Outback® Steakhouse is running a new promotion and is offering 1,000,000 free steaks!

Domain / Website wise, I wanted to break down how they did and what they did.

Thankfully they registered a make sense domain name that matches what they are doing. OutbackFreeSteaks.com . Clearly they included the brand name and then used the two main keywords relating to what is being offered, free steaks. They really had two options here:

1. Go generic and use the domain name FreeSteaks.com (the domain is registered already, but is for sale for about $350 and would have been worth the $350 IMO)
2. Stick with the brand name and add the two important keywords "Free Steaks" to the brand name.

So they did a good job with picking the domain, because it includes the 3 most "make sense" keywords in the domain.

The Site

I think they did good with the website the domain name sends the visitor to. So many companies have been using Facebook lately that it’s getting old. Plus, the apps created by these companies are often flagged with problems (the apps not working to get the coupons). Most companies are using Facebook.com/CompanyName to direct people to the promotion and I think it’s not the best way to do it. Using a domain to direct them is better IMO and allows for better tracking of the promotion. In the end, I think a website that is solely owned and operated by YOU is your best option because it provides you with the most control.

Here is a screenshot of the website used:

Covering Your Bases

There is only really one potential spelling problem and that comes with the plural word Steaks. Some may forget to pluralized the term and spell it singular. It is very wise to cover your bases and OutbackFreeSteak.com is a domain name that should be registered and 301 redirected to the main site to capture any typo traffic. Outback did this, so a pat on the back for doing it!

Outback appears to have registered 6 domain names total for this promotion:

1. OutbackFreeSteaks.com
2. OutbackFreeSteaks.net
3. OutbackFreeSteaks.org
4. OutbackFreeSteak.com
5. OutbackFreeSteak.net
6. OutbackFreeSteak.org

This is OK, but I think they would have been fine just registering the .com’s of each term since the promotion is so short. (about 1 month)

Timing

The domain name registrations took place on July 14, 2011 and the promotion launched August 24, 2011. This is pushing it on time a little bit. I’m not exactly sure of the date the website for the promotion was launched, but at least a month is a good starting point to launch the website so it can start ranking in search engines.

You want your promotion site to be ranking well for those who use the domain name and or keyword set in the ads, as a search term. (outbackfreesteaks.com & outback free steaks)

Outback ranks pretty well in Google for both:

The actual promotion site ranks naturally in the #3 spot, with the companies main site having two pages ranking in the #1 and #2 spot. This is good, but technically the promotion site should rank #1. It provides the user what they are looking for. The outback.com/menu page is NOT what the user is looking for and the outback.com home page is also not exactly what the searcher is looking for. Outback did turn its homepage into a new design, which basically offers a link to the promotion site. This is OK, but I wouldn’t solely put the full homepage as the promotion. A small image on the homepage is a good idea.

Below is the full homepage of Outback.com when the promotion launched:

They are also running a Google AdWords campaign for the search terms of the promotion. This is a good idea when or if your promotion website is not ranking well in search engines. If your site is ranking well, I really do not see the reason for the extra ad spending! It’s part of the reason you created the special website for the ad!

One thing you will notice in the Google SERP is that the Outback Free Steaks site is not showing a Meta description! This is a big no no, because that is an area where you can use 150 characters to help with SEO and secondly invite people in.

Overall

Outback did a really good job with this promotion and covered a lot of bases many miss! They included the Facebook Like button at the top which is a good way to build your customer base on Facebook. They rank pretty well in search engines but likely would do better with an early site launch than under 30 days from promotion launch.

Converting the majority of the main sites homepage to the promotion was an overkill. A small sidebar image for the promotion would have been good.

The dedicated site was great, since so many companies are putting a sole focus with "Facebook" promotions. Outback included Facebook but had full control of the site and its features!

The TV ad spots that I saw all included the promotions domain name in the ad, which is the right thing to do. This should be done in all advertising methods! Shy away from the all caps or all lowercase in the domain and capitalize the first letters of each keywords to make the domain pop and easier to read! OutbackFreeSteaks.com is WAY easier to read than OUTBACKFREESTEAKS.COM or outbackfreesteaks.com!

I hope this breakdown of the Outback Free Steaks promotion helps you in some way for any future promotions you run online.