This week we take a look at how shifts in the engines over the last year have made it more important than ever to really pay attention to brand-based marketing.
A year or so ago, the engines started giving more weight to established brands, but things have become more interesting: With enhanced attention to personalized search, click patterns, and brand preferences emerging through individual search history, having an identifiable brand is a huge asset. Throw in the new aspect of social search--wherein the influences and preferences of your social network are used to influence inform your decisions, and creating an identifiable brand becomes even more powerful.
Watch this week's video to learn even more about how branding can help you accomplish big things...
By: Scott Willoughby
Whiteboard Friday - The Renewed Value of Branding
Whiteboard Friday
The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Very good and enlighting WBF (as always), and especially useful because Branding is a tactic that can be especialy indicated for the small to middle business (I think on B2B marketing).
And I liked the "war speech" at the end, that is able to give (at least to me) the will to investigate even more this more understandable 'marketing approach' towards Clients (maybe they don't understand what's SEO is, but yes they do care a lot about its Brand)
Finally, as my past in the traditional media, as an example of the new use of traditional media for a better presence/recognition of a brand online, could be used as example what did Google itsself with its adverts in the London and Amsterdam metro? It was about Chrome... a brand campaign was for sure needed as the iExplorer and Firefox are the obvious leaders in the mainstream browsers market (and also because next this year Chrome will also be a OS).
Ciao!
It's good to think we're WAY ahead other SEOs, knowing this privileged information.
I just got my boss, who's making a speech at local radio every month about the Web Opportunity in general, to have people search for keywords I know we're #2 on Google, instead of giving our website URL.
Thanks for this great post!
I might recommend you do that for terms where you're #1 and #2, but it's pretty natural for people to say "Google brand name" rather than "go to www.webaddress.com" and with personalization, social search, etc. that can have an impact.
I get your point... Thanks for the follow-up!
So much for the democratization of the Web. Only the big companies will be able to afford brand awareness campaign. One of the original goals of ranking algorithms was to level the playing field so that every joe had a shot at the top. Looks like Google is moving away from that.
That was my first thought too. Whatever happened to Internet marketing being accessible to all businesses?
I'd still say there's a massive opportunity for small sites and brands who understand the complexities of search marketing and web marketing to have a dramatic impact. Google's just recognizing that big brands tend to produce happier searchers and so they're trying to serve that market. We just have to make consumers happier with our stuff :-)
Yep, that's why I was thinking about SEO/Brand Marketing especially for B2B websites, as I think it can be easier in that market.
But I believe it can be an opportunity also for small business operating on a well define geographical area... for instance for Bed & Breakfasts websites which are heavily using Social Media Marketing in order to create communities with all their past and present guests.
Wasn't this like...always? The big get bigger and the small, some of them also get bigger but at a smaller rate.
Thanks Rand. Can we revisit a recent WBF in light of this?
Regarding value of inbound links in ranking well organically...should we think less PacMan (2/3 of algorithm) and more half moon now?
;-)
Thanks for your helpful inputs.
It will be interesting to see how much the other potential parts mentioned in the video will really effect SERPs.
And speaking of branding. I'm still waiting for my SEOmoz fanny-pack. Where is it Jen? I hope it didn't get lost on a UPS truck! :P
You're still waiting for your fanny pack? That makes me feel better ab. I'm still waiting for my seomoz branded 32GB IronKey Flash Drive...Jen???
Thanks Rand. It's pretty useful.
Developing your Brand with SEO is so crucial, a couple of my KPIs are Bounce Rate and Repeat visitor as well as Uniques and over the last year our bounce rate has dropped about 10%, with repeat vistior going up 6% consequently cutting into the new visitor share. All really based on working on pushing the brand and inturn increasing the volume of brand keyword searches.
Social Media is also a big factor in developing brand, twiiter has been very good for us. We are a B2B site but we do also promote our customer sites of which we power with our software, their customer base is more end user consumer. A good example is www.mapyourname.com of which we support, it has 360 million names on it and shows you where people with your surname live - Rand I just checked your name which it turns out orginates from England
https://www.mapyourname.com/en/instantatlas/reports/master/europe/single/atlas.html?data=%2Finstantatlas%2Fxml%2Fr%2Fdata%2Fforename%2Feurope%2Fdata_fn15426&name=RAND
Overall though by proxy here are developing our core brand names at different levels. Brand awareness/recognition for us is key to developing our customer base and SEO has helped us extend our reach with long tail queries becoming repeat branded based queries.
David
Wow... Galway Ireland, eh? Never knew I had an Irish name...
That's a really interesting site!
Yeah we created it for the father of geodemographics - Richard Webber, for some reason there is not one reference to Obama out of 360,000,000 names we have listed - ah well!
Glad you like
D
And on a less "important" level, there is not either the one of my mother's family... Scuffietti... maybe because there only 4 all over the world. ;)
Its just when you think 360 million is a vast amount of names and then you realise - well not really. Think Professor Webber still has a bit of work to do.
David
Very interesting WBF, thanks!
It's also very interesting to see how the online world now grows more and more to the real world, but better :)
I find it interesting to see how (and especially why) the social sphere is taken more and more into account in the search results. It does make me wonder however if we might see a repetition of the infamous keywords meta tag where after a few years of abuse it was dropped in relevance to SEO. I hope that won't be the case on social, but I also think that is much harder to accomplish, since the communities will self-engage on keeping a clean (non spammy) sheet. (*continues giving it some thoughts*)
The social sphere development is something that concerns me a lot. I think it won't do the SERPs any good.
Why? Well because I know that a lot of the people in my social circle (particularly facebook) aren't in my demographic, so it's a big assumption to make. For example, a lot of my friends like 30 Rock, a show that I don't enjoy.
So if I search "american tv comedy" and google brings up a results page that isn't only based on my personalised search but that of my social circle, it's not going to display the results I want to see, but rather the results my friend want to see. I know that it works both ways (them searching for a show they like, and I don't for example), but it's still a concern... Baaaaaad move.
Amazing whiteboard friday this week. My new job involves working with people who are rebranding, so it's coming at a perfect time!!!
One thing in particular that I like is the idea of using traditional media to improve rankings in a personalised search. After reading your article about the "Google Pontiac" advert in the 07 (?) SuperBowl, I was intrigued. Luckily, a client of mine is going to be producing a new radio campaign in a few months, so I'm going to suggest sticking "or Google xxxx" at the end of the clip.
@Traxor Just make certain that whatever you instruct them to Google, they "own" the top spots in those SERP's.
Yeahhh, I'll make sure - don't want my client to spend money on driving traffic to someone else's site. It's quite a new site, so the campaign may have to be postponed a few months or so. It'll be a great opportunity to perform some experiments too. So watch out for my site & YOUmoz, it's likely I'll be publishing the results.
Yet another great Whiteboard Friday. This is great forward thinking advice that any savvy marketer should pay attention to.
Great video, love it! I would only add that press releases are great tools that any SEO specialist/expert should have in his/her toolbox. Over and over again, at Hispanic Market Advisors, during our Spanish SEO campaigns for our clients, we notice targeted keywords making jumps from page 2 or 3 in Google search to top 5 positions in page 1. To illustrate, Google "franquicias" or "oportunidades de negocios" and you should find BuscaTuFranquicia.com home page listed in the first page of search results (at least in Google). Of course, to be effective, it would be imperative to submit your press releases to a service indexed by search engines: PRWeb (first one - most cost-effective for small business), Business Wire (EON - Enhanced Onine News), Marketwire (this is the one we prefer), or PR Newswire. Having said that, your press release will give indeed a great boost in keyword positioning, if well-optimzied, but you better send a keyword-rich press release every month or so to keep rankings high. Otherwise, if your releases are 3 - 6 months apart from each other, you may be outranked quickly...
I like the funky breakbeat in the intro...nice touch vs. the techno beats. Nice WBF, Rand. - Cheers!
Hi Rand, Another very interesting WBF as usual! Online branding has recently become an essential part of my SEO job role with targets being online awareness and presence opposed to simple traffic figures and rankings, as most companies are looking for.
It is interesting that you mention that personalized search has a significant impact on SEO. We are currently having the challenge of SEO reporting to different parts and levels of the business. CMOs etc are searching for on Google and say something similar to "on my computer it says we are no#3 not 10" This clearly indicates the power of personalized search without us having to explain it!
I also think that traditional media plays a significant role in the uptake and consumption of online search. A section of our business recently ran a campaign with the incorrect campaign URL, without passing it through us for approval. We subsequently had to quickly put up a holding page before a re-direct could be put in place. Our holding page ranked above our campaign site within 3 hours of the campaign being released and was in position 3 within 2 days simply, from users linking to the URL placed in the advertising campaign.
Looking forward to next weeks WBF!!!
About personalized search: what you said happened to me too just yesterday with a client... He was really wondering why he was seeing different rankings using different browser on his PC.
It was needed another session of "SEO education".
It's worrying to be honest. Some amateur SEOs will see it as a great opportunity to get their clients to search their own site in Google and click it so that they think they're ranking.
I always make sure I explain to clients that personalised search is now in effect and to make sure to clear cookies, cache, log out and add &aws=0 to the end of their query string...
Just found the Google History page by the way, I think we're slowly getting to the point where they're trying to store all the details they can. It's basically browsing in a virtual cloud...
Amateur? Maybe. Snake oil salesman? Definitely.
Yeah sure, this includes the snake oil salesman, but I think the amateur SEO will also see this as an opportunity because they won't look at further ramifications etc. Whereas people like you and I would look at the short term, long term, effects etc etc...
Hi Rand,
Really liked the WBF this week. I've just finished doing 2 workshops in the UK presenting SEO techniques for UK Local Government. I had about 60 data professional delegates across England and I would say only half had actually had some level of understanding of SEO. The .gov guys in the UK are being told to look at ways of making their sites more accessible with the aim of making public data public (MPDP). (Oh yeah! and with the UK election looming, don't be looking for bags of money to do it).
We create sites with our software called Local Information Systems (US equivalent is CIS "Community Information Systems"). The sites are sub-brands in themselves to their parent .gov.uk sites, so they need to engage the public more effectively without added expense. I think your video this week is going to be of great interest for them in think of how to integrate an SEO strategy for their Brands.
SEO for government/public health I think is big news, would love to see a WBF for these sectors someday.
Good Stuff
David
I agree... and honestly I believe that the .gov and polital seo (which the classic example of Brand) is something that really has big opportunity of exploitation.
At least is something needed here in Spain (where I live and where actually they are trying to use the web more and more with this purpose) and Italy (my market of reference, where - instead - not much has been done since now)... just think of the Silvio Berlusconi case (apart that he did all to affect his own "brand").
Hi Gfiroelli1,
I was quite astounded when I asked for a quick "hands up" from the delegates as to whether they had ever heard of SEO. Gingerly those hands did go up more than I was expecting. Some had really considered their sites from an SEO approach and well they are reaping the benefits of getting their local data to local citizens. The big story in the US and UK is the opening up of data - check out Nathan Yau's posting on data.gov v data.gov.uk here is a great example of how government are trying to open up data to the public - https://flowingdata.com/2010/02/04/data-gov-uk-versus-data-gov-which-wins/
We've done a couple of recent projects where SEO was considered e.g. https://www.statsandmaps.org.uk/statsandmaps/ and https://www.local-economic-monitor.org/ We provided a set of SEO tools for the delegates to consider. Also at this point the SEOMOZ was a great resource for our presentations, great having this on tap.
Its interesting what you say about what is happening in Spain, we have a couple of .gov clients there as well I'm pretty sure this will be the case. The UK market is pretty mature in online technologies so when delegates from places such as London & Oxford are going wide eyed during the presentation you know your on to something.
If you find yourself getting involved in SEO for Gov (Spain, Italian) etc. I would love to know, maybe we can pass ideas. We also have many public sector clients across South America and these issues are just as much a concern for them as well.
Regards
David
Surely, I will take in account your collaboration.
Actually we have not start anything on this side as SEO Agency, but we are in "looking for new markets" moment and were exactly thinking about .govs (that in Spain, as you probably now .gob.es, even if mostly they tend to use the simple .es) and political parties... here too soon will come the elections (locals first), and it seems that politicians has finally discovered the existence of the Web.
Post Scriptum: checked your site and find it very interesting... but you need and italian version too ;)
Very interesting you saying this about Elections as we're just about to promote a webinar on election mapping and reporting. Our site ranks very high on google for this term https://www.google.com/#q=election+mapping+and+reporting&hl=en&rlz=1R2ADFA_enGB367&fp=1
I am seeing a lot of traffic and leads now coming for this particular area, think we pulled in the South African Election Commission the other week who where looking for election mapping tools, would not have happened if we had not applied some SEO to our election content.
We've not looked at the Spanish markets yet - we kinda focus on "salud publica software" rather than elections but we are aiming to bring this in at some point.
I'll see what we have gfiroell1 regarding the Spanish markets, we're not selling SEO services to them as we deal with data presentation and mapping - your service would suit them better than ours.
David
I agree that politics is really an area that needs to explore web opportunities. One approach that has been very interesting from the perspective of community engagement and SEO is at The Stranger in Seattle.
Their Electionland and Questionland sites have been (sub domains of The Stranger) have used "applied" Q&A to allows their communities to ask questions of candidates directly.
It's primary benefit is the direct access to power. It provide a new model for journalist as host rather than middleman. Mayor McGinn of Seattle credited The Stranger for tipping the election in his favor.
Finally it's good SEO, and if done more, it would be GREAT SEO. Google "plans for south seattle" for example.
Innovative journalism, more accesible politics. The idea of applied Q&A where it is used to host experts and VIPs rather than simple community Q&A is a great evolution. We all know that Q&A is a great SEO tool, but now politicians and publishers can get the benefits.
I'm sure you're right on the money with the strength that branding has with Google Rand, but I wish I could just stick my head in a hole like an ostrich re: the social media portion of the branding equation.
I haven't personally latched hold of the twitter/facebook phenomena because I just don't have enough time in the day to manage it.
If it really becomes a serious ranking factor, I can see myself contracting out that portion of the SEO to someone else that is more heavily vested in it.
That's would be an intelligent outsourcing, especially when we talk of "one-man-agency" or a very small ones.
Just remind the tips of a past WBF that was about this topic.
I love me some branding, maybe bc I am a marketer first and an SEO second or third. Branding helps you distinguish yourself in a crowded competitive space. It helps people feel comfortable providing their information to you. It reduces bounce rates. It makes the site pleasant to look at and navigate. It makes you more worthy to be linked to. It makes you authoritative or appear so. It makes people proud to be involved with you.
Side note, I noticed, no clue how long they have been doing this, but on many search results on Yahoo, they give the you ability to click on relevant major brands to narrow your search for that term on just that site. Search for news in Yahoo and you will see on the left side options for CNN, Yahoo News and so on. I wonder how you get on their without being a top 2000 website. For instance, in some very competitive search terms we rank number 1 and even have an indented listing below it, but the side points you to a magazine source.
I used to look at branding in the same vein franchisegator. For me, branding meant "giving your company an appearance of authority" with an emphasis on appearance.
It was easy (easy being a relative term) to create a look and feel from a carefully crafted website. Clean logo, smart site, excellent copy, all conspired together to make the visitor assume "Hmmm, they must be the company I'm looking for. They look right"
But now branding has taken on a new meaning - How many mentions does the company get in social media, how often does this name come up in Twitter, etc.
Well... that's because Brand is something ruled by Marketers, who made of the concept of Brand a sort of synomin of "Universe".
A Brand is a Universe, and this Universe has some unique values (for instance imagine how different are Apple and Microsoft in these terms), so the people who 'fall in love' with the Brand will do it because of the values I'm transmitting as a brand and they will be my best evangelist.
Therefore, on a SERPs level, I will look for Brandized Products and Services... that's why Brand is becoming so important and that's why "keywords" rankings has to be influenced by the Brands.
The ironic is that we live in a Century that saw in its beginnings the 'No Logo' movement...
Another great post. Seems like many of the things mentioned are still developing / in flux. I'd love to hear more about specifically how Google is adapting to the real-time web. I have a relatively new site (6 months old) and we've focused mostly on social media which has only taken us so far. Traditional link building still seems to be very important.
It is also interesting to think about the challenges of getting the whole organization on board & thinking about branding from an SEO point of view. This is a challenge in my other marketing role. It is difficult to convince people to take SEO, social media, etc into account when it is so difficult to explain how it plays in to the ranking algorithm and ultimately leads.
Thanks for the WBF. It has answered a lot of questions. Our website has been number one for our main search term in Google.co.uk for about two years and I had noticed over the last few months we had slipped to number four. The first three places are now occupied by major players in our industry.Sadly for the potential visitor the content on each of these three competitors sites in nowhere near as comprehensive or useful for anyone trying to find our more about the search topic but if branding is now such a big factor in search results I can see why they are above us.
I was always under the impression that on the web the "small guy" could outmatch the "big guys" as long as the small guy was offering good content, etc, etc. This is going back to the way it always has been in the "offline" world.