What “The New iPad” and “Basecamp” Have in Common? Unbelievably Angry SEO “Experts”
The new iPad. Yes, you heard it right. The new, revolutionary, 4G enabled iPad is called the iPad… While all the bloggers at Apple’s event were waiting for Tim Cook, Apple’s new CEO, to utter the iPad’s new name, titles weren’t being written. In the end, the new iPad ended up begin “the new iPad” and each and every “SEO expert” in the world threw a virtual brick at Apple.
37Signals also released a new version of Basecamp recently which they called – Basecamp (Basecamp Next, but actually Basecamp), while the old version becamse Basecamp Classic. In both cases Apple and 37signals denied us new keywords.
Why is this important? Well, you have to understand that releases of Apple products are a big deal on the web and in the media. Blogs, newspapers, radio and TV stations that normally don’t cover gadgets or technology go out of their way to cover a new iProduct.
On the other side, you have Basecamp from 37Signals, one of the most popular web applications for managing projects. It might not have the search interest of Apple’s product,s but it’s pretty popular. When I search for “Basecamp” I won’t get updated or new articles on their new application, because there just isn’t enough of either the articles or searches for them. It’s just not as important to Google.
Searching for New(ly Named) Products
Consumers are, according to Google’s search results, interested in the iPad as well. Search Twitter and you’ll find thousands of tweets about a new Apple product. It doesn’t even have to be a release, rumours are popular as well. That’s why bloggers and web media in particular prepare for new Apple releases, thinking of how to create a new take on them. A beauty blog might review the new iPad as a fashion accessory, while a business magazine might publish a guide on how to use it in enterprise sales. The sky, or at least Google’s frontpage of results, is the limit.
Keywords play a particularly important part of the positioning since you have to predict what people will be searching for. In the months prior to the release of the “new iPad”, everyone was calling it the iPad 3, although there were rumours it might end up being the “iPad HD”. A new keyword, such as “iPhone 4G” would mean hundreds of thousands of searches for that particular term on search engines like Google.
New Keywords = $$$
If you managed to position yourself for it early enough and with the right article, it could mean more visitors and to that end – more advertising revenue. Even PPC revenue would go up if you have more people to click on the ads.
Interestingly, users weren’t sure what exactly to search for either. As Google Trends charts show, the search traffic quickly fell as users were searching different variations of the product name, settling on iPad 4G which was a term mentioned in Cook’s presentation. As far as Basecamp goes, most review sites ended up calling it Basecamp Next like 37Signals talked about, but it’s not really Next. It’s “just”… Basecamp.
…and finally we come to the facts. Apple couldn’t call the iPad the iPad 3 since they have a 4G model – iPad 3 4G? No. They couldn’t call it 4G because there is a variant which just isn’t a 4G model. So we ended up with “the new iPad”.
With no new keyword, bloggers and web journalists weren’t sure what to use, since the term “iPad” was already dominated and targeted for. A new term would have given them space for fresh new content. This Apple incident shows that Google is approaching its new results in a good way, showing updated content at the top, so that “the old iPad” doesn’t show up for people searching for the new model.
Productize a Product’s Name for the Web
Although the moment of not knowing which keyword to use did stump a number of high profile blogs and technology magazines, it ended up not being that big of a problem. It’s Apple – you have to write something about it. 37Signals was absolutely right calling the new Basecamp – Basecamp. The problem was that we weren’t used to something completely different from the Chicago based company as we’re used to Facebook’s or Twitter’s numerous changes.
What can we take from these two examples? If you have a product that you need to create buzz for and separate it from an old one – give it a name or at least a codename. iPhone 4. Facebook Timeline. Something we can search for. A keyword that will make your change different. You aren’t Twitter, so a new “redesign” every couple of months just isn’t interesting. Want to “productize” your service? Well, “productize” its name as well.
