Effective branding matters! It has the power to establish you as the market leader. It can allow you to charge a premium for your product or service even though the book definition of branding may restrict it only to a logo, design or slogan. But, in real terms branding is much more than that. It is the promise you make to your customers. It refers to the overall experience you deliver to your customers. It governs whether or not you resonate with your clients.
Branding is essential regardless of what industry you are in and what platform you are using to access your audience. This also holds for the online world. Whether you are marketing your product through websites or running an online store, to begin with, you need to brand it appropriately to drive traffic.
Another critical factor on online platforms is SEO. The question arises, how is branding related to SEO?
1. Branding aids in getting quality links
Google’s algorithm for ranking prioritizes websites that have quality links. These links need to be naturally present, contextually appropriately and earned. You can’t buy citations and links. Recently, Google has released severe consequences for those who do.
You need people to visit your website, peruse your content, find something relevant in it and link to it later on. This helps in establishing your site as a credible source of information, which in turn encourages Google to rank it highly. However, know that not everyone who visits your website has a blog in which they can link you. People who do have creative control signify a tiny chunk of your site visitors. And within this small chunk, some may find your content worthy of being linked and some will not. Branding helps ensure that all of them do link to your website. How so? Well, people are more likely to take your word for different topics if they know who you are. Branding helps establish a healthy brand image. It ensures that people know about your company. And by increasing brand awareness, it increases the chance of you getting links.
2. Branding plays a role in boosting your social shares
Social
shares may or may not influence your ranking on a search engine. There has been a lot of debate about it. Considering Google doesn’t let share its algorithm and ranking criteria transparently with the world, one can only guess.
Therefore, no
SEO company will ignore social shares. And one thing is for sure- branding helps in boosting social shares. Branding encourages brand recall, recognition, and awareness. And when someone already knows about you and holds positive associations regarding your company, there is a high probability that they will share your content on social media or mention you. The more social shares you have, the more exposure your brand will get. This, further, increases the chance of getting quality links.
3. Branding and CTRs
One ranking factor that all SEO companies are a legit metric used by search engines is click-through-rates or CTRs. This refers to the number of visitors who visit your website after they search for a relevant keyword in a search engine. Even if you currently have a low ranking on the first page, if people are skipping the top search results to visit your website, slowly your site’s rank will increase.
The question is what you should do to tempt people to click on your site rather than the top results? You make sure they know about you. And branding delivers this aspect. It ensures familiarity, and sometimes even trust. This translates to a high CTR, leading to a high rank.
4. Reputation building
The better the
reputation you have, the higher rank you will get. This factor is clearly mentioned in a recent quality rating guideline Google publicly published. This guideline signifies what metrics Google use to assess the quality of web pages.
Website reputation is one metric highlighted in the guidelines. How does Google assess your reputation? It follows what independent sources say about your site. It tracks communities to see whether the masses have a positive outlook of your company. If they do, you automatically get a high ranking.
And how can you influence independent sources? By convincing them of your value proposition via effective branding.
5. Brand mentions matter
Brand mentions have also been
integrated into Google’s algorithm ever since Google had the Panda update. While previously Google only took into consideration brand mentions that were linked back to the website as positive evidence, now all brand mentions are taken into account. So, if people are talking about your brand, regardless of which platform they are doing on, Google will take notice of it. And as a reward, it will improve your ranking. The only way to create a positive buzz around your business is through quality branding efforts.
6. Positive evaluations by Google
You might not realize it, but each and every move of your website is being watched by Google. The quality of your backlinks, online citations, keyword rankings,
seo content. Each aspect is being evaluated by Google to assess whether you deserve a high rank. Branding influences each of the factor that is being monitored by the search engine. So, by extension, it helps ensure positive evaluations of your website, thereby increasing the chance for your site to get a high rank.
Conclusion
The right SEO company understands that branding drives SEO and vice versa. The higher your rank is, the more positive the image your brand has. Similarly, the more reputable your company seems, the more likely will it resonate with people and evoke positive brand feelings. So, what connects branding with SEO? Each of the two forms the foundation for one another. They go hand in hand. You must focus on branding to boost your ranking. And you must strive to attain a high SERP to sustain your brand.
Ignore anyone who asks you to choose between the two. Focus on both branding and SEO. They both matter.
