Like many people I often browse the World Wide Web looking for something new. Not only do I do this for pleasure but also in my job when looking for new acts for the entertainment agency of which I am CEO.
Frequently I come across sites claiming to be The Biggest, The Best or No.1 in their particular field and this made me wonder. If you look long enough at the net you will find these claims by numerous companies within the same field, so who is The Biggest, The Best or No.1.
I thought long and hard about this and to be honest I don’t know, but it would seem to be just a marketing tactic in most cases. We all know that market research companies and the like often rate well-known companies independently, but this is not the case in most businesses. High street names are well known as are an international manufacturing company, which however is not quite so true on the web.
Perhaps it would be a good idea for Internet companies who make these claims to back it up with independent clarification or not make them at all. That way everyone would know if the claims made are real. The other question I then find myself asking is if these companies are making dubious claims as a marketing tactic what other dubious practices are they up to. Yes I know lots of questions that just seem to raise more.
A case in point that all this reminded me of was a friend of mine many years ago who stated on his website that his company had been voted No.1 in a particular field. I queried this with him one day and asked about it. He replied that he had asked his family to vote and they had voted him No.1. Hardly surprising! He then used this as a promotional gimmick. Whilst his family may have voted, the vote was an obviously biased one and not in the true spirit of competition. It is also true that because a vote had taken place he was not technically lying, but it was most certainly a very distorted view that he painted. These are tactics that companies I am sure use everyday on the web.
This leads me on to my next point. Just because a company is number one for a particular keyword or set of keywords on the Internet does not necessarily mean they are The Biggest, The Best or No.1. It just means that for a particular keyword their website is better optimized for it than others. If you look around you will probably find that they rank lower on other search engines for the same keywords. Another indication is page rank; check the actual page rank and you will often find lower page rank sites above higher page rank ones, it’s not about good content it is about optimization. How do I know this, well from the experience of my own company? We have a Google page rank of 3 yet we are behind others of lower page rank 1-2 for certain keywords. Not that this matters to us, as we know we have a good product range and solid client base.
The point of this article is to say be aware. Just because a site makes a claim it does not mean it is true. Anything can be manipulated to make one thing seem like something else, we see it in government, and on the news all the time. It’s spin doctoring pure and simple. So next time you are looking for something don’t just go for the company claiming to be The Biggest, The Best or No.1 look further and you might be surprised at what you find. The other thing to remember is if a company has to make the claim of being The Biggest, The Best or No.1 they are probably trying to cover up something, a good company has no need to make those claims, the product or service speaks for itself.
Here are some quotes taken from pages or advertising of five entertainment agencies in the UK within the last 24 hours:
“the country’s fastest growing provider of live entertainment”
“the UK’s premier live music agency and the largest online entertainment booking service in the world”
“The UK’s No1 Entertainment Agency”
“UK’s leading entertainment specialist”
“the leading UK based live entertainment service provider”
I’d like to wish anyone who reads this happy surfing and hope that it has made you think a little.
© Paul Sims 2008
CEE Worldwide Entertainment Agency