Branded traffic is part of the overall traffic coming to your website. Sometimes branded traffic even constitutes the most significant part of the general traffic. If you are looking to increase branded traffic, you should first craft a holistic SEO brand marketing strategy. This will help you take consecutive steps in your brand development and then select keywords for improved branded search results. All these aspects would be discussed in detail in this article to help you create and elaborate on the brand marketing strategy.
Another important thing to consider about brand traffic is that SEO and branding are closely interrelated. Optimization techniques together with marketing approaches make up a powerful combination aimed to increase branded traffic. This article will tell you how SEO and branding are connected and what benefits this tandem brings. Also, you will learn how to boost branded traffic to your website. This will enhance your website visibility on the web as well as improve your brand recognition in both worlds.
Marketing, SEO, and Branding
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While all three terms mentioned above are different, they have one obvious feature in common. Both marketing, SEO, and branding are targeted at promoting your business and products, though in different ways. It is also worth mentioning that all three concepts deal with branded traffic each in its own mode. Let’s see marketing, SEO, and branding separately and refer to how they influence branded traffic.
Marketing
The main goal of marketing is to increase awareness about the company’s products, promote them via advertisement, and build a business reputation in general. Marketing strategy is usually developed for carrying out all those effectively and consequently.
When it comes to branded traffic, marketing is responsible for finding the right ways for advertising on the web. Such marketing channels as emails and Google Ads appear to be rather effective in business promotion.
SEO
Increasing branded traffic is directly related to SEO department tasks and responsibilities. SEO specialists look for the proper keywords that include the brand name and analyze how they would perform. Those keywords are used for content creation which would attract the audience’s attention and links from other online resources. In fact, content creation is often seen as a decent alternative to buying backlinks for branded traffic.
The SEO department also uses powerful tools that show all the details about the branded and general traffic for a website. Using this data helps SEO professionals to find better strategies or adjust the current ones for the sake of branded traffic increase. Later in this article, we will also explore some of the SEO approaches that ensure branded traffic boost.
Branding
Even though branding comes separately, it usually makes a part of the marketing strategy. Branding must never be misused as the term “marketing” because it only constitutes a small percentage of marketing indeed. In fact, branding implies a set of approaches targeted to the brand development and strengthening. Depending on the branding strategy, it is possible to predict the results of branded traffic growth.
How to Boost Branded Traffic?
If your aim is to gain more branded traffic to your website, you will have to develop and implement brand marketing. We have prepared several tips to help you with improving branded search results and brand reputation overall.
Here are some hints for your on how to improve branded traffic:
- Develop your brand.
- Engage the audience with advertising.
- See competitors’ keywords
- Invest in local SEO.
Develop Your Brand
Before you start driving and increasing branded traffic, you need to acknowledge that people should already be aware of your brand. They will type a brand name in the search bar, which will influence branded search requests and results. That is why, it is necessary to develop your brand and sustain it with:
- Creation of your brand image.
- Usage of social media platforms.
- Influencer marketing.
- Polling.
Create brand image
This is the first and fundamental step in your brand creation and development. Determining the values you want to share with your audience is the core principle of branding. Also, think of a visual representation of your brand, including logo and design, and make sure it is consistent in every marketing channel.
Social media
Popular social media platforms help small and medium-sized businesses become more recognizable. This is possible with the help of hashtags, locations, social advertising, and other mechanisms. Consider using social media for developing your brand and make it more recognizable.
Involving famous celebrities or popular bloggers into your marketing campaign could be very effective for branding. Influencers usually interact with large audiences, so promoting your brand like that promises success. Make sure that an influencer transmits your brand message and values.
Polling
At the initial stages of your brand development, you need to actively interact with your audience. Do not hesitate to create short polls containing a couple of questions for your customers. The poll answers will help to determine how people perceive your brand. Polling results will also help to detect and fix branding mistakes if any.
Create Ads
Boosting branded traffic to your website via organic SEO methods is the target, though consider paid advertising for increasing branded traffic as well. Ads on social media, video streaming platforms, and offline media distribution channels tend to incredibly increase brand awareness.
The most common effective way to increase branded traffic is associated with Google Ads. Start bidding for branded keywords on Google Ads and you will most certainly win it as a brand owner. Targeting the branded keywords will help your website appear just above organic search results on search engines.
Promoting your brand via YouTube with targeted ads is also an outstanding idea for brand strengthening and brand traffic boost. YouTube allows creating short ad videos or banners where you could mention your brand and insert the link to your website.
Referring to traditional media, consider magazines, radio, and other sources for advertisement. They still appear rather effective in the digital era as not all people interact with brands online. However, consider the specifics of your targeted audience before implementing traditional ads into your marketing campaign.
Analyze Competitors’ Keywords
Once you are confident that your brand idea is clearly stated, your audience recognizes your brand, and proper brand promotion was effectuated, start picking up branded keywords. Those are words and phrases that obligatorily comprise your brand name and/or company name.
Before making the final keyword selection, take a look at how your competitors are dealing with branded search. See what keywords they use for increasing the branded traffic and focusing on their brand rather than on particular products. This could be done with SEO tools such as SEMrush or KWfinder by Mangools.
After performing a brief analysis of how your competitors deal with branded keywords, start searching for the key phrases for your brand. Make sure that those keywords are competitive and would appear effective when users perform a branded search.
Selected branded keywords should be then implemented all over the content on your website. Otherwise, you might consider creating new dedicated pages or blog articles with the selected keywords for driving more branded traffic.
Invest in Local SEO
Very often users mention a brand name in search inquiries when they are particularly looking for a brand located in the area. For instance, if a user types ‘McDonald’s’, they are probably interested in any McDonald’s restaurants nearby. That is why, investing in local SEO also makes a lot of sense when looking to boost branded traffic.
Local SEO strategy includes all standard search optimization methods along with location-specific keywords. Look for the key phrases that contain both your brand name and the city name, and see what potential then conceal for the branded search improvement.
Another approach for local SEO implies the setup of a Google Business Profile. There you could provide details about your brick-and-mortar brand location and specify how customers would be able to contact you.
Consider collaborating with other local brands in the online and offline environments. This will help to enlarge your audience, get backlinks from local websites, and become more visible for local branded search.
Summary
Website visibility gets better when you take care of website optimization and implement a holistic marketing strategy. Better online visibility implies a higher amount of website visits either through brand search or related keywords.
When referring to branded traffic and branded search results, strong brand awareness is prior. Before implementing branded search optimization efforts, marketers need to make sure the brand is recognized in the market. This could be done by developing a brand image, creating ads, working with influencers, and interacting with your audience.
If you are sure your brand is already recognized, select the appropriate keywords containing your brand name. Then implement those keywords all over your articles, meta descriptions, and heading to boost branded traffic to your website. Consider investing your resources and efforts in local SEO, especially if your brand operates in a certain location and has a fixed physical address.