The SEO strategy of your company can propel your business, especially if it is brand-focused. Search engines rank reputable and reliable brands first. That is why you should develop a well-thought marketing campaign that is based on an SEO branding strategy.
Such giant corporations as Amazon, Disney, and Apple are always interested in investments in their brand identity, even when their business is well-known worldwide.
SEO specialists, web marketers, sales managers, product managers, and digital agencies should consider all the recommendations presented in this article. Find out tips on acting when your business is known and has already obtained a customer base.
These recommendations will come in handy, especially if you are a startup and searching for efficient brand-focused approaches in the context of an SEO strategy. Explore hacks and techniques with a vision of your brand’s identity to improve your presence in the market niche.
Brand as a Tool for Increasing SEO Performance
According to the Edelman survey, 81% of consumers need to trust the brand to order goods and services in 2019. Many customers ignore the contact information shown in the search results, location, or prices. They consider the reputation and awareness of the company they would like to do business with.
Additionally, Google’s algorithm was updated in 2010 and 2012 in the context of brand ranking. Today, more prominent companies with a reputation on the market can count on higher search positions compared to their smaller counterparts.
This way, Google will suggest reliable and well-known brands first. Less popular retailers and agencies, however, will be shown lower. But note that other ranking factors are taken into consideration as well. This way, even startups can count on reaching the top positions.
According to Canirank statistics, businesses with high brand identity and awareness outride web pages of smaller companies (even if big-brand digital platforms are less relevant to the query).
This is the most common misconception – that SEO improves brands and this process is a one-way direction. A sound brand complements powerful search engine optimization strategies and increases results significantly. Here are 7 reasons to take into account if you are interested in an efficient SEO branding strategy.
1. Brands Establish Authority and Expertize in the Market
The E-A-T approach stands for expertness, authority, and trustworthiness. This term came from Google’s Search Quality Valuator Guidelines (2013). E-A-T is great to apply in the niches where you need to demonstrate high expertise and make people trust your brand.
If your content plan contains such topics as “What is SaaS in cloud computing?” or “How to manage your SaaS account?” try to implement this approach.
Show your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness in the context of blog texts, a FAQ section with quality content, and other approaches for search engine optimization. Let your potential customers receive helpful information, and based on this knowledge, make a thoughtful conversion.
Be sure to hire an expert author who represents your brand or niche to support content credibility and earn trust from customers. For example, if you Google ‘how to block email in Hotmail,’ the brand will hold the first search result.
Specifically, a DoNotPay robot lawyer provides a comprehensive and helpful guide (according to Google ranking) on generic topics in their niche. If you read the article till the end, you’ll see that the company offers even more, specifically to protect your identity and bank account from cyber scammers.
Even if the user does not convert now, one will remember the brand and decide its authority in the niche. Eventually, it will lead to conversion.
2. Authoritative Brands Get More Unpaid Backlinks
The more reputable a brand is, the more unpaid links it will get. And this leads to more traffic, leads, and customers as well. There are many ways to trigger brand mentions, such as an active media presence of the company CEO, company news and press releases, product expertise in the niche, high domain ratings, etc.
For example, the Highspot sales enablement platform actively participates in B2B studies and shares the results with the public. While most trusted sources of information like eMarketer use this data and cite the original source (it’s Highspot). The brand gets a free backlink and recognition from the audience as a niche expert.
Reputable companies are on the radars of bloggers and other smaller business representatives. Namely, they can bring you important SEO-friendly backlinks for free. Become a useful online source for third parties with the help of your brand awareness and boost your ranking.
3. Brands Place in the Knowledge Panel Adding Value and Visibility in the SERP
Getting to the Knowledge panel (the snapshot based on Google’s understanding of the entity on the Internet – a company, a place, an event) is really beneficial because you can boost your online presence this way.
Note that the Knowledge panel highlights your strengths and negative sides as bad customer reviews also appear. Keep track of your reputation and aim to make it spotless with the help of an excellent customer experience. Make sure that your brand Knowledge panel includes all necessary information:
- Address;
- Telephone;
- Website;
- Working hours;
- Reviews, etc.
Note that the Knowledge panel is not open for edits like Google My Business. Here you can only suggest any changes (Google Search, in your Google account). Google updates the snapshot with data that it mines. It means that Knowledge panels are automatically generated with information that comes from various sources.
SaaS companies should focus their attention on the Knowledge panel because this is a great way to capture leads and improve interactions with potential customers. Additionally, an increased organic discovery of the SaaS product on Google search is achieved.
The Knowledge panel allows searchers to see the latest promotions, special offers, blog posts, and other updates found by Google. The reviews section offers to improve the brand’s reputation and authority, turning it out to become more visible for Google.
Here is a comparison of the knowledge panel for two MarTech SaaS companies. Driftrock didn’t optimize its knowledge panel, and there’s no helpful information about it. Meanwhile, LoopMe has basic information that helps marketers reach out to the company and also read reviews about it (pay attention that there are two types of reviews here, by Google and Facebook).
4. Branded Keywords Are Easiest to Rank
According to Advanced Web Rankings, branded keywords have very high CTRs. Additionally, brand-focus keyphrases usually have less competition and lower cost per click while driving higher conversions.
Use branded keywords to improve your SEO strategy this way:
- Pick sites with the most popular brand-focused queries on the Internet.
- Determine your branded keyphrases’ search volume.
- Improve the search volume with the help of press releases and posts on social media.
* It is acceptable when the search volume is low initially, but once a brand gains more expertise in the niche, it is recommended to keep an eye on these metrics so competitors don’t take advantage of your branded keywords. Below is a widespread example of a user looking for a concrete brand and getting paid results from their direct competitors.
- Initiate content marketing campaigns with branded keywords (blogs, link donation, etc.).
- Encourage customers and leaders to share branded reviews and podcasts.
5. Branded Searches Are Highly Intentional
Brands should show all possible user intents (navigational, informational, commercial, transactional) for a higher conversion rate. For example, your potential customers can search for reviews on your brand. If the navigational intent is neglected, this is a great risk of losing your target clients. Make your branded searches exceptionally intentional:
- Navigational – make your contact information accessible together with information about your brand, reviews, and products.
- Informational – be sure that your blog section contains valuable data for your website visitors (new articles, guides, video tutorials).
- Commercial – make your pricing clear for searchers, specify all discounts and promotions, and update special offers regularly.
- Transactional – convert your website into a digital platform with improved web-mediated activities.
All these approaches will make your branded searches better and bring you conversion for sure. Note that if a user searches for something related to your brand, there’re higher chances to get a conversion.
It means that if a potential consumer is looking forward to purchasing the RosterElf employee scheduling program and makes a highly intentional search, the chance to get an order is maximum (provided your content is optimized and user-friendly). If you search for ‘RosterElf manage team,’ you’ll get the most different but highly conversational search results:
- Paid results so that competitors don’t take your conversions
- Service homepage
- Support page in case the user hesitates and has additional questions before purchasing
- Service application to download from Google Play
- Foreign review service where the user can get more information about RosterElf features, alternatives, and customer reviews.
6. Brand Recognition Gets More Clicks in Search Results
Your brand awareness improves organic SEO based on CTR as an indirect factor. At the same time, low brand awareness can be the reason for low CTR in SERPs.
Nobel Studios presented a case where reputation really matters on the company’s SEO practices.
- Brand 1 was working hard to increase clicks on its site. Search rankings became higher, but there were still no clicks.
- The metadata and Schema markup was optimized as well. As a result, no clicks as well.
- The marketers of Brand 1 analyzed brand awareness and found that it is rather low compared to competitors.
Note that people prefer to order from products or service providers they’ve heard of before. To improve your brand recognition, you can create your own case library like Vend and get more organic links at once while elevating your brand awareness on the Internet.
At the same time, low brand awareness causes low CTR in SERPs. Rick Saake offered one more scenario that often takes place. For example, you have a high search ranking but poor clicks. You have checked your metadata and schema markup, having optimized everything. The problem is your low brand recognition. Make people trust your company, and your CTR will increase.
7. Brand + Non-Branded Query = Higher Non-Branded Search Score
When a brand is often searched with a non-branded query, the search engine ranks it higher in non-branded search. Even though the search volume of the branded domain name is not considered a ranking factor, Google obtains a patent that proves the statement, “the more searches the brand gets, the much more likely Google will highly rank this company.”
This way, any brand can improve its ranking with the help of associated non-branded terms.
Google considers each unbranded entity used with your brand as one request from customers. Be sure that you know what your audience is searching for together with your company’s name (brand + SaaS product, brand + order tracker, brand + sales).
According to the WebFX case, a mix of branded and non-branded keywords brings the most positive results. The agency used the name of its brand as the main keyword (branded) for an SEO campaign.
The uniqueness of the WebFX branded name, together with unbranded words in the SaaS market niche (company, reviews, digital marketing, etc.), brought significant results. The website ranking according to Google’s algorithm was greatly increased because non-branded search scores soared high.
How to Adjust Your Brand to Your SEO Strategy?
Optimize for branded keywords
Search for branded keyphrases with the help of special-purpose tools. For example, Google Keyword Planner, Keyword Tool.io, or SimilarWeb can come in handy.
Track all variations of your brand keys
Do it together with keeping track of which competitors use your brand keys to get traffic. Additionally, you can create articles or infographics to compare your goods and services with your rivals in the market.
Build trust and credibility with branded content
Your aim is to make users want to click on your page because they know your pages with articles, posts, and other content solves their search query.
Ensure your site’s brand elements pass tech SEO & UX audits
You should undertake website auditing to evaluate how fast the server responds across your website’s pages.
Use automated reporting solutions like SE Ranking to quickly get actual and detailed reports on domain metrics, technical parameters, indexation, and usability. It comes in handy for SEO strategies with meta tags.
Your brand name can be used in titles and descriptions for high ranking, and the structure of your website can be significantly optimized for better SEO.
Brand-focused link building
It includes analyzing ranking factors + driving referral traffic. Analyze the competitor backlink profile and reach out to relevant sites to host referral links. Also, help your potential consumers discover your brand. Use tools to undertake backlink analysis when selecting a website.
For this purpose, take into consideration Majestic, Linkody, Ubersuggest (Chrome extension is available). Additionally, use branding anchors that allow increasing brand recognition and bring unaided brand awareness.
Local listings increase visibility in local search
Know your target audience according to their requirements, demographic criteria, and other aspects important for your brand awareness and SEO, and user-friendliness of your website.
Use Google My Business to boost your ratings through reviews, improve rankings on SERPs, provide better insights to marketers, and create an opportunity to advertise your project for free.
Boost user reviews to increase your visibility in Google
This approach will also improve your online presence and make your brand more trustworthy.
To Sum Up
Any stage of your business lifecycle requires a comprehensive approach to marketing strategies and a campaign focusing on brand identity. Especially when it comes to SEO and advertising, brand awareness really matters. Partnering with a design agency can help ensure that your branding is on point and resonates with your target audience.
With the help of a brand-focused SEO strategy, it is possible to achieve sound results and improve brand awareness that is a must for great sales, high income, and a spotless reputation of the company.
