Brand Building is the most viable SEO strategy for the future for the small and less known companies to compete against the big and known brands.
Google always gives brands a preferential treatment in terms of better rankings with fewer links. They do get “penalized” for improper conduct obviously like everyone else. But they do resurface in a couple of days and regain their search engine positions in Google much quicker than the small brands or less known companies.
Small brands on the other hand never get the benefit of the doubt. They need to earn twice as many links to compete against the big brands and never resurface. Or if they do resurface they rarely get the same position in the google search engine results.
Obviously, you don’t want to miss out on the chance to accelerate your business and let google ignore you as a small brand. There’s virtually nothing else you should focus on in 2018, besides building a brand. Big brands will get showcased in the SERPs. And small companies will be left in the dust.
The reason is you don’t keep a tab on the Google updates, their policies, changes, search engine ranking algorithms, and important updates.
SERPs are Changing Dramatically
Google is well known for tinkering and changing their algorithms many times in a year. But it isn’t just the algorithm updates you should pay attention to. The cause and effect of layout adjustments also change user behavior. For instance, featured snippets have been on the rise recently.
A featured snippet is a summary of an answer to a user’s query, which is shown on top of Google search results. It’s extracted from a webpage and includes the page’s title and URL.
The knowledge panels got a serious boost in visibility, for starters. Search terms that once had featured snippets, now have gone full knowledge panel.
And all those related searches above have it now, too. Even a generic search for “travel” will show you the Wikipedia link on the top and the images of travel destinations on the right.
So, what’s happening?
Google is trying to answer the query in a knowledge panel from the content posted by other people. The best part of this change is that the visitor doesn’t need to click the link to view the source or read the content.
Where searches for “travel” would once pull up travel-based blog posts or definitions from the travel websites, Google now pulls data directly into the SERPs.
And most of that content is coming from huge brands and definition-based sources like Wikipedia.
That means the larger chunk of the helpful content is narrowed down to a few big players.
People don’t have to click on an organic listing to get information anymore. And currently, only one brand is being featured in a given knowledge panel.
Fewer people are clicking on actual search engine listings now. We’re currently at a 60/40 split.
Only 60 percent of searches on Google results in a click. That’s 40 percent generating zero clicks. And this would go down to almost 50 percent soon.
And for smaller brands trying to gain the SERPs position for their keywords and products, that’s bad news.
Google’s implementation of the Knowledge Graph is offering the answers to search terms of the users without the need to click. And the majority of brands ranking in the knowledge panels are the big ones.
That means less traffic, fewer clicks, and more significantly: less organically-driven sales for the small companies.
Brand Building is Significant to Getting Clicks
Brand building is a powerful thing. Powerful enough for you to skip on Google’s top-ranking post. Powerful enough to drive a more expensive sale.
We can’t help it. We’re creatures of habit.
We do what feels comfortable. What we know and what we can trust.
For example, a Nielsen study found that global consumers are far more likely to buy new products from brands that are familiar.
Sixty percent of consumers would rather buy new products from a familiar brand that they recall, rather than switching to a new one.
Trust is one of the most significant factors in making a purchase decision. And it’s no different when it comes to organic search results.
Consumers are going to click on what they know and trust. And that all comes down to branding.
Brand Recognition
The stronger the brand recognition, the higher the odds of generating clicks from organic traffic and paid advertisements. Which means the higher the odds of getting the sale.
SERP CTR is Beginning to Outperform Rankings
Ranking number one doesn’t mean what it used to anymore.
Historically, SERP click-through rate graphs are beginning to lie. You know, the ones that say ranking first on Google gets you 30+ percent of clicks for an unbranded search.
If nobody knows who you are, you aren’t generating 30+ percent of the organic clicks. The content might be amazing. But you’re a nobody. So nobody’s giving you a chance.
SERP CTR is becoming more vital than traditional rankings, too.
And in fact, SERP CTR likely has an impact on rankings.
But not enough to have a big impact.
Not enough to double your organic traffic.
Small changes won’t garner massive results.
Simply A/B testing or changing a button color won’t do it either.
Get Better SEO Results
It requires large-scale changes to produce better SEO results.
Branding and Brand Building is the only way to do it. It’s the most viable and results in giving SEO strategy in the market today.
Focusing on brand Building will help drive higher click-through rates in organic SERPs, which correlates with higher conversion rates.
A fantastic, cheap way to put this into practice is using social ads and sharing engaging content on social media to drive brand awareness.
Facebook has the cheapest CPM out of any advertising platform ever created.
You can get away with spending 100 Rupees per day, reaching up to 1200+ new users with brand awareness ads.
That’s roughly 36,000 new faces coming across your brand monthly for just Rs. 3000.
There’s no cheaper way to build brand awareness than with social ads.
Use them to drive traffic to your latest content and build a brand reputation in the process.
Branding is an investment in your company’s future. Sure, the effects won’t be instant, but you won’t want your company to lose its search engine ranks for the keywords and products you offer.
But when your organic traffic is declining, and brands are beginning to overpower you, you’ll wish you’d invested in it sooner.
Conclusion
Google has given brands preferential treatment for years now.
And that preferential treatment only increases with each minor and major update. Branding is our only hope for generating better SEO results in the future.
The vast majority of consumers cite brand recognition as driving clicks and sales. Brand recall drives more clicks and sales than positioning.
As Google SERPs shift more toward favoring big brands, it’s time for smaller brands to invest more of their SEO budget and strategy into brand building and creating a memorable and trustable brand.
