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Advertising is a key part of running a business. In the online business world, Google is one of the most powerful forms of advertising that you can take advantage of. However, in order to feature highly in Google search results, you first need to establish a strong web presence. Establishing your company as a brand will really help you to go higher up the ranks.
The question is how exactly do you define yourself as a brand? What does it involve and how can you do it?
Why Establishing a Brand is Important
One of the main reasons why Google will be helping bigger brand names on the site is because it is trying to filter out spam. There is a ton of useless, spam content that the company has to deal with. One of the ways in which they can combat this is by recognising the bigger branded companies.
By increasing your presence on the net, you will gain new exposure to potential clients and you will have a better reputation. In order to improve your brand status you will need to do a lot more than just target a few keywords.
How to Establish Yourself as a Brand
One thing that Google will look for is the quality of information that is found on your site. If you take look at large well known companies such as Sony, you will find that there is very little spam on the site. The information found there is useful and relevant. That is what you need to ensure your website is offering.
Is the content on your site relevant to the product you are selling? What can the visitor gain from your site that they cannot get anywhere else?
Another thing that Google looks for is keyword content. If you are focusing on keywords then they need to look natural in the text. Articles should not be too keyword rich. You should also try to include your company name in the anchor text too.
You also need to increase the amount of people who are searching for your brand. You will find that this happens naturally as your website becomes more popular. Direct searches for your company will not happen overnight. You will need to advertise and draw in traffic using other keywords too.
One great way of establishing yourself as a brand is to use social networking sites. Facebook and Twitter are two great sites to use. These have millions of users every single day. Creating a business page will help you to build up an online presence. Similarly you can use same niche blogs to advertise your business. Reply to posts and get your brand noticed.
Avoid spam replies however as these will just give your company a bad reputation. Only make a post if there is something relevant that you can say.
It is also worth using offline advertising too. Flyers for example can give a link to your website. Consumers can then log on directly to your site or they may search for you on Google.
Once Google has established you as a company, any mention of your brand will be picked up by the site. Therefore if there is a recommendation or a link to your site on a different website, Google will pick up on it. They want companies who are popular and if you are getting mentions from other sites then that will make you more popular.
These are the best tips that you can follow to establish yourself as a brand. Remember, these days Google is interested in a lot more than a few keywords!
This post was kindly sent to us by Lior who is a marketing advisor at Kitchen Stools Direct, a bar stools and kitchen stools company from London.
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Twitter: russellmaej
Branding is very, very important especially when the product that you are endorsing or selling is not very known to the public. However, you should be cautious as to where you market your brand because “bad sites” can hurt your reputation.
Twitter: bodynsoil
Great article, easy to read and understand. I am working on all the key features you discuss and hope to see continued success in raising my rankings.
Twitter: DennisEdell
This is the one thing I’m having the most trouble with since deciding to use my namesake as my domain name.
Twitter: digitalbunch
Good tips! These tips are needed for every single website owner to get great reputation behind Google.
Thanks for sharing.
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I agree with much of what Lior is saying here. To add to it, Google is getting better and better at recognizing true value. Relevance is the easier part of the equation, but developing algorithms that can determine real value is what they are after.
As a small publisher or even a webmaster for a large company, creating a large amount of value is definitely challenging, especially since “value” is generally subjective.
Striving to consistently create high quality content is a good thing to do in order to achieve that much sought after high-trafficked website.
Nick
Twitter: ronniedare
Very well explained. Indeed branding nowadays is a main key ingredient in terms of Google search.
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Hello, everyone, I am David and I am relatively new to the internet and new to blogging. I find that bloggers are some of the most helpful and informative people anywhere. Blogs are where I get most of my information. Thank You for this post. I probably am in need of a mentor or a coach. I am obviously a long way from eatablishing myself as a brand but I have heard this advice in other places. Thanks again.
My fear is that the internet will be for the big boys only. I have a small business and with the amount of work required to submit posts on social media, twitter and alike along with listing your site in directories and so on, it is just too much. I’m beginning to find there is more value in paid offline advertising rather than trying to compete with big companies on the net.
Twitter: chattanoogaseo
I don’t know about that Sony website… I usually only find marketing stuff on their and not a lot of real information about how to use the products in any real way. Is a site that is just jam packed with marketing considered SPAM?
Maybe I should watch that episode of Monty Python again to refresh my memory on what SPAM is.
Twitter: Witty_Money
Nice points you’ve made here, Karen. Keyword can backfire you if Google sees too much of it. As for the tweets, I agree with you. Just tweeting or re-tweeting something without any relevance could make you look spammer for them. Being a newbie and not having carefully read the rules, my Twitter account has been suspended: I had more RTs that tweets – and I did carefully select what I re-tweeted. Now I’ve learned my lesson.
Branding can be a great way to get traffic and better conversion.
Going viral with something will definitely help setting your brand. Of course you don’t have much chance of becoming a strong brand like Sony, but you don’t need that to be succesful.
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