According to a ClickZ study people who search for brand names are not necessarily ending up at the official brand name web site. Only 85% of those searches will. The other 15% visit other competitors or information sites containing information about a brand. There is an excellent thread on SEW Forums about the ClickZ topic. Danny Sullivan explain in the thread "For example, if I search for McDonald's, lots of people want the McDonald's site. But some people might be researching the company; some might be looking for an anti-McDonald's site and so on." He continues asking "Is 85 percent pretty good? Should a brand expect to get in the high 90 percent of all traffic?".
In my opinion, I don't think they should nor should expect to. If you are an increasingly savvy shopper you will quickly scan all the various brands that meet your match. People also don't like things to break or have holes in them and they always like to get exactly what they ordered online and nothing different. Additionally some corporate websites are pretty boring and rarely a help. Back to Danny's example, those websites do not help in my buying process. Do I really need to go to the McDonalds website to learn more about BigMac's when I can just go down the street and order one in 5 minutes? It would seem that searchers are being smarter. They are not the drones who randomly click like we might believe.
Continue discussion on SEW Forums - What Percentage Of Brand Name Traffic Should Brand Names Get?
