The development director for Google’s algorithm from time to time changes some rating factors to make it more difficult for businesses and websites to position themselves on the search engine and that SEO and branding experts around the world have to work harder.
It does not make much sense that this happens, right?
Google’s algorithm and its evaluation criteria obey higher purposes than making it difficult to position. It is about delivering the user the most relevant results and improving their experience.
Nowadays, false news on the internet is readily available, and the amount of unreliable information circulating on the Internet and the content posted by many companies are the root cause for it. That is why we must see how to combine SEO and Branding to stand out among millions of brands.
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Positioning on Search Engines and Positioning in Mind
When we talk about positioning as a component of the value of a brand, we understand it as the place it occupies in the mind of a consumer.
We must first understand that the brand is not just the physical part of a product such as characteristics, a name or logo. The brand is an intangible construct. It is the relationship that is created between the product and its attributes with the perceptions, emotions, feelings, and reasoning of people to give an identity and a place in the mind of a consumer.
It is a game of scales, value and experience that associates attribute with their importance and usefulness. It is what people think and feel about your product, service or company.
On the other hand, many believe that it is enough to know the “tricks to overcome the Google algorithm.” It is a common misconception that the location, density and use of keywords, link building, and meta-descriptions that apply to any content are all you need to make sure for good SEO and you’re done!
When we talk about positioning on search engines, it’s not about the physical element only. We also talk about creating an experience in its broad sense where the relevance and value of content plays a preponderant role.
If we see it from this point of view, we see that SEO and Branding go hand in hand to build an experience that corresponds to the expectations and needs of customers.
What goes first between Branding and SEO
First the Brand
The brand is a broader element and a primary component of the marketing mix. It is inevitable to determine that the creation and maintenance of a solid brand have greater importance and priority for your company.
Simply put, branding is the process of creating and developing brands, which is a permanent job that requires planning, execution, and control to ensure that your company’s values are reflected in response to the expectations that you have implanted or want to implant in the mind of consumers.
An element of branding is the experience that your brand offers. It is about balancing expectations and promises with the stimuli, perceptions, feelings, and thoughts that are generated in the client when he is in contact with it, from the moment of discovery to loyalty.
This experience is composed of different factors such as the consistency, relevance, and differentiation that this contact with the brand offers them; and the assessment that the consumer consciously or unconsciously makes against the expectations and promises.
This is where SEO and Branding come to work together
As we discussed earlier, the purpose of changes in the algorithm of Google and other engines is not a matter of whim. Google wants people to find what they are looking for. They are in the business of improving user experience, and that is what led them to be the number one search engine in the world. This is why they are constantly looking for a way to deliver relevant and authentic content that matches the search terms that the user enters.
What do you prefer to find: quality content about your search or the content that best “understands” how to put keywords? Surely you chose the first, and that is the general logic of the equation.
As Artificial Intelligence advances, machine learning and understanding of how and what people look for in engines also advances. It is almost a given that properly built brands gain more ground in the search results, if and only if, they offer content of value to their consumers.
In this sense, SEO has become more and more a tool associated with branding than just a technique of articulation of words and elements within a web page.
It is not to say that we should not apply SEO to our website. What we are talking about is the belief that SEO is a fundamental part of building brand authenticity and loyalty through digital media, particularly search engines. We must know the tools, tactics and “tricks” so that we are found on the internet easily, but this is not the only thing that you must work on if you want to position yourself on search engines.
You must offer a complete and adequate experience to the expectations of the clients on your website because the algorithms now involve characteristics beyond the keywords and meta-content such as:
- Usability
- Accessibility
- Relevance
- Speed
- Mobile browsing
- Credibility
Of course, brand authenticity is not built solely by its presence or interactions on digital platforms. However, all brands must be involved with an increasingly digitized economy and its hyper-connected and hyper-informed consumers.
Therefore, the response to SEO today and the future is in solid brands.
Building a brand on digital media, as part of your overall branding strategy is essential. In turn, a brand well positioned in the minds of consumers makes direct searches a greater possibility, raising the position in the search results.
Let’s see a very simple example from branding to SEO:
Suppose you are looking for running shoes. Google is going to deliver these results to you:
You will find results of various brands, but if for you the running shoes must be Nike, surely your Google search will look something like this:
So, a comprehensive branding job (in the real world and virtual world) has built the perception in consumer minds that Nike is the best solution for their need. Hence, they are directly redirected to the purchase options of this particular brand, compared to just looking “running shoes”.
That means, in terms of the search engines, the more people look for “Nike Running Shoes”, the better and more relevant results they have.
Now, let’s see how SEO would work towards branding and brand authenticity:
Suppose, you were looking for a white label SEO program that would help you position your brand better on digital media, particularly search engines.
Your company has based its marketing and sales on events and account management. Now you need to introduce it to the digital marketing environment to take it a step further.
As a customer, you have only one motive of hiring an SEO service: “I want my company to appear in the first results of Google.”
Your company belongs to a specialized market, very segmented, and wants to concentrate on digital media, so it is obvious that search engine optimization – SEO – will play a key role in achieving this goal, but how to achieve it?
The answer is to approach it more broadly from the point of view of the brand and experience, offering relevant, authentic, and high-quality content that builds the necessary reputation, boosts confidence and in turn, generates a multiplier effect in the search engine’s algorithms and on other digital media.
The brand’s authenticity, it’s positioning, and the development of a complete experience are superior elements in the marketing mix. As we always say, it’s about people and how to connect with them.
SEO can help brands take advantage of its innumerable benefits like building reputation and trust to better position search results. On the other hand, through the classic optimization techniques and a superior experience for users of Google and other engines make sure that people find what they are looking for and that the result is the content of real value for them. Both of these factors contribute to the development of your brand’s authenticity.
