I’ve read a few things lately on how brands rank highly because they have bigger SEO teams or attract a lot more backlinks. There’s no data to back this up, of course, and I’d argue that they’re completely wrong. Your brand affects SEO and you should be concerned with it. You want Google to chase you instead of the other way around.
Good technical SEO is a given, but after that if you focus on your brand and deliver a great user experience you won’t need to worry so much about Google. They’re going to have to rank you because you’ll have so much social proof they absolutely can’t ignore you.
The question lately seems to be, ‘what is brand?’. It’s the most important thing you should be working on for your business right now, so you should be sure you know what it is. Basically, your brand is a promise. It can be for an international company, but it can also be for a blog like Skinnymixers that shares recipes. Whatever you sell, your brand is a promise of quality, authority, and expertise in the books you write, or whatever it represents. People who know your brand know what you promise to deliver.
If you have a strong brand in your category, even if it’s as small as Thermomix mixed curried sausages, Google is going to have to rank you or it won’t be the great tool it’s always seen as. Your strong brand will cause people to look for you, and that’s what causes it to be such a determining factor in your Google rankings.
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Jim Stewart is a leading expert in search engine optimisation. His business StewArt Media has worked with clients including Mars, M2 and the City of Melbourne.
