Re: Online marketing for a celebrity

From: Ted Resnick <tedres_at_dnai.com>
Date: Tue 03 Oct 2000 15:13:29 -0500

IAN LEICHT <onlineadvertising_at_thecampus.com> WROTE:
> The company I work for is building an online company
> for a high profile celebrity. I think it is fairly safe
> to assume that her name is a common search term.
>
> What steps would you recommend to "assure" that the
> official site is the one that appears at the (or near
> the) top of search engine results and portal listings.

Although there is no way to guarantee listings, here
are a few recommendations I would make:

First off, I would make sure you include the term
"official site" in your title and meta tags. Next,
submit the site to major directories (Yahoo, ODP, and
Looksmart) with a note in the submission form that
yours is the celeb authorized official site. Also,
consider investing in the RealName for your celeb. Most
search engines show RealNames above the actual search
engine listings. See http://www.realnames.com/

A great example is how Jennifer Lopez' people handled
her sites presence. The official site manages to get
prime placements on the search tools.

See:
http://dmoz.org/Arts/Celebrities/L/Lopez,_Jennifer/
http://dir.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Actors_and_Actresses/Lopez__Jennifer/
http://www.looksmart.com/eus1/eus317828/eus317851/eus171947/eus300000/eus300003/eus314674/eus301132/eus305064/r?l&
(The LookSmart link may get cut into 2 lines by your email program)

Finally, I would hire someone surf the web for
"unofficial" sites and email polite requests that the
webmaster add the official site to their outside links
page (assuming they have one.) Done in non-theatening
way, most would be thrilled to hear from an official
rep of the celeb and would be glad to add a quality
link to their list (instead of just another fan page
with the same recycled pictures.) This will not only
drive traffic from those other sites, but it will help
your placement on the search engines that utilize "link
popularity" within their ranking criteria.

> While we are not launching the company with
> "hername.com", I have noticed that "hername.com" is
> already registered and is a redirect to some celebrity
> oriented site. Is it safe to assume that this is a
> violation of trademark?

If the celebrity oriented site you're referring to is
celebsites.com, they seem to have a policy of giving
the domain back to the artist upon request. You may
want to check out a recent Wired story on the subject
at
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,38964,00.html

Hope this helps,

Ted





Received on Tue Oct 03 2000 - 15:13:29 CDT