The concept of brand has been misunderstood by many businesses. Although you might already be aware of the role brand plays in building a business, you may find it difficult to actually define what brand is.
Don’t worry. Many businesses struggle with creating the unique identity and experience that resonate with their ideal customers.
Although search algorithms don’t directly measure brand in their rankings, the qualities related to branding do influence your performance in the search engine results pages (SERP).
So understanding how to create and leverage your brand improves your visibility while developing trust, loyalty, and recognition within your industry.
What Brand Is
A company’s brand goes beyond its logo or tagline. It’s built upon the core values and mission of your business.
In order to begin building your brand, you must consider whom you serve and why you serve them. This is the first step in giving your business a voice to which prospective customers can connect.
Your brand then develops a consistency that influences your marketing message, content language, and value proposition. A clear and consistent message creates an expectation of the value you provide.
When you see or hear the words Apple, Coca-Cola, or Nike, you immediately have a sense of the branding experience each company has created around its products.
Creating Brand
The first step in creating a memorable and SEO-effective brand is to craft a compelling headline—one that clearly states the value of your offer.
Many businesses invest in persuading a prospect to take action before they’ve clearly established the reason for taking that action.
Consider your current headline. Does it make a promise to your prospect? Is your value proposition clearly stated?
If your site visitors have to establish the meaning of your content, they’re more likely to look elsewhere.
If you’re unsure whether or not your headline and content are contributing to your brand-building efforts, test various options to see which ones perform best.
Testing determines whether your current brand is working for or against you.
Using paid advertising such as social media ads or PPC campaigns shows you how effective your headline, tagline, or value proposition actually are. Measuring the click-through rates of ads validates the strength of your brand.
When Does Brand Impact SEO?
Search engines use ranking factors to determine the relevance, trustworthiness, and value of a given site for users.
Brand isn’t one of them. But the factors used by search engines to rank your website are related to how you create and leverage your brand.
For example, branding recognition outweighs ranking placement in the SERPs. You achieve a greater click-through rate than a competitor who has a higher ranking simply because you’ve established brand recognition.
This alone accelerates the speed at which you improve your overall search engine rankings.
If you use content marketing as part of your strategy, generating high-quality links and shares improves the visibility that leads to greater recognition over time.
Brand is a fluid and abstract concept, which makes it difficult for businesses to define.
But knowing how to create a clear value proposition with your headline and content makes it easier for users to recognize you as an authority within your industry.
This may not directly influence your rankings, but it does contribute to the ranking factors that search engines use to determine the most valuable content for its users.
If you’re still not sure where to begin in creating or reconsidering your brand, let us know what questions or obstacles you’re facing in the comments below.
