Building Brand Recognition Using SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is something you must consider if you want to increase your company’s brand awareness. Although for many people SEO is the last thing on their minds when it comes to building brand recognition, it is a powerful marketing channel that can greatly increase the reach and trustworthiness of your company.

We have compiled a list of the best SEO tips you can use to build brand recognition, both for a growing business and an established company. Read on for more!

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Use Relevant Keyword Phrases

It’s impossible to talk about SEO without mentioning keywords, as they matter to both search engines and their users. Using keywords properly tells Google that you are offering relevant content.

Optimizing keyword phrases helps increase organic search traffic. If you are not working towards increasing your organic visibility on Google, you are just leaving room for your competitors to ‘steal’ the customers looking for products in your space.

Our assumption is that you already know how to optimize content for keywords. We will just shed light on how to use keywords to improve brand awareness.

To improve company brand awareness, use these keyword tips:

1. Carefully Choose Priority Keywords

Choose keywords that are already contributing to business goals. Do not optimize for every keyword that your content or web page can rank for.

Use Google Analytics to know which organic phrases you should focus on, and particularly its section dedicated to keywords called “Queries”. In this section, you will get a breakdown of all the keywords driving traffic to your site.

To further help you navigate through Google Analytics, take note of these definitions:

Query: The keyword which internet users search for.

Impressions: The number of times one of your pages that has been ranked for that keyword has appeared in search results.

Clicks: The number of times one of your web pages has been clicked on after showing up in a search for that keyword.

Click-Through Rate (CTR): The proportion of users who click on one of your pages to the total number of users who view that page on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

Average position: Your page’s average position on the SERP when it is shown for that keyword.

GA allows you to narrow down your keywords to see how much traffic you are getting for specific keywords. You will know where to concentrate your SEO efforts by either analyzing your average position, clicks or impressions. The best practice is to use all three for a more comprehensive analysis.

2. Prioritize Keywords Based on Organic Competition

Once you have chosen the organic keyword phrases to focus on first as you attempt to optimize your web pages, you should conduct keyword mapping, which is basically assigning relevant keywords to the various pages on your website after extensive research.

Once this is done, prioritize these keywords based on the difficulty of attaining the best results. Consider the list of keywords that you mapped for your page then check their organic rankings and click-through rates by using a tool such as Google Webmasters Tool.

Make those keywords that are already delivering traffic to your web page from organic results high priority.

3. Utilize Brand Keywords

One of the most important aspects of building your brand’s recognition involves optimizing your website so that it appears for keywords associated closely with your brand. These keywords could be related to your products, unique services or features of your company, and of course, the name of your company/brand.

Many of your competitors will be on the lookout for any keywords that you aren’t properly optimized for and may begin to try and steal rankings to help boost their own traffic. They can do this by building articles on why their product is better than yours, or by bidding on brand keywords in Google Ads so that they appear in the paid section of your search results page.

You can combat this by properly optimizing your website so that you take up as much SERP real estate as possible in these searches. Because it is a brand-based query, you should be able to take up more than just the #1 spot.

Another way to combat this is by bidding on PPC ad placements on your brand queries so that you take the #1 ad placement. This will either keep competitors from bidding on the keyword or cost them more to take the spot from you.

Having a strong presence on Google within your brand’s related keywords helps substantially in building your brand recognition and trustworthiness. Don’t let your competitors take all the glory for the products you built and worked hard to market.

Create High-Quality Content

Even the best-ranking keywords cannot compensate for poor content: you cannot increase your company brand awareness using keywords alone. Keywords will lead users to your site, then what? What’s in it for your visitors?

Assess the type of content you need to create in line with your list of keywords. You can get an idea by typing the keyword phrase on Google. Check out the first few posts that show up in the SERPs. You will have a rough idea of what type of content is ranking for that particular phrase. It could be product pages, blog posts, etc.

Identify the search intent and satisfy it using valuable content that the users who visit your website will find helpful.

If you are able to consistently satisfy user intent by satisfactorily answering users’ questions and adding value to their lives, you will in no time be able to raise awareness of your products and services. Users will identify your brand as their go-to place because it has consistently delivered value to them.

Integrate Other Marketing Channels with SEO

You can’t rely solely on organic traffic in today’s flooded online marketing space. Apart from increasing organic search traffic, integrate another marketing channel(s) to increase the visibility of your content.

Consider social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. The content you post on social media gets indexed by search engine bots. Create content that relates to your business and is relevant to users.

This is going to take extra effort and money, but it sure is worth it. As a matter of fact, 82% of marketing agencies think Social Media is an important part of their SEO strategy.

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Are you wondering how social media contributes to SEO and brand awareness? It’s important to remember that you can engage with people directly on social media. This allows you to build trust and establish your company’s authority among potential customers, and you can always direct users to the content you publish on your website.

If users’ engagement with your content is good, other websites will be encouraged to link back to your site, increasing back-link acquisition.

All these combined boosts your SEO performance. This not only increases brand awareness on the search engines but across all relevant channels.

To get the most out of social posts, optimize them as well for higher visibility. Encourage users to click on your site’s links by using the right hashtags in your posts. Using relevant and outstanding hashtags increases users’ rate of engagement with your brand and makes your company’s brand more discoverable.

If you are going to use social media to influence your SEO performance for improved brand awareness, you had better be in it for the long run. Make sure your posts are consistent and relevant. There are users who will only wait for your social media posts that direct them to the content you put up on your site. That means you have to maintain your social media presence and content on a high.

Build a Good Reputation

A user may land on your page by chance, or by way of trial. They may like what they see on your site but fail to trust your brand because they can’t see its track record.

Most people rely on reviews when it comes to trusting a brand. Reviews act like recommendations or tell potential customers to stay far away from certain companies.  According to a study by Google, 55% of millennials avoid brands with poor reviews.

Brand reputation is a representation of how a brand is viewed by other people. A good reputation indicates that your company is trusted by its customers and that its products and services are worth the trade.

A bad reputation, on the other hand, is an indication that there could be a problem with your products, services, or mode of conducting business. As a result, consumers will distrust your brand and avoid purchasing your products or services. The number of visits to your site is likely to reduce, affecting your SEO performance and company brand awareness.

Search engines such as Google consider reviews as user-generated content. Therefore, they are considered important and would affect your rankings in the long run.

So how can you improve your company’s reputation? Here are some tips:

1. Ask for Reviews from Your Customers

You can’t ask for reviews if you’re not confident about the quality of your products and services. You must first make sure you give your customers a very good experience. Ask customers to talk about their experience working with you in the “reviews” section of your site and on your Google My Business page.

If you can get reviews from influencers in your niche, or popular blogs, that would be a plus.

2. Avoid Anything That Affects Your Search Engine Ranking

Disavow low-quality backlinks that can jeopardize your rankings. This includes spammy and irrelevant links that could potentially harm your ranking. Disavowing is your way of instructing Google to avoid them.

You may have competitors who are out to destroy your brand and online reputation. Sometimes, they may start building or buying links to your website that will do nothing but harm it in the long run. Act immediately before they hurt your brand with negative SEO.

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Final Thoughts

SEO is vital when it comes to building brand awareness, and it’s important to incorporate it into your marketing strategy right from the beginning. Pay keen attention to keyword phrases – don’t just use them haphazardly. Carefully choose keyword phrases that promote business goals, improve your organic rankings on search engines and click-through rates.

Relevant keywords go hand-in-hand with quality content. This allows users to get value from their visit to your site; quality content will keep users coming to your site and proceeding to conversion.

A good SEO technique is much more dependent on the extra details than the technicalities of SEO itself. Good luck in building up your brand and we hope to see you in the search results of the future!