Over the years, SEO has included online branding as an important aspect of allocating page ranks. Considering brand signals as a search factor has made it easier for Google to figure the authority and authenticity of websites. That most of the top brands occupy the top ranks in the SERPs is not by accident or just due to their deep pockets but rather because the algorithm tends to favor strong brands. Therefore, it follows that if you want to increase your online visibility, you will need to boost your brand signals.
Determining Brand Signals
The central point from the perspective of SEO is that search engines give more credence to brands that are mentioned more in external sources for ranking websites. This means that marketing managers need to boost brand search volume and direct them to their websites. Some of the proven brand signals include brand name anchor text, branded searches, the number of likes on the Facebook page of the brand, brand Twitter profiles with a large number of followers, the official brand or company page on LinkedIn, co-citations that involve brand mentions that do not have hyperlinks, and mentions of the brand on news websites.
How to Boost Brand Signals to Improve SEO
As per https://www.searchenginejournal.com, there could be thousands of strategies that could be implemented as an integral part of a custom-tailored SEO stratagem. Hence, once it has been proven that brand signals play a pivotal role in boosting the visibility of your business in the SERP (search engine rankings page); you must learn to implement certain effective tactics.
Create Content Highlighting Expertise of Your Brand
When you are consistently creating content that highlights effective solutions responding to the challenges presented by the consumers, it would go a long way in establishing your brand as a stalwart in the industry. We know that a brand’s content would be helping search engines to understand clearly what the brand is all about and this facilitates the brand name to be related to the search.
Opt for Press Coverage
You could leverage press coverage for building authority as that is supposed to be one of the most effective methods to implement. Just like human perception, we know that search engines would perceive a specific business as an industry authority provided the brand is mentioned by the press. When your business gets press coverage, there is a definite boost in the overall perceived authority of your brand by search engines and people alike. A website audit report can help you to identify areas of concern.
Consider Being a Guest Contributor
It is quite beneficial to become a guest contributor on a well-known media channel. The most amazing thing is that you could expose your brand to a much broader audience. This should result in a definite boost in the number of clients, leads, and ultimately conversions. Guest blogging could be a great way of being acknowledged as an authority of a prominent media channel and this could impact positively your overall brand image. This could be an effective way of generating traffic, creating brand impressions, and building trustworthy signals that could be utilized by search engines for evaluating the expertise and importance of your site.
Build & Boost Your Overall Social Media Following
Experts believe that your specific brand’s greatest source of effective brand signals is the activities performed on the various social media platforms. It is crucial to build a robust brand presence on all social networking sites. Creating amazing and engaging content is supposed to be a proven technique of acquiring bigger social media following. You could experience a huge generation of brand signals provided you are coming up with useful and awesome content. You could focus on sharing posts from others especially, those that are regarded as valuable for your customers. This could be an excellent stratagem for appearing on the radar of your influencers and win over their followers.
Focus Your Attention on Developing Content Assets
You must focus on creating content assets that have evergreen appeal. This way you could keep on acquiring brand mentions, social shares, traffic, links, conversions, and leads. Your brand would be present on the radar of your audience by constantly generating foundational content.
Promote & Popularize Campaigns via Social Media
You must focus your attention and efforts on generating content that have the potential of becoming viral online. This way your brand could easily get discovered. That is pretty good in terms of new followers, impressions, potential loyalists, and readers.
Alternatives to SEO for Increasing Brand Search Volume
Branded search queries are among the most important methods of boosting brand signals. Unfortunately, SEO activities are notoriously poor in creating brand signals, which makes it necessary for marketers to consider using alternate channels for the creation of branded searches and consequent brand signals. These channels include billboards, TV, radio, direct mail, and more. However, many of these activities are too expensive for small businesses, which force them to consider other marketing channels that are more low cost. Typical channels include remarketing or displaying advertisements to remind people who have already visited your website as well as social media advertising that can potentially create brand awareness at a much lower cost due to the huge reach. Hosting webinars is a very effective method for showcasing domain expertise and creating brand awareness while speaking engagements too can create awareness among audiences that may not know about you. Additionally, email marketing that is typically used more to elicit action from those who are already aware of your brand, is a good method to involve and engage customers who are likely to indulge in more brand searches.
Marketing channels that are conventionally used to create brand awareness and drive demand can also generate a larger volume of branded searches. These include TV and radio advertisements mentioning the website address, billboards, and direct mail with compelling CTAs for visiting the website to avail of incentives not available otherwise. In the real world, target audiences use a variety of channels to learn more about products and services. This means that you should not restrict yourself to using only SEO to drive brand awareness through branded searches.
Conclusion
We understand that when more quality signals are generated from external sources pertaining to a specific brand, search engines would be in a better position to understand and acknowledge the importance and worth of the brand. If you are thinking in terms of establishing your brand as a trustworthy source and boosting your overall search visibility, you must never undermine the power of brand signals.
