SEO for Brand Awareness

Building a brand isn’t just about creating a logo or a catchy slogan; it’s about being visible where your audience spends their time—primarily online. With the web being a crucial channel for reaching potential customers, SEO is an essential tool for enhancing brand awareness.

While it’s smart to invest in various marketing and advertising channels that make sense for your business (fun fact: direct mail still boasts the highest return on investment), you can’t ignore that 93% of all shopping journeys start online. Let’s explore three effective ways to use SEO to increase your brand’s visibility.

1. Do Keyword Research to Boost Brand Awareness

To make sure your brand appears prominently when people search for products or services you offer—or even your brand name—keyword research is key. This process involves identifying the terms and phrases your target audience uses when searching for your brand and its offerings.

Using with this data, you can craft an online marketing and advertising strategy that integrates SEO and PPC (pay-per-click) to ensure your brand is visible in search results for those specific keywords.

During your keyword research, focus on uncovering:

  • Branded Keywords: These are keywords that include your company’s name or specific products and services directly tied to your brand. For example, “Nike running shoes” or “Apple iPhone” are branded keywords because they contain the company name. A simpler branded term could just be “Nike.”
  • Generic Terms: Non-branded keywords do not include any brand names and usually focus on broader terms or concepts, such as “running shoes” or “smartphone.”

The intent behind branded and non-branded keywords differs significantly. Branded keywords typically indicate a higher intent to purchase or engage with a specific brand, as the searcher already has a particular company in mind. In contrast, non-branded keywords are often used in the exploratory phase of the buying journey, focused on gathering information.

A robust SEO strategy should address both branded and non-branded keywords. The goal is to dominate as much search engine as possible—if you’re not showing up for these keywords, your competitors likely are.

Next Steps After Selecting Your Keywords:

  • Develop a Content Strategy: Your chosen keywords will guide the type of content you should create on your website and other platforms, helping you compete effectively in search results. For more on this, consider exploring a whole-SERP (Search Engine Results Page) strategy.
  • Bid on Your Brand Name in PPC Campaigns: Make sure you’re bidding on your brand name and other relevant keywords in PPC advertising campaigns.

There are numerous tools available for conducting keyword research.

2. Use Press Releases with SEO to Increase Brand Awareness

If you have something newsworthy to share, creating a press release can be highly beneficial for brand awareness. Press releases offer several advantages, including:

  • Boosting brand visibility.
  • Driving traffic to your website.
  • Opening up additional public relations opportunities, like interviews with journalists.
  • Enhancing your brand’s perceived Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) — quality metrics used by Google.

When you publish a press release, the platform hosting it will distribute it to other news outlets, where it might get picked up by various media or shared on social media, resulting in increased traffic and valuable backlinks to your site.

Best Practices for SEO-Optimized Press Releases:

  • Focus on Newsworthy Content: Only issue press releases for genuinely newsworthy events, such as new product launches, major company events, significant partnerships, or corporate milestones.
  • Create Engaging, Original Content: Stand out among the daily influx of press releases by offering valuable and compelling content rather than an overt advertisement.
  • Follow Proper Formatting: Use a journalistic style, addressing the “who, what, where, when, why, and how” early in the release. Keep the content concise and adhere to AP style formatting.
  • Incorporate Relevant Keywords: Conduct thorough keyword research and strategically place these keywords in the headline and within the first 250 words of your press release.
  • Limit Links and Use Nofollow Attributes: Use minimal navigational links and ensure they are contextually relevant. Add a “nofollow” attribute to comply with SEO best practices, which can help avoid penalties from search engines.
  • Distribute Widely and Share Broadly: Use a reputable press release distribution service and share your press release on social media and your website to maximize its reach.

For press release distribution, consider services like EIN Presswire, PRWeb, or eReleases.

3. Use a Whole-SERP Strategy for Brand Awareness

A whole-SERP SEO strategy involves analyzing the various features that appear in search results for your target keywords—not just the traditional blue links—and optimizing your content for those features.

This approach is crucial because:

  • Google regularly updates its algorithms and search result formats, incorporating features like knowledge panels, image results, and video content from platforms like YouTube.
  • Search technology is evolving to directly answer user queries, potentially bypassing websites. A whole-SERP strategy ensures your brand remains visible across different types of search results.

Key Steps to Optimize for the Whole SERP:

  • Understand Universal Search and Search Verticals: Google aggregates information from different sources and databases, including video platforms like YouTube, which can influence whether your brand appears in the search results.
  • Analyze Keywords and SERPs: Determine which search result features are most relevant to your target keywords and adjust your content to appear in these formats, whether they be videos, images, or standard listings.
  • Improve Content Quality: Focus on creating superior content that not only surpasses your competitors but also enhances user experience and engagement.

To further optimize your site, consider incorporating multimedia elements, such as images and videos, to create a more engaging user experience and increase your chances of ranking well.

Tips for Optimizing Your Site:

  • Include optimized images on your pages.
  • Create YouTube videos and embed them on your site to boost engagement.
  • Host a blog and regularly publish high-quality content driven by your keyword strategy.

For more comprehensive guidance, refer to our SEO Checklist, which is always up-to-date.

Final Thoughts

SEO might not be the first tactic that comes to mind for brand awareness campaigns, but it’s highly effective in reaching your target audience. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can make your brand more memorable and drive more leads, customers, and sales.