It’s very easy to get lost in SEO. You get caught up in the metrics and analysis, pulling in an audience, and coming in first on Google. Even if you do all of those things successfully, you can actually lose business if you lose sight of your brand identity. Imagine the excited freshman starting college. There are so many different things to learn but if they cast that net too far they will learn a lot but never establish themselves as an expert in one field. It’s your job to be an expert in your field, not to be all things to everybody. This concept is vital and it’s where brand identity and SEO meet in the most successful way.
We’re going to dive a little deeper into brand identity and SEO and explain how and why it truly does matter. Everybody knows that keywords are vital to web success as they actually serve as the short and simple definitions of what your website does or offers. In other words, they tell the search engines what buckets a website belongs in. But what happens once you’re in that bucket? How do you distinguish yourself from the rest? That’s what we’re going to look at today: the importance of your brand identity and SEO.
There are two key aspects to brand identity that are actually very important parts of SEO, but they often get left behind: Authority and Engagement.
Authority
A huge part of your brand identity is your level of authority. Again, if you’re that college student and you’ve taken a lot of different classes you don’t have much authority—although you’re probably pretty good at trivia. But if you’ve focused on one area of study and become a shining star in that arena you have some authority even before you graduate. As you progress through your career you’re going to build on that authority. A new website is that freshman and it’s all about letting the industry you’re in (the experts, competition, and consumers) know that this is your niche. As you progress to the senior level you’ll gain authority along the way by focusing on your area of study, making the right connections, communicating with valid responses and being associated in this field.
Search engines DO care about authority. They have been incredibly open about their desire to push the most authoritative and valid responses to queries to the top. Which you as a searcher yourself value. What they have not been very open about is how they rank authority. One can only assume it’s through engagement, links and back links, reviews and visitor responses and the age of the website and activity level on it. The overarching thought here, from an SEO perspective, is to simply be the best you can be in your field. There are no real shortcuts to establishing authority and there shouldn’t be.
Engagement
Now, while there are no shortcuts to establishing authority, there are ways to make sure you’re seen and recognized. Let’s go back to our college student. Sitting in the back of the class and being a passive learner will give you the same education but not the same experiences. Be the student that volunteers for assignments, that goes on field trips, that meets people working in the field and that contributes. There’s a reason some students are real stand outs. Business works the same way. Company A may have the same products as Company B but Company B is out there talking to people and engaging and creating relationships. It’s this level of engagement that earns them a place of trust with their audience that Company A will never achieve.
Once again, this is an area that search engines pay attention to and it’s one that we can see much more clearly. Imagine the social media campaign of Company B and how people are sharing information and ideas back and forth, pictures and videos are bouncing all around, comments and likes and reviews are cropping up everywhere; while Company A languishes in the back of the classroom.
Your website’s authority and engagement are vital parts of a good brand identity and SEO strategy but they often get overlooked because they’re harder to quantify. You can easily figure out how many times a vital keyword appears on a page and get you some statistics based on that. It’s more difficult to determine a website’s level of authority on a particular topic. Where are the metrics? The lack of clear cut mathematical data does not diminish the importance of these elements, in fact, it should actually reinforce the level of focus and effort that’s needed to establish authority and actively engage with your customers to create a brand identity that succeeds.
