great seo starts with your brand [state of search 2015]

@ruthburr

@dfwsem #stateofsearch

Great SEO Starts with Your

BrandRuth Burr Reedy

Senior SEO Manager

BigWing Interactive

@ruthburr


The Derek Zoolander

Center for SEOs Who

Can’t Brand GoodAnd Want to Learn to Do

Other Stuff Good Too

@ruthburr


@ruthburr


We’re hearing a lot about branding in the industry

lately. That’s because increasingly, the signals that

strong brands put out are the signals that Google

likes to see. Plus, users love it! It’s important. Do it.

@ruthburr


@ruthburr


What is a Brand?

ColorsLogoName

Imagery Voice Fonts

If you have defined these items for your brand,

congratulations! You have a style guide.

@ruthburr


There’s More to Life

Than Being Really,

Really, Ridiculously

Good-Looking

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@ruthburr


What is a Brand?

If your customer is a fish, your brand is the water.

Your brand is every interaction they have with or

about your business. It’s every moment of their

experience with you.

@ruthburr


@ruthburr


Is Brand a Ranking Factor?

Image Source: Search Engine Watch

Big brands tend to rank well even without good SEO,

prompting some people to ask: is brand a ranking

factor?

http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2340759/7-tips-to-ensure-your-seo-strategy-supports-your-brand

@ruthburr


Image Source: XKCD

Brand probably isn’t a ranking factor in the traditional

sense, as in it’s probably not a specific element in

Google’s ranking algorithm.

https://xkcd.com/552/

@ruthburr


Links

Social Shares

Engagement

Clicks from search

Mentions

Co-occurrence

Things

Brands

Have

Things

Google

Likes

That said, a lot of the things that Google looks for to

determine whether a site is a good result are the same

things good brands are already good at.

@ruthburr


Expertise

Authoritativeness

Trustworthiness

@ruthburr

@dfwsem #stateofsearchGoogle’s Quality Rating Guide mentions 3 elements of

a good website. These are also 3 elements of a good

brand.

@ruthburr


Brands and Machine Learning

CTREngagement

Visitor

LoyaltyEntity

RelationshipsWith the rise of RankBrain and machine learning,

engagement signals and entity relationships become

more important – you can build those by strengthening

your brand.

@ruthburr


This is Not How People Search

Building a brand is also important because people

don’t make purchasing decisions by just clicking the

first result for their first query…

@ruthburr

@dfwsem #stateofsearch…which is good, because unless you’re a GIANT

brand, you’re not going to be able to rank for that query

anyway.

@ruthburr


The Sales Funnel

Awareness

Interest

Consideration

Intent

Purchase

Retention

You need to understand every step of your customer’s

journey through the sales funnel, and what they need

at each stage.

@ruthburr


Link Outreach

Content Marketing

Topical Authority

UX

CRO

Personalization

The Sales SEO Funnel

Doing so will allow you to build a robust search

program that gives users what they need at each step

and guides them down the funnel.

@ruthburr


Who Am I?

@ruthburr

@dfwsem #stateofsearchFigure out what makes your brand unique. Why do you

do what you do? How do you do it best? Do NOT say

“price and customer service” – everyone says that.

@ruthburr


Be Honest.

Be honest with yourself about your business’

weaknesses. If you refuse to acknowledge them, you

can’t address them.

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@ruthburr


On AuthenticityDo I know what I’m

doing today? No.

But I’m here, and

I’m gonna give it

my best shot.

@ruthburr


Authenticity goes a long way toward building trust

because it makes you vulnerable. Admit your

mistakes and figure out how to do better. It’s the best

way to combat negative brand associations.

@ruthburr


“For [target market], [company

name] is the best [what you do] that

[how you do it].”

This is your minimum brand formula.

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Define Your Values

@ruthburr


A card-sorting exercise is a great way to define your

brand’s values. Get a card-sorting kit and have

everyone on your staff complete it until you’ve

narrowed down a few values you can all agree on.

@ruthburr


Marketing Personas: The

Complete Beginner’s Guide

by @kevanlee at Buffer

http://bit.ly/mktgpersonaguide

HubSpot Academy Buyer

Persona Examples

http://bit.ly/hubspotexamples

You must build audience personas. Find out as much

as you can about who your customers are and why

they buy things from you.

http://bit.ly/mktgpersonaguide

http://bit.ly/hubspotexamples

@ruthburr


Help Complete a Task

@ruthburr


Don’t just answer someone’s query today. Give them

everything they need to complete the task that they

need to complete.

@ruthburr


Check out forums to find the kind of problems your

target audience wants to solve, and create content to

help solve it. You can even point people back to your

content – but tread lightly.

@ruthburr


Use Facebook’s ad planning to find suggestions for

topics your target audience might be interested in –

you can use that to create content that feels like it’s just

for them.

@ruthburr


The IdeaGraph by Ian Lurie @portentint

https://moz.com/blog/the-ideagraph-whiteboard-friday

@ruthburr


Target Those Influencers

@ruthburr


Now that you know what your target audience is

interested in besides your product, you can find the

places they tend to go online and create content for

them before they need your product to build expertise.

@ruthburr


Use FollowerWonk to find the most popular Twitter

accounts that list your target interests in their bios. Add

“.com” to the URL field to target people who list a

website in their bio.

@ruthburr


PR is Link Building

@ruthburr


Real PR is a great way to build your brand, and if done

right, it also results in links. Cultivate relationships with

journalists and try to do some newsworthy stuff.

Answer questions and give more than you get.

@ruthburr

@dfwsem #stateofsearchHaving a well-defined brand makes crafting an

information architecture and user experience a lot

easier.

@ruthburr


What Problems Can I Solve?

“I need a new dishwasher”

Your product/service isn’t just a product/service – it’s a

solution to a problem. “I need a dishwasher” is a

solution, not a problem. So what problems do people

who need your stuff have?

@ruthburr


What Problems Can You

Solve?“My water bill is too high”

“My dishwasher just flooded my kitchen”

“I’m concerned about my carbon footprint”

“My family uses dishes faster than we can clean

them”Map out the tasks each of your target audience

personas is trying to complete.

@ruthburr


What Does Your Audience Search

For?“high efficiency dishwashers”

“most reliable dishwasher brands”

“eco-friendly dishwashers”

“high capacity dishwashers”

Do keyword research around each of these larger

problems and assign keywords.

@ruthburr


Why Should They Buy It From

You?

Fold in your values to your content – show them why it

matters that they buy from you and not someone else.

@ruthburr


Home

Keyword 1

Page

Keyword 2

Page

Keyword 3

Page

Keyword 4

In the old days, this is how we did SEO – we had a

bunch of pages and we assigned a target keyword to

each one.

@ruthburr


Page: Energy Efficient Dishwashers

Keywords: Energy efficient dishwashers,

eco-friendly dishwashersPersonas

Thrifty

Trudy

Green

Gary

Stage:

Consideration

Next Steps:

More Research

Purchase

Conversion:

Purchase

Now, we can take a look at each page as part of a

larger user journey, and create pages that help people

get to the next step of their task.

@ruthburr


Mark it Up!

Use Schema markup to show search engines how your

content is related.

@ruthburr


@ruthburr


You can create a “hub” of in-depth, task-oriented

resources, then create content assets around it to

drive people back to it.

@ruthburr


The Ultimate Guide to Saving Water –Home Edition

Video: Testing Green

Dishwashers

Donate to a water charity for every purchase

Newsletter: Green living tips

For each step in a customer’s journey, you should be

addressing their concerns, delighting them and

encouraging them onward.

@ruthburr


@ruthburr


This is a TON of work. So why would you do all this

work if you’re not going to track whether or not it’s

actually making money?

@ruthburr


Invest in CRM

Invest in a CRM tool that will show you how a lead first

came in, so you can track where you’re being most

effective.

@ruthburr


Enable Demographic Tracking

Persona-building can involve a lot of conjecture. Use

demographic tracking to make sure your customers are

who you think they are.

@ruthburr


User Paths

Track users’ paths through the site to find places

where you’re not helping them get what they need.

@ruthburr


Change Attribution Models

Image source: Search Engine Roundable

Last-click attribution is not going to tell you what you

need to know. Change to a more robust attribution

model so you know what’s working.

https://www.seroundtable.com/gogle-search-funnels-attribution-modeling-tool-18054.html

@ruthburr


Monitor Brand Mentions

Find where people are talking about you online. Join

the conversation in authentic, values-driven ways to

build brand trust and authority.

@ruthburr


Co-Occurrence

Co-occurrence of your brand with a keyword seems to

correlate with rankings. Try to be the place people

want to go.

@ruthburr


Brand + Keyword

http://keywordtool.io

Use KeywordTool.io to track mentions of your brand

and find the terms people are associating with it.

http://keywordtool.io/

@ruthburr


Understand the Timeline

Let’s be real – this takes a long time to start working.

Be realistic up-front with how long a customer journey

might be.

@ruthburr


Turn Customers into Advocates

Don’t forget to ask your customers to share and

promote your stuff, once you’ve built trust with them.

@ruthburr


@ruthburr

@dfwsem #stateofsearchIf you can do all of this, the results will blow you away.

@ruthburr


Thank You!

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