whalen exlains how big brands can put their egos aside and make plans to develop a strong SEO strategy.

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