Branding, SEO & Competitive Keyword Phrases
Aaron Wall just wrote an important post on SEO and the impact of brand strength in relation to competitive keyword visibility. The team at SEO Book provided examples of highly competitive keywords and the recent surge in brand-specific website rankings.
What’s important to note is that in some situations, companies clearly are adopting SEO best practices as it pertains to the keyword visibility in onpage elements like HTML title tags, Meta Descriptions and web page copy (“airline tickets” is a good example of major airlines optimizing their respective home pages). In other cases, strong brands rank incredibly well with very little keyword relevance on the page (check out Timberland for “boots” and the majority of search results for “watches“).
What is the Key Takeaway?
If you work, own or are a part of a major brand – more power to you. Make certain to take advantage of this relationship for your SEO strategy. The talk highlighted the need for businesses, both small and large to utilize SEO agencies such as ShiftWeb Solutions. If you are a major brand struggling to compete for competitive keyword phrases, take a step back and reconsider where the most important aspects of an SEO strategy are being missed or can be adjusted.
If your site is like most sites out there (struggling to achieve a small piece of a particular keyword pie) understand that there is more to SEO than onpage factors and a layering of keywords in copy. This concept is likely effective for more specific keywords but is only a starting point when targeting the most competitive terms.
Focus on building quality relationships and trust through new communication channels with potential customers and online users.
The Finer Point of Aaron Wall’s Post
It would be easy to dismiss this theory at first glance (remember, Aaron Wall indicates that these brands just started to rank well) or if your company has had early success with some of your less competitive keywords.
It is critical to consider the history of developments in search engine technology and recent comments from Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt. It’s clear that brand awareness and trust – and that relationship between keywords – will be even more important in the future for search engine optimization.
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