The world is changing rapidly and so are the consumers. There have been many instances where big brands failed to adapt and transform in a timely manner and were left to fizzle out while the new digital native entrants take their piece of the cake. The fact that Google remains the search engine that holds the majority of the first touchpoints between brands and customers, many have found themselves battling for the best keywords that drive the most traffic to their websites while some other big legacy brands struggling to optimise the new practice.

The first reason for this being their complacency. As legacy brands are strongly associated with their products, their branded keywords are believed to be the best keywords. However, while the big brands are still busy with their brick-n-mortar stores, the new digital native companies that willing to go the extra miles to create content for the customers and speaking their language, therefore driving the customers away. Gillette and Dolar Shave Club is the prime example of this.

Another reason being the slow response to change in these established incumbents due to the complex procedure and bureaucracy. In the age where the customers are more demanding under the help of technology, failing to catch their attention on SERP (search engine result page) is the biggest disadvantage of any business.

What can they do about this? Again, the question is straightforward: Get on the new wave. Companies have to realise that SEO is a long-term marketing strategy and it is an on-going battle, the moment you fall into the trap of false satisfaction is the moment you lose to your competitors. Google does not care who you are, they only care about the quality of the contents you put out. The age of black-hat SEO has passed, people require customer-centred and useful contents as 60% of the customers will not buy from a website with uninvested contents.

While having the advantage of branded in-house products as strong SEO keywords, legacy companies risk losing customers at the top of the funnel where most brands have their first contact with the customers. There are still many big in-house brands struggling on this battle especially retail versus e-commerce, like Costco, for example. With the power of data, budget and reputation, how can these legacy brands rethink their current strategies to leverage these advantages for their SEO is very important right now.