3 Ways to Convince Google You’re a Strong Online Brand

This is a guest post by Duncan Heath, an online marketer. You can website one of his business website: ExtremeSportsTrader.co.uk. Today, in this post you will get to learn how to establish your website/business as a popular brand and make Google realize it to get huge exposure. I am sure these strategies will be really helpful for you.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the importance of establishing yourself as an online brand to help improve your rankings in the search engines.

Some have argued that search engines are now paying more attention to online ‘brands’, others highlight how establishing yourself as a brand can win you new exposure and there are even those SEO’s who’s research shows that thinking ‘brand’ in your offsite marketing strategy could be more important than just going after desirable keywords.

In my opinion Google is turning to brands in an attempt to rid its SERPS of increasing levels of spam on the web. If it can identify which websites are ‘brands’ it can give more inherent power to these sites as they typically have very low levels of spam and are often well-trusted.

For example, it is unlikely for brands such as Apple, Nike or Sony to harbor spam on their sites or indeed link out to anything unsavory or low quality. Using this logic links from these brand sites can also therefore be given more trust and Google can help establish which sites deserve to be in its index and rank highly.

But how do you convince Google your site is worthy of being classed as a ‘brand’?

Here are 3 criteria that I think Google looks at quite closely and that you can adopt today.

1. Get Brand Links

Instead of just targeting keywords in your anchor text, consider using your company name. If you think about it, getting hundreds and thousands of identical anchor text links to your site is not exactly ‘natural’ and I don’t believe has the ranking influence it once did.

People linking to a powerful brand site such as sony.com wouldn’t all use the anchor text “Sony Bravia TV” would they? You would expect the majority to link like “Sony” or “Sony Corporation” or “www.sony.com” etc. Linking in this ‘brand’ way reinforces the fact that the site is a ‘brand’ company and so more power is given to it.  This does not mean you should stop anchor text linking altogether, but instead insure that you have a healthy proportion of brand links compared to more targeted terms.

I recently started increasing the instances of Extreme Sports Trader link text as I found it was way out of proportion with some of my most targeted keyword link texts, which didn’t look natural at all!

2. Get Brand Search

Something that I think is increasingly important in the eyes of search engines is the amount of search conducted around your brand name.

For example, if thousands of people are searching in Google for “The Fast Cars Company”, but only a few are searching for “Mike’s Rapid Cars”, which do you think Google would determine the most popular?

It makes sense that highly searched for brands are going to be more trusted and more welcome in search results as they are what people are looking for in the first place. However, increasing the number of people searching for your brand is easier said than done, so how do you do it?

• Your brand search will increase naturally as you get more online exposure and more traffic from SEO
• Engaging in social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can give you the opportunity to advertise your brand and get more people searching for it.
• Actively commenting on blogs in your niche and including your brand name (not necessarily a link) in your comments will help get your name out there and stuck in people’s minds
• Using offline media such as flyers, magazine advertising or public relations will increase the number of people searching for your site when they get online.
• These are just a few ways in which you can increase brand search, but I’m sure you can find many more that are just as effective.

3. Getting Brand Mentions

Getting mentions or references (not links) to your brand name or your website is something that I am seeing as an increasingly effective SEO strategy. Let’s say for example that Google has (via a number of criteria) pretty much established that your website’s brand is “Terry’s Tremendous Toys”. Now, every time this name is mentioned in text somewhere on the internet, this not only acts as reinforcement for the brand, but also an indication of it popularity – so why wouldn’t Google listen to this?

In the same was as links, I suspect getting a mention from a powerful website is worth more than one with low authority, otherwise this would be too easy to spam.  Here are some ideas for increasing the number of times your brand or website is mentioned:

• Distribute online press releases using sites such as http://www.free-press-release.com/ including your brand name in the text.
• Use article marketing to not only build links but also increase brand mentions by including this at the bottom of the text
• Use your brand name in your forum signature whenever posting

I know it can be hard to pass up an anchor link building opportunity in favor of a brand link or just a brand mention (if you’re unable to do both), but I assure you the rewards can be far greater if you can convince Google you’re a trusted brand.

• Online Branding Methods

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Duncan

Duncan is an online marketer and owner of www.extremesportstrader.co.uk. His site acts a price comparison site for things like Reef flip flops and snowboard jackets. He learns something new about SEO everyday. View all posts by Duncan