Branding is petrol to SEOs fire

If you want to dominate search marketing, SEO alone won't cut it. Read actionable insights on how to brand your site for search.

There is always a queue, to get what you want
Written by James Doncaster, Digital Marketing Executive

Even if your brand appears on page one – this holds no guarantees that your brands search snippet will be clicked upon. Your brand needs to be recognised, trusted and to evoke affinity with the searcher, if you’re going to channel their intent.

It’s not enough to rely on historical search traffic data, it’s wrong to assume that barriers to entry will be low, and that you can just grab a chunk of existing search traffic.

To build search affinity and channel intent you roughly need to follow these stages

Stage 1: Build awareness (even if it’s blind)

At this stage – click through rates are not too important. It’s about associating your brand with trusted search terms – those generic to your product or services, towards trusted and well known websites – through contextual display advertising, to merely start to build user recognition and to stake a place in their consideration process. Even if people don’t read, they’ll often scan, and build blind awareness.

This is the online equivalent to traditional billboard / bus stand advertisements, purely for branding purposes.

Don’t focus on just your brand name

People won’t know who are you, at this stage – they won’t give you a split second of attenion.

To counter this – build attention towards the generic narrative and key phrases inherently associated to your brand or product. Release articles relating to generic broad industry topics, subtly referencing your brand.

This will boost the volume of non-brand searches relating to your service or product. You are effectively adding your fair share to the shared search volume which pre-exists, but the difference here is the proportion of non-brand searches will already be warm to your brand. You’re one step ahead of your competition.

Go big on visual

People read with their eyes. Dominate display adverts with a simple imagery which complements your brand messaging. Visually big, branding subtle.

This will help build pre-click awareness, this will help warm up searcher intent, before they even realise it.

Stage 2: Keyword Volumes

People swear by the Google Keyword Tool – but it should be taken with a huge pinch of salt. It is not gospel. It’s just a useful tool.

Use this tool for indication of market sizing and generic keyword search volumes, but do not solely rely on this process to decide upon your keyword grouping strategy.

Go old-school. Focus group your brand or service, what do your potential customers say about your brand – what phrasing trends can you deconstruct from these questionnaires / sessions?

Can you build up a consistent brand narrative by assimilating real life terms, and historical search data? No not entirely. But it should be enough to build a foundation to start framing your brands approach towards the keywords you target.

By jumping stage 1 and targeting the ‘most searched for’ keyword results which the Google Keyword Tool spits out, you’re missing a trick. You will have not built any pre-click searcher empathy or consideration. You’re likely to be ignored and your warm competitors may steal the generic product / service keyword traffic share you produce for your sector.

Stage 3: Intent

Searcher intent is a powerful beast. By stage three your brand should be recognisable and warm enough to be considered for a browse around for a first time visitor.

If searchers are warm to your brand pre-click, you’ve already broken down the barriers to entry towards the new market-share you’re looking to made headway. You’ll be more likely to hold trust, and affinity towards generic phrases framed by your keyword branding narrative.

If your brand isn’t warm pre-click, then you‘ll be less likely be able to channel searcher intent to your site.

Stage 4: Acquisition and conversion pay-off

Now they’re through the door – it’s up for your site to deliver, and continue the journey from pre-click to conversion.

If your brand is successful in offering a positive customer journey, then the whole process is rewarded, and ultimately your costs will go down.

People will invariably leave reviews on your brand, through external review sites, through Google, through blogs, through their social channels. These are fantastic user generated sources of trust, which as they grow, will reduce the need for your pre-click display and branding exercises in stage one.

Make sure your site is socially integrated with Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. Make it easy and intuitive for your users to share your content, and their experiences of using your site. The better service you offer – the quicker the process will pay off.

Intrigued? Get in touch

Published: 13 Feb 2012

Tags: Digital marketing