10 Great Strategies Guaranteed To Improve Your Brand SEO
Branded SEO unfolds when users actively search your site by name and purchase your products and services. This is like striking a goldmine for your rankings in search engine, as well as for your conversions.
What are the strategies guaranteed to improve your brand SEO? The strategies for brand SEO are using the power of relevant brand keywords, being aware of ROBO/ROPO keyword queries, looking out for branded keywords of competitors, paying for your own brand keywords, gaining from navigational search intent, link building with high-quality websites, focussing on high commercial intent keywords, exploring value of local SEO, and monitoring brand search traffic.
Building a brand is rewarding because, other than positioning you as a credible name, it also places you high in the SERPs. Google encourages sites with a strong brand name, and hence branding and SEO have formed a close kinship.
There are about ten time tested strategies that are guaranteed to improve your brand SEO which we have listed here.
Let’s take a look.
1. Power Of Relevant Brand Keywords
Branded searching happens when users are looking pointedly for your brand name, or some form of your brand name. Users searching brand keywords are clearly demonstrating an intent to buy from you.
And you really raise your chances of conversions when you start scoring even with non-brand keywords. Make no mistake, Goolge will inevitably correlate your high search volume with your non-branded searches as well.
So invest time and effort in determining what your brand keywords are.
2.Be Aware of ROBO/ROPO Keyword Queries
Research online buy (purchase) Offline (ROBO/ROPO) is an emerging trend, where the consumer commences their shopping process online, but completes the purchase off-line. The latter happens in a brick and mortar store.
According to statistics,this strategy is used by 82 % of consumers , according to Retail Customer Experience.
Why do consumers do that?
Because studies say ROBO behaviour helps consumers make more informed decisions.
And what’s more? They can satisfy their queries at the click of a mouse.Naturally, the trend continues to grow.
So customers who use those peculiar search queries online, are ready to buy. And usually you may find that those search terms are loaded with brand-keywords.
This is also where you step in with your brand SEO awareness.
In fact, there are various online tools for tracking ROBO behaviour, including Google Ads Store Visits feature. But that’s a study by itself and not in scope for this article.
However we encourage you to get started with this strategy as early as possible for the growth of your site.
3. Look Out For Branded Keywords From Your Competition
It is legitimate within Google’s terms to obtain quality traffic and clicks by bidding for competitor’s keywords. The only condition to bear in mind, is not to use trademarked words in your ads. Nor should you mislead the customer about the source of the goods and services being promoted.
This what Hallaminternet.com says about brand exposure from competitor keyword bidding “If people are searching for a competitor within your industry, they are in the market for something they provide. Using the competitor’s name as a keyword, and advertising for their terms, you can start to make these potential customers aware of your brand name and what you offer”.
In short you can leverage your brand with your competitor’s brand name, provided you conform to the Google guidelines.
Now if you have the financial ability to support this, definitely go ahead and work on that competitor bidding.
4. Pay For Your Own Brand Keywords
Leading brand SEO experts advise you to pay for your own brand’s keywords.
Though at the outset it sounds counterintuitive, there is merit in the case.
The prime reason to bid for your brand keywords is that,if you don’t do it, inevitably your competitor will bid for it. Particularly when they see your own brand topping the SERPs.
As of now, it’s understood that almost 64% of online consumers invariably click on Google Ads. That shows the potential customer base you stand to lose, or gain if you bid for your brand keywords.
5. Gain From Navigational Search Intent
Navigational searches are conducted to search for specific sites or addresses online. So the best gain from navigational intent is for those sites which own that brand site.
And yes your site must instantly show up for all organic searches. Particularly if it carries a good brand value.
Experts now advise that it is best to buy these navigational intent keywords yourself. This way, you doubly make sure that your site will invariably show up for all searches, whether paid search, or organic .
6.Link Building With High-Quality Websites
If your company has a brand already, or if you have a branded product for offer on your site then you have a great opportunity for link building.
Remember that your brand represents your unique selling proposition (USP),and your core values.
This is what attracts your tribe, or your audience. They trust your credibility, your authority.
With that in mind, imagine if you can spot your site on other highly credible and trusted sites in your niche. What would that do for your reputation? And your brand value?
The answer obviously is – humongous good.
So experts today (rightly) believe that brand building is the new link building. The more you focus on your expertise ,authoritativeness, trustworthiness (EAT),the more your brand blooms. Automatically more visitors flock to you, more sites will link out to you.
How cool is that for SEO. Brand SEO works!
7. High Commercial Intent Keywords
When you employ branded keywords, your audience already knows you because of repeated exposure to your brand.
Besides that, there’s another facet we need to be aware of.
That is the user’s intent to buy from you. His intent emerges from the use of specific transactional keywords .
Over time, these keywords will inevitably match your brand keywords.
Users searching for specific information will be showing a high commercial intent, because they’re already aware of your brand. It is likely, they have already purchased your product, before doing a search for your brand once again.
And this is the juncture when you need to thrust in a combination of search efforts, which include images, videos, local packs etc.
Also now is the time to include your brand name alongside your product or service, that you are featuring for.
8. Explore The Immense Value Of Local SEO
Statistics say that almost 46% of searches contain a local commercial intent.
Local SEO is useful when your product or service is searched for by users in geographical proximity to your business.
In case you run a salon business, or a restaurant, be assured that you’ll have more local customers searching for you than otherwise.
What’s more? Technology can tell you when user search volume has increased for your site.
This is when you enhance your reach by emphasis on location targeting. This is essentially, a process of iteration(trial & error), in which you progressively optimise SEO.
It takes time, but the results are very promising eventually. Some sites like BrightLocal.com offer services of this nature.
So what should you do,in order to have a successful local SEO strategy?
Here’s what:-
1.Stay focused on what your local target customers are actually searching for.
2.Get increased traffic from local searches through the use of local posts on Google. This helps immensely in optimizing business listings on Google
3.Become specific and relevant. Include aspects like size, colour, make, model etc in product description.
4. In your campaigns invariably use your brand’s name and product name.For your brand images, remember to optimize the Alt Tags.
5.Include your business description on local business reviews, and maximum local business content.
6.Offer an excellent user experience( UX )by configuring a responsive and a mobile-friendly website design. That’s because a lot of businesses are learning things the hard way.This becomes all the more important since Google has declared it’s emphasis on UX through their recent page experience update
7.Your brand perception is enormously impacted through your page performance ratings. So take care to improve your SEO by increasing page loading speeds . Doubtlessly, this factor is affecting dollar returns like never before.
9. Monitor Your Brand search traffic
Once you monitor and track your metrics, it helps to improve things better. That’s why the saying goes “what you can measure, you can improve”.
So use Google Analytics to understand how many people access your site by searching for your brand keywords, and how many conversions you are getting per page.
Also track the volume of search for your brand keyword with Google Keyword Planner.
With your tracking efforts, you eventually learn to figure how much branded traffic you’re getting and how much more effort is required.
10. Contribute Guest Posts On Other Sites In Your Niche
Contribute your thoughts also on important sites like Inc.com, Fortune, Copyblogger (and many more) to expand audience reach, and to increase traffic for conversions.
Guest posting not only spreads your word faster and further, but it also builds your authority and credibility in the long term.
Make no mistake, that is going to bolster your brand reputation enormously.
Conclusion
Whether you pay for your own branded keywords, explore ROPO queries, or invest in local SEO improvements, branded SEO is here to stay.
The timing for your branded SEO efforts is never wrong. That’s because customers who know your brand,and want to purchase from you will reward you with great conversions anytime you swing into action.
So as a brand owner and a website owner you owe something to your target customers.
You owe it them to optimise your site for your brand and also offer them a great user experience.
And what’s your gain in the deal?
An enduring brand name that ranks in SERPs, and that which pulls in customers.