I was dismayed to see the article “Google: Your Bottom Line’s Best Friend,” in the Entrepreneur’s Toolkit (July 2008). The emphasis was on trying to advertise one’s business via placement on search engines such as Google, getting your company name at the top of a keyword list and paying for “hits.” First of all, more information is coming out about fraudulent use of click-throughs, with some estimates as high as 1/6 of the clicks being phony. More importantly, not a word is mentioned about what has built great companies like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s: branding!
Through various marketing methods — advertising, public relations and direct mail — branding gets attention and drives sales. It’s also well known that a company will get more click-throughs when the online user has heard of it. Using search engines alone is normally not the way to go.
I wonder how the staff ofInside Businesswould feel if your print advertisers migrated to search engines and stopped doing business with your company. They’d have a lot of time to ponder the question, since they’d be on the unemployment line.
Brad Glazer
Beachwood
I agree Cuyahoga County government should be revamped into a modern form of government with some greater regional powers, but I don’t think it will help in the areas that are making some communities go broke. Some are trying to create a bedroom community without much planning other than “We only want green lawns and houses — none of those disruptive things like business or industry.” When the residents didn’t demand many services and the community had a part-time official, no employees and a volunteer fire department, the community could survive pretty well. But when the residents want services of the central city such as swimming pools and rear yard garbage pickup (with only homes to pay the taxes), something has to give.
The problem needs to be solved with communities living within their means. One reason Westlake doesn’t have an ice rink is because it wouldn’t support itself — it would require huge public subsidies. Some communities subsidize community theater, which is great, but can they afford it? Westlake has a local community theater in a restored barn on city property but the city doesn’t get an annual $35,000 subsidy. Suburbs, like all government, need to have professionals manage the tax payers’ money, revenue and expenses. It’s called good management practices. I don’t think they teach that in schools anymore. Maybe it should be a required course for Congress.
Bob Parry
Department of Planning and Economic Development
Westlake
I’m not a Cuyahoga County resident, but the poor health of the county is a drag on its neighbors. (I live in Summit.) Although you have called for a countywide solution to the health of the county (I agree), the largest part of the illness —Cleveland — has to get its act together before the surrounding communities will begin to believe in a whole county solution. Obviously, the representative form of county government is a start, but the not-in-my-backyard syndrome will continue to buy into the same old propaganda unless there is a renaissance in Cleveland.