Why SEO Needs To Be Part Of Your Brand Strategy

On the internet people come to your website via 5 main traffic sources:

1. Direct traffic - people typing your website name directly into the URL search bar e.g https://franklyanalytics.co.nz/

2. Paid traffic - traffic that you pay for via display banners, Facebook ads, Google Ads etc.

3. Referral traffic - when a link is clicked on someone else’s website and it redirects to yours.

4. Social traffic - traffic from social platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

5. Organic traffic - People who search for things in Google and then click through to a website.

Organic traffic is what SEO is all about

SEO is the practice of making sure you show up in Google search which ultimately ends up in an increase in organic traffic, which should lead to more sales. What people don’t often realise though is organic traffic is split into two types:

Non-brand - people looking for products or services that are not associated with a brand e.g “running sneakers” or “best shoes to run in”

Brand - people looking for a brand or branded products e.g “Nike Running Shoes” or “Nike”

SEO strategies generally focus on increasing the traffic from non-brand searches, but often ignores how your brand is presented in search. On average well over 60% of your organic traffic is brand related so it makes sense to invest at least some of your time on brand related SEO activity.

What does this look like in practice?

If 1000 people search for your brand on Google per month but only 600 of those come to your website, why are the other 400 not coming to your website? Some of this is because the user never intended to come to your website, but another big reason is because your company and brand may look bad on Google. If someone searches you and you either can’t be found, display incorrect or outdated information and brand assets or have negative articles written about you, you will lose customers before they even reach your website.

Most brand, UX and digital agencies focus on making your brand look great at the website point, but in reality you need to look great at the search engine point, to give yourself a chance to even present your website.

This is where digital, CX and brand agencies should be working together to not only increase a client's visibility in non-brand searches, but also make sure that a company’s overall brand identity and values are reflected in branded search so that the you get the highest click through rate to the website and allow yourself to get the maximum amount of sales and acquisition possible. 

What tools are available to help with this?

When someone searches your name, more often than not Google My Business will come up, make sure this looks great and is always up to date. In conjunction, work your socials, incorporate your brand messaging into Google Ads and have positive PR that is reflected on Google when someone is searching you. If someone searches your brand you want to be able to “own the page” with positive content that reflects your brand values.