Saturday, September 22, 2007

Cupcakes? Yum bunnies!

I promise this isn't going to turn into a cupcake blog. Heaven knows there are already enough perfectly well-qualified applicants in that field. But following last week's rather disappointing encounter with the cupcakes at Kickass, I had an epiphany.

It happened at work, and was due in large part to the members of a committee whose role is to make the staff feel valued. Yet another reason I'm glad to be there.

How did they demonstrate their appreciation this week?


One word, five dozen times over: cupcakes.



The selection included chocolate with caramel buttercream, and spice cake with lemon curd filling. Carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Chocolate with peanut butter buttercream. Mocha cake with espresso buttercream.

I chose red velvet with cream cheese icing, mostly because red velvet cake is one of those southern creations that don't make it to these parts too often. And then I went for the chocolate cake with raspberry preserve filling.

And boy, were they good: generous handfuls of sponge, light and fluffy but just dense enough to be satisfyingly chewy. The frosting was thick and sweet and creamy, and proportionally balanced so that each mouthful of cake came with just the right amount of topping.

Here's another angle, just for the heck of it:



Mmmmmm ... mmmmmm ...

Turns out these faith-restoring cupcakes came from
Yum Bunnies Cakery in Belmont. I assume most of their business is word-of-mouth, because their site is impossible to find. I searched on various combinations of "bakery belmont specialty cakes cupcakes": nothing. Only when I typed in "yum bunnies" did I get results--and then to directory sites and an in-need-of-help mySpace profile, rather than to the company's site.

In other words, unless you already know the place exists, you're never gonna find it.

Could all be fixed with a few carefully placed keywords and some sensible linking ... which could be arranged in exchange for, oh, I dunno ... maybe a selection of tasty cakeries of the really kickass kind?


(Update: half an hour after going live, this post was ranking 6th on Google's first SERP for yum bunnies and 5th on the second SERP for bakery belmont specialty cakes cupcakes. Hint, hint ...)

Labels: ,

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, where the hell are *my* cupcakes?

8:40 PM  
Blogger Colette said...

The reason why you cannot find them under "bakery" is because they are not one. They are a specialty cake shop. I've been going there since it opened. The cakes are absolutely gorgeous. I've only heard good things about the cupcakes. I've never tried them though.

3:54 PM  
Blogger LimeyG said...

Fair point--though if I was searching online for someone to make me a cake, I'd be more likely to plug a term like "bakery" into a search engine than "specialty cake shop." A quick check of Google Trends and Overture suggests I'm not the only one. So while branding is important, it's also good to remember that prospective customers may not share one's preferred vocabulary, and market accordingly.

4:34 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home