3 Most Effective Ways to Build a Powerful Brand with SEO

Do you know that Google receives nearly 4.2 billion search queries daily? Also, 75.1% of all clicks for a query are garnered by the top three Google search results?

Is your website lost in the ocean of search results?

To get to the top the SERPs, your website needs on-target SEO Services among other things. And, SEO should be a priority, not an after thought.

Even Google thinks so. Google says that brands need to implement an SEO strategy as early as possible, preferably when they launch a site.

A well-crafted SEO strategy can help you build brand awareness, drive qualified traffic to your site, and beat the competition effectively.

Impressive, right?

In this post, I will explain how to build your brand using three tried-and-tested SEO tactics.

Let’s get started.

How Can You Leverage SEO for Brand Building?

Brand building through SEO is not a simple task. It starts even before you build your branded website, in the planning stage. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t improve your brand’s positioning on Google later.

You can leverage the SEO hacks mentioned below to refine your SEO strategy and build your brand.

1. Nail Branded Searches

As the name implies, branded searches are queries that contain your brand name. Most of these searches have high purchase intent since searchers already know basics about your brand.

Apart from organic searches, your brand needs to perform well in branded searches as well.

Why, you ask?

Several SEO correlation studies prove that brands that perform well in branded searches also rank higher in organic searches. In fact, branded search volume improves your rankings even more than domain authority (DA).

Image via Moz

This means that even if your site is fairly new or your DA is less than desirable, you can hope for a good rank if you ace branded searches. To do this, you need to have branded keywords and/or generate branded searches.

Another obvious reason why branded searches matter is that they bring qualified traffic to your site. Visitors who are typing queries about your brand can convert faster than random visitors who stumble upon your site through organic searches.

Before I tell you ways to rank higher in branded searches, let’s take a look at the four types of branded searches on Google.

(a). Branded research-online-purchase-offline (ROPO) queries

Searchers who type these queries are in the final stages of the sales funnel and are ready to convert.

Image via Google

(b). Brand comparisons

The searchers are in the middle of the funnel and comparing your brand with your competitors.

Image via Google

(c). Navigational search queries

These are queries with only your brand name and are used to reach your site.

Image via Google

Ideally, your site should rank at the top in organic as well as paid searches.

If you are not dominating the SERPs for navigational queries, it doesn’t reflect well on your brand. It could mean that a competitor has bought your high-converting branded terms. They can manipulate your brand messaging and hijack valuable click opportunities from your brand.

You can use tools like SpyFu and SEMrush to check out the keywords for which your competitors are bidding. You will have to invest in pay-per-click (PPC) ads and bid to reclaim your branded keywords. I know it sounds wasteful to buy keywords that you are ranking for organically, but it’s unavoidable.

The good news?

Branded keywords are light on your pocket and have low competition. Plus, you can drive people to your best-performing landing pages and multiply your conversions.

(d). High-intent keywords

These include your brand name along with your featured products or services.

Image via Google

You can improve your branded search volume in these ways:

• While searching for branded keywords to target, don’t restrict yourself to your brand name. Include your URL, products, and key features as well.
• Include common typos and misspellings of your name.
• To get people to search for your brand, leverage omnichannel marketing. Pick the marketing channels that are suited to your domain, audience demographics, and budget.
• Spread the word about your brand by collaborating with relevant influencers and brand advocates.
• Think up interesting and enticing marketing strategies like giveaways and contests.

2. Ace On-Site SEO

Branded searches can capture searchers with higher purchase intent. However, organic searches are the best to attract consumers in the awareness stage.

Don’t believe me?

One in two millennials has purchased from a brand that they didn’t know about, just on the basis of organic searches on their mobile phones.

If you optimize your site’s HTML structure from an SEO perspective, your brand can rank higher in organic search results on Google and grab the attention of searchers.

You can apply these tactics to nail your on-site SEO:

(a). Add Keywords in Your Site URL

The Backlinko research cited earlier showed that perfectly matching the keywords you are targeting to your site URL can improve the click-through rate (CTR) tremendously.

Image via Backlinko

A partial query-keyword match also works, though not as well. So, try to keep your page URLs as close to their target keywords as possible.

The clincher?

Even Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide recommends that you use URLs that resonate with your site’s content, which coincide with the target keywords of the site.

Image via Google

(b). Optimize Your Title Tags

The same study also found that you can add a question to your title tags to improve the CTR by 14.4%.

The reason?

Most of the time, searchers are looking for answers to their questions on Google. Naturally, a title tag with question words will map perfectly with relevant search queries and will be indexed higher by Google crawlers.

Title tags should be between 15-40 characters long since they have the best CTR. Longer title tags have more scope to add keywords but they receive fewer clicks than shorter tags.

Avoid using power words in your titles, like ultimate, best, robust, greatest, and more. They can pull down your CTR by 13.9%. Google prefers conservative headlines and considers these terms to be clickbait.

Check out the top three search results for the query “how to write post headlines.” You would expect posts with titles such as “How to write insanely powerful headlines” to be a winner, but surprisingly, all the top results are pretty tame.

Image via Google

You can use headline analyzer tools like CoSchedule to check your title’s strength.

Interestingly, emotional title tags get a thumbs up from Google. Titles with negative or positive sentiment are ranked higher than neutral titles. Here is an example to demonstrate this point:

Image via Google

Last but not least, front-load your keywords in your title tags since Google crawlers read from left to right.

Write the Perfect Meta Description

Google recommends that you write a unique meta description for each page since they are used for generating snippets for search results.

Keep these points in mind while composing meta descriptions for your pages:

• Include the target keywords towards the beginning of the description.
• Maintain character limit between 155 and 160.
• Don’t overuse keywords.
• Create urgency in readers by stating how the page will deliver value to them.

Enrich Your Page Content With Keywords

Stuffing keywords is one of the top SEO mistakes that marketers and writers commit. A better way is to use keywords strategically so that your content is attractive for Google crawlers and useful for readers.

Apart from embedding keywords in your page titles, you should include them in the sub-headings as well. It’s also important that the keywords appear in the introduction of your post or banner image captions.

If your page has images, make sure that their file names are optimized just like page URLs.

Use semantically-similar keywords (LSI keywords) throughout your page content, as naturally as possible.

Image via Google

3. Pay Attention to Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to the activities outside your website that impact your search rankings.

Building backlinks with authority websites is at the heart of off-page SEO. Google considers sites with a strong backlink profile as trustworthy and ranks them higher. Such sites also find it easier to attract visitors and potential customers.

You can use tools to analyze your backlink profile. These tools analyze the equity of your backlinks for these factors:

• DA of the sites backlinking to your site
• Relevancy of the linked content to the context of your page
• The freshness of the backlink

If your backlink profile is weak, you can use these tactics to strengthen it:

• Detect and replace all broken links by requesting that the linking sites update the links.
• Write guest posts for high-authority websites and include your links in the post content.
• Earn backlinks with easily-shareable visual assets like infographics.
• Replicate the backlinking strategy of your competitors by setting up Google alerts to notify you when and where their articles are published.
• Write testimonials for sites of brands and products you are using. There’s a good chance you will be provided with a link in return. You can also participate in online podcasts or webinars with popular channels in your domain.
• Exchange links with websites that publish successful blogs or post weekly round-ups.

Here is an example:

Image via Google

Need a pro tip?

If you use email marketing (with an ROI of $40 per $1 spent, who wouldn’t?), you can use emails to encourage your contacts to link to your site. This works both ways. Your site earns valuable backlinks. Plus, your newsletter gets more subscribers as your contacts explore your site and find valuable content there.

These are some of the ways you can build your brand’s authority in your niche and earn a place among Google’s favorites.

Ready to Build Your Brand Through SEO?

SEO is a fast-evolving space. Whichever SEO tactics you use to grow your brand, understand that Google, as well as consumers, favor brands that are trustworthy and credible.

Do you have any questions about the tactics I’ve covered in this article? Write them in the comments. I’ll be glad to answer.