SEO & BRANDING
“SEO isn’t just about building search engine friendly websites. It’s about making your site better for people too.”
What does SEO & BRANDING mean to your business. Do you know at what stage you need these?
Let’s start with SEO.
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimisation and without this your business does not exist online. Therefore it’s vital you over your website with a thin comb and ask questions like;
1. What do you want to achieve? (Awareness of your brand or service, more sales, traffic etc)
2. Do you have relevant content on your website to demonstrate your objectives? (keywords, content,)
3. Have you built up Trust, Credibility or Visibility? (customer reviews, social media platform base)
I want you to do me a favour, close your eyes and imagine you are the customer. Here you are selling a product, it could be the best one on the market BUT you have no reviews and no way of verifying your credibility! Let that image stay for 5 seconds. Now open your eyes as ask yourself; would you buy that product or service??? I can tell you from experience that no customer will ever EVER buy anything unless they know that they can trust in you!
You would probably ask yourself, ‘how do I do this’??? Well, if you have done a service for a client make sure (even if you have to beg) ask for a review. Give them the link for Google (you must set up via Google my Business and verify your address). Set up a Facebook page for your friends and family to like. Once the liking occurs, you create a buzz around your brand and that has a positive effect. Google/Bing start to take notice of you. But don’t mistake that this all it takes to do SEO. Because it’s NOT!!!
You have something called Backlinks. Without being too confusing, you can approach someone in your industry and ask to write a blog post or content. You then ask for backlink in return. A backlink from a very credible source it’s like ‘Hallelujah’ (in plain english) and what it this does is ranking YOUR website. Honestly, your stuff needs to on point. MOZ for an instance looks at Domain Authority and Page Authority whilst Uber Suggests looks at Domain Score & Domain Traffic. These are measurements to determine the credibility of online presence.
This is why Branding is so important. If you have a strong image you stand out more from your competition. But as mentioned earlier, branding is a way to earn credibility and gain trust with customers. For an instance, look at other famous brand like Nike with their slogan ‘Just do it’. It has an emotional connotation to the slogan, just when you are about to give up your inner strength tells you to go on….Just Do It no matter what. That is the power with branding. Yes of course, Nike is an amazing brand too but it has a lifestyle attached to it therefore you trust it. The most powerful thing a brand can do is reverse psychology. They create a demand that YOU the customer need them more than the brand needs you. A little bit food for thought.
Mishi xxx
