When you think of SEO, branding might not be the first thing that comes to mind. You’re probably more focused on keyword research, content, and backlinks. However, it’s time to recognize the significant correlation between brand and SEO.
Increasing your brand visibility is a vital aspect of SEO. It can boost conversion rates, enhance customer experience, and pave the way for long-term company growth. Want to know how to leverage SEO to build lasting brand recognition and visibility? Read on.
How do SEO efforts increase brand visibility?
Measuring brand visibility can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. There are ways to track the growth of your brand using concrete data, especially when it comes to SEO.
One key metric to consider is the increase in direct website traffic. This means that more people are specifically searching for your website, which is a clear indication that your brand is becoming more visible.
Let’s break it down: when people first discover your brand through top-of-funnel (TOFU) or middle-of-funnel (MOFU) search intents, they may not immediately visit your website. However, as they become more familiar with your brand and trust your content, they are more likely to return to your site directly for more information or to make a purchase.
Take a look at the image below for an example. While organic traffic remained steady, direct traffic increased significantly. This shows that even if you focus on optimizing content to maintain rankings and organic traffic, you can still boost brand visibility through direct traffic. Once people read your content and trust your brand, they are more likely to directly visit your website in the future.
So, don’t let the abstract nature of branding deter you. By tracking direct website traffic, you can gain valuable insights into the growth of your brand visibility.
Increase in brand search volume
Increase brand visibility by attracting more people searching for your brand, products, and services. The more people who know your brand, the more likely they are to directly search for your brand and products, ultimately leading them back to you when they’re ready to make a purchase.
More brand keyword searches
As your brand grows stronger and more recognized, you’ll see a rise in searches for your brand name compared to other keywords. This shows that the market is familiar with and relies on your brand. Over time, you can expect branded keyword searches to increase as you implement effective SEO strategies. Branded keyword searches should increase over time as a consequence of implementing SEO best practices.
Brand keyword organic click growth
Boost your SEO results with brand visibility. Increase your organic clicks and gain trust from your audience. Discover how a strong brand presence can lead to higher conversions and revenue. Take a look at the graph below from Google Search Console to see the positive impact of brand visibility on clicks and impressions. Time to take your brand to the next level!
A higher Brand Authority™
Introducing Moz’s new metric, Brand Authority! Now you can easily measure the strength of your brand and see how search engines view it. This metric is crucial for SEO as it shows how well your brand ranks for important topics on your website.
The tool not only identifies your brand name but also various brand searches, like product names and more. It then gives you a score from 1 to 100, where a higher score means a more visible brand on search engine results.
With Brand Authority, you can perform a strength and gap analysis, assess your brand value, and measure the impact of your digital PR, and much more! You can access Brand Authority in Moz’s Domain Overview tool or through the Moz API. Don’t miss out on understanding the true power of your brand!
4 SEO tactics to build brand visibility
To measure your progress, it’s important to track the right methods and data. Here are some SEO tactics to boost your brand visibility:
1) Establish yourself as an authority on topics that align with your brand values.
While focusing on keywords that drive conversions is crucial, it’s also important to expand your SEO efforts over time. This includes creating content that positions your brand as a subject matter expert and builds authority in your industry.
For example, a CRM software company should go beyond customer data and relationship-building. They could also write about the connection between analytics and GDPR (a regulation about processing and storing customer data). This type of content not only provides valuable insights to potential customers, but also showcases the CRM software’s compliance with GDPR.
By targeting GDPR-related keywords, such as those used by HubSpot (a CRM company), you can strengthen your association with the topic. Eventually, this content can establish your website as a trusted source of information, leading to increased brand loyalty.
When people perceive you as an expert in the market, they will actively seek out your website and content, resulting in more direct searches and brand recognition.
Integrate Your Brand into Your SEO Content Strategy for Maximum Impact
One effective tactic to boost your SEO strategy is to closely align it with your brand. Start by using high-intent keywords that drive conversions. But don’t stop there – over time, expand your approach to cover the entire customer experience, including your brand.
Let’s take the example of GDPR. Altova, a company specializing in developer tools and software, has achieved success by creating a comprehensive information database on GDPR. This positions them as a trusted source of information, attracting both beginners and experts in GDPR compliance.
Even if your content initially lacks commercial or transactional intent, strategically incorporating SEO can lay the groundwork for inbound marketing. By using SEO in this way, you can guide audiences from being merely interested to becoming highly engaged with your brand, encouraging them to return for more valuable information.
3) Improve your content for brand keywords
If you’re new to SEO and don’t have much brand recognition yet, it’s important to keep an eye on the search volume for your brand keywords over time.
For established businesses, it’s common to start seeing searches for your brand name or products/services. This is a great opportunity to focus on improving your Brand Authority score by optimizing your content for these keywords. By doing so, not only will you rank higher, but you’ll also provide a better user experience which can increase conversions.
Let’s take the example of PTV Group again – they currently rank #14 for the brand product keyword “ptv venture”. This indicates that they may need to optimize their pay strategy further as Google hasn’t recognized this connection to their product.
Additionally, if you notice that your content is ranking for branded keywords, it’s always worth taking the time to optimize the pages where they are mentioned. This can help improve your ranking and increase click-through rates. Even if you’re already number one for a keyword, page optimization is still essential to enhance user experience and drive conversions.
4) Boost your brand’s visibility with SEO-driven content promotion
Don’t let your SEO strategy or brand fade into the background. Both should grow and evolve together, and one way to achieve this is by promoting your content effectively.
Take advantage of various channels to share your new or updated pages, including email, social media, and advertisements. By increasing the visibility of your content, you can become a reliable source of information, enticing users to return to your website. Whether they find you through a direct website search or a branded search, the important thing is to ensure your brand is seen and recognized.
SEO and brand growth go hand-in-hand
Brand and SEO are more intertwined than many people think. When you utilize brand as an element of SEO, you can enjoy higher conversion rates, a stronger customer experience, loyal audiences, and scalable, long-term company growth. Plus, brand can be measurable through specific KPIs analysis, giving you an easy way to track your progress.
Melissa Howard is a managing partner at Split Reef, a professional SEO company in Columbus, Ohio and Jacksonville, Florida that offers afull suite of digital development and SEO services for clients. With a dedicated team of web developers that provide custom work to clients across a broad range of industries, Split Reef stays up to date with all industry innovations and developments as they come, including understanding the ins and outs of SEO ranking.
