If you are a business owner looking to expand your brand recognition and generate quality leads, utilizing search engine optimization will allow you to do both simultaneously. Having a beautiful website displaying your brand and all it offers is not enough. People need to find and engage with your brand online. That is where SEO comes into play, and building a strong SEO branding strategy will allow you to maximize your efforts.
SEO branding allows your company’s unique brand to become an essential source of organic web traffic. It builds brand recognition and trust with users and search engines like Google. You need to build a trusted brand and establish yourself as an authority within your industry.
Google is the most popular search engine in the world and the likely link between your brand and the publication. In order to earn Google’s trust, you must establish a strong brand presence, which is why branding and SEO go hand-in-hand.
What can SEO branding do for your business?
Including SEO branding in your overarching SEO marketing strategy will support your efforts to create strong brand recognition. It establishes your brand identity and voice while building trust between your brand and your audience.
SEO branding involves a few key components.
Brand Recognition & SEO
A proper SEO brand strategy involves establishing brand name recognition which will enhance its image and brand awareness, which is key to a successful online brand. People look for brands they are familiar with when choosing which search results to click on. They are also more likely to select a search result that is further down on the list if it is from a brand they recognize.
Branded Search & Conversions
Branded searches (searches that include your brand name) display customer connection and brand awareness, thus cementing the relevance of your brand. This connection is a critical component and will inevitably lead to conversions.
Did you know that SEO can reduce the cost of customer acquisition by 87.41% on average in comparison to digital advertising?!
Backlinks and SEO
When building your SERP authority, links are a powerful tool that can make a significant impact. When it comes to branding, proper, white-hat backlinks (links with a high value and the most ethical way to optimize a site) will add credibility to your company’s online brand.
Looking ahead, since we all know Google’s algorithm changes can affect how a business’ website will rank, a study found that:
Social Signals and SEO
“Social signals” is just a fancy term for shares, likes, and general visibility on social media. It is not clear if social signals have a direct effect on Google’s ranking algorithm. Either way, there is no denying the connection between strong brand awareness and high user interaction with the brand. The two are connected.
Storytelling and SEO
One of the best ways to connect with your customers is through storytelling. Impactful brand stories resonate with customers on a personal level. Tell a story about how buyers have used your service to achieve their goals. The key is using the right messaging and language for your target audience which can be discovered by doing keyword research.
User Behavior and SEO
Google is continuously observing and tracking their user’s behavior online in an effort to maximize their experience. The data collected is used to track patterns that then influence your rankings and visibility. Google tracks the use of particular brand keywords, products, and time spent on a particular page. With the right SEO brand strategy, you can use user behavior to increase your brand visibility and SERP.
Measuring and Tracking Brand Activity
To maintain a steady increase in brand activity and awareness, you need to track your efforts and determine which methods are serving your goals and which are not. A few tools can help you measure brand SEO activity, including Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Trends.
How to create your SEO branding strategy plan:
An effective SEO brand strategy will enhance the brand’s recognition, authority, and trustworthiness in the eyes of the target audience while also forming its unique online presence.
You aren’t alone.
33% of B2B companies cite search engine optimization as their top lead generator!
When formulating your strategy, it’s important to consider your overarching marketing strategy, brand identity, and target audience. Once you have those established, you can begin utilizing the strategies below to build your online brand awareness.
The Top 8 SEO Branding Strategies for You to Choose From
1 – Branded Keyword Research//Brand-Focused
Keywords are vital to SEO branding; they tell the search engine you have relevant content to share. You want your brand name directly associated with your featured product or service.
Step 1: Start by identifying the potential branded search terms for your company. This will include any and all variations of your brand name (including misspellings) and your name connected to your popular services or products. (e.g., kelver strategies, clever strategies, kelver marketing course, etc.).
Step 2: Research and track all queries and brand keyword search terms using Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Trends. Record your observations and identify which terms/queries impact your direct web traffic most.
Step 3: Use a free or paid SEO tool to analyze your SEO branding strategy, then record your findings.
2 – Online Reputation Management
The search query is often the first place people meet your brand, making online reputation management important to your company’s SEO branding. Controlling your online reputation will help you cast a trustworthy light on your company and online brand. The ultimate goal of online reputation management is to optimize your search results by ensuring that good results rank higher than negative ones.
There are a few ways to do this.
- Identify the search phrases or keywords that bring up negative results, then remove or reduce their presence on your website. Look past the standard brand keywords and consider how someone might search for your company online.
- Increase your positive organic search results rankings by optimizing your home page and a second page on your website.
- Make good use of your Google business profile. Making good use of all the features GBP offers will encourage people to contact you.
- Claiming your social media account will jumpstart your rankings. When your profiles are live, link them using anchor text to optimize your branding efforts.
80% of marketers believe brand mentions impact organic search rankings.
3 – Brand-Specific Link Building
You can boost your brand’s authority in the eyes of Google by linking your website to other relevant sites using link building.
The process is rather simple.
Step 1: Identify your target audience. What do they think? Where do they go to look for what you offer? How can you best reach them?
Step 2: Identify sites that appeal to your target audience and relate to your brand. The placement of your brand links must be relevant and intentional.
Step 3: Using brand keywords as anchor text, create compelling content that is brand specific and have it published on the external site with a link back to your site.
4 – On-Page Optimization for Branded Keywords
While designing your website to both display your brand and appeal to your target audience, there are a few tactics you might want to use to maximize your branding efforts and achieve content optimization for branding.
- Organically place your brand name throughout your website.
- Include common brand keywords throughout the website. You can identify these using the Google autocomplete feature or the methods listed in strategy number one.
- Consider creating pages dedicated to each branded keyword phrase.
- Make sure your website features a good amount of multimedia content with keywords and tags.
SEO requires continual optimization to rank in search results.
5 – Brand Messaging and Voice
Your brand messaging refers to what you say, and your brand voice refers to how you say it. Both should accurately and consistently reflect your brand’s identity and connect with your target audience on a semi-personal level.
The best brand messaging and voice follow these simple guidelines.
- They are authentic to your brand.
- Trust is best established with honest and transparent messaging.
- Your brand messaging should not change. However, your brand voice should adapt to different platforms or channels.
6 – Social Media Engagement and Brand Advocacy
For younger generations, social media is one of their primary sources of information, entertainment, and advertisement. We all know this. Using social media engagement and brand advocacy programs to increase brand awareness and website traffic is a popular strategy. A few ways you can do this are:
- Include relevant brand keywords or phrases in your posts via caption, alt-text, subtitles, or closed captions. This will increase the chances of your content being found and associated with your brand.
- Brand advocacy programs are a very organic way to increase brand awareness in a trustworthy fashion. Word of mouth is one of the best forms of advertising.
Brand advocacy is basically encouraged word of mouth.
7 – Influencer Program
As mentioned, word of mouth is one of the most successful forms of advertising. People are much more likely to trust a brand endorsed by someone they trust than they are to trust a brand they simply came across in a web search.
Influencer programs vary depending on the industry and marketing strategy. Fundamentally speaking, there are two major steps you need to take to set up an influencer program.
Step 1: You need to identify potential influencers who have reach within your target demographic. There are five types of influencers, each determined by their number of followers. The larger the number, the greater their reach.
Remember that it is not enough for them to have a large following. You will want to ensure the content they produce aligns with your brand message and that their followings were achieved organically. Bots won’t buy your product.
Step 2: Arrange for collaborations and construct the necessary contracts. The details of this relationship greatly depend on your budget and strategy. Ensuring your expectations and restrictions are clearly communicated, and compensation is arranged is key.
8 – Consistent branding across channels
This is also known as your brand experience. No matter what SEO branding strategies you employ, you need to make sure your messaging is consistent across all channels and platforms.
Your goal is to create strong brand awareness, and that often entails an individual encountering your brand multiple times in multiple ways.
It’s important that every time they see or hear mention of your brand, they can quickly and easily identify it. Make sure your keyword, imagery, and messaging are consistent across the board.
How to implement your SEO branding strategy
Once you have reviewed the possible SEO branding strategies you can use, get the ball rolling by selecting 2-4 methods and start implementing them. We recommend using strategies that work together. As you establish your brand, you can start expanding your SEO branding strategy in ways that feel natural to your brand.
For example, you could start with brand keyword research and content optimization on your landing pages. Later, add in brand messaging and voice along with social media engagement. Just remember to track your progress and keep a record of your strategies!
In our opinion.
There is no one way to utilize SEO to expand your brand online. There are numerous tools and techniques you can use.
Whatever SEO brand strategy you employ, make sure it fits into the larger SEO marketing strategy. Much like any other aspect of your marketing strategy, track everything, look for patterns, and adjust as needed.
