Even if your website has excellent content and is well optimized, without a brand to back it up, you’ll have a much harder time being found in search engine results pages (SERPs). Without clear brand authority, people will be unaware of the product range and will not consciously search it out. Although ranking for branded keywords is relatively easy, getting customers to search for them is more difficult. This is where an SEO agency can help you.
This is where brand comes into play. In certain ways, building a strong brand is similar to reverse engineering SEO. It helps to get a large number of people talking about your brand online – for example, through ratings, social media, citations, and backlinks. The buzz around your brand will tell Google and other search engines that you’re important in your market. And, since there is a connection between your brand’s popularity and your rankings, you should start gaining more traffic and customers.
“To organise the world’s knowledge and make it universally available and useful,” is Google’s mission. Customers, in the end, assist Google in learning who and what you are. The more people who search for and interact with your brand online, the higher your brand authority and ranking would be.
Your domain authority, a search engine ranking score that predicts your website’s ability to rank in SERPs, is also affected by brand authority. When creating a SERP for a keyword query, Google considers a number of factors, including the content of the website, internal links, mentions, and feedback.
When your brand receives a large amount of digital engagement, Google’s algorithms will begin to associate your brand with a product category. The more branded Google searches you get, the more you can carve out a web sphere of influence.
We’ve all used Kleenex, for example. With facial tissues, it’s become a household name. You can ‘rig’ the framework so that users don’t go to Google looking for ‘facial tissue’ if you create a strong brand. Instead, they’ll look for the word “Kleenex.”
If you can reach this level of brand authority in your market, you’ve not only taken control of the majority of the SERP, but also of the mindshare that brands crave. Although SEO can help, branding is the one who does the heavy lifting in this case.
Real-World Example
Let’s look at an example of a business that has successfully leveraged their brand to boost their online visibility.
Zoom
Zoom was top of mind for many people looking to host virtual meetings in March 2020, as the world switched to working from home due to the coronavirus. Zoom’s popularity skyrocketed in comparison to rivals like Skype, WebEx, and Google Hangouts in a short period of time. The word “Zoom” became a verb. And for many businesses that need remote workers, it has become the de facto solution.
Searches and sales increased dramatically almost overnight. But it wasn’t by chance. It was the result of a long-term brand commitment that paid off. The stock increased by 130 percent in just three months, from January to March 2020. People were drawn to Zoom because of its popularity as an easy-to-use solution in the marketplace.
In March 2020, advertised traffic accounted for more than 70% of all visits to zoom.us.
People searched for ‘zoom’ or ‘zoom video’ instead of ‘video conference tool’ or ‘virtual meeting tool’ because of the brand, not the price.
