In a world with hundreds of major sites all competing for the same keywords it’s often hard to make a profit based on SEO & PPC alone – what you need to do is figure out how to get people searching for you and in order for that to happen you need to build a brand.
Forgetting even about the recent Google brand update the main advantage of being a brand is that thousands of people will search for your website every month. Take into account the fact that these visitors might convert at for example 5% rather than your usual 1% and your brand status can literally make the difference between success and failure.
For example a site which gets 500 brand visitors a day will make 750 sales per month from brand search netting £15,000 profit on a modest £20 profit per sale. This same site could do the same with traffic from SEO but that would need 5 times the traffic to generate the same sales figures.
There are a load of different ways to build a brand from TV/press advertising, social media and offline PR but the easiest way is using the clients website and online marketing strategy to help visitors believe that the site is a big brand, even if they’re not quite there yet.
Put simply, everything you do and every message you convey on your site has to say that you are the experts, the number one company in your industry and can be trusted and relied on 100% to offer great service and great products.
One of the great ways to do this is with SEO – most people think the most reputable sites are at the top of Google so the more traffic you can send the more trusted you become. Of course first impressions count which is where the onsite branding comes in. There are two types of site, ones which are happy just to shift products and ones which have a quality feel to them. The difference might not be obvious initially but once you spend some time on the site and have a good look round a brand site you can see the attention to detail, design and usability.
Of course not every brand has a decent website but if you want to compete on a higher level within your industry then building an amazing website which has more content, more features, more tools and a better design than every other site in your industry is essential for you to become a brand and take over.
Anybody can knock up an ecommerce site for next to nothing but without the attention to detail required to actually build a brand that site will never become an industry leader.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Find me on Twitter
Yes, – patience, read, tweak, change, modify, argue, learn, hate, patience, learn, tweak
More comments from DavidFind me on Twitter
I agree, there’s a lot that can be said for becoming THE brand that the public associate with your industry, so working hard on every front you can always seems like a Very Good Idea!
More comments from LuciNo wiser words have been. A site’s detail, indeed, is what gives an impression of the brand. Better looking site’s translates to actual brand trust, translates to actual sale. Yes, even online, people do judge you by how you look.
Good call Patrick
More comments from simoncolleyFind me on Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon | Twitter
great post patrick.
More comments from counselingFind me on Facebook
The single best thing you can do to appear “bigger than you are” is to secure the most appropriate generic domain name for your niche. That’s the one marketing tactic even your larger competitors won’t be able to match. For example, if your business is outdoor advertising, then securing OutdoorAdvertising.co.uk will give you a massive credibility boost over all the hundreds of other outdoor advertising companies competing with you.
This is valid for any product, service or industry – there will always be a perfect domain name that describes what you sell, or what you do – secure that domain, and you’re suddenly THE company in your niche, rather than just A company.
And of course, as a pair of recent case studies have proven, there are massive SEO benefits and big PPC/SEM advantages to be gained from the right generic domain name as well.
Not to mention that it’s a one-time expense for an ongoing marketing/advertising boost (as opposed to a media buy or a tradeshow stand, which are ephemeral at best).
More comments from EdwinI agree with Patrick. SEO and PPC alone becomes quite expensive and also yields outcome that you want. Small but effective advertising campaign really helps your cause of building brand.
More comments from Ann JulieI completely agree to what has been written. That’s the one marketing tactic even your larger competitors won’t be able to match.
I completely agree to what has been written. That’s the one marketing tactic even your larger competitors won’t be able to match.
{ 3 trackbacks }
Leave a Comment (registration is optional)