Recognise the increasing importance of brand SEO

Miracle says: “This year, I have talked a lot about brand SEO. With the onset of AI, the content market is going to become oversaturated. Indexing content is expensive and Google is going to have to be even more selective. Being recognised as an entity and having a clear brand identity is going to be even more important to earning that trust, especially for niche sites.

The younger generations don’t use appointment TV, they get their news from a highly specific source. Everyone has really strong feelings about who they are, and they’re looking for brands that speak to and tap into those social feelings. There is already a growing mistrust in the content saturation that’s coming at us left, right, and centre.

With the helpful content update, Google is moving towards verifying sources and listening to people with experience. Recently, they started verifying medical information on YouTube because people are getting their information from a diversity of sources. There’s a lot of pressure on Google to make sure that their results are credible – and this is what sites need to lean heavily into.

You can’t build an audience by just focusing on generic keywords. Be hyper-focused on who you are and what your audience wants. There is too much similar content out there, prioritise what makes your business unique.”

What does brand SEO mean in practice and how can it drive organic visits?

“It is about getting Google to understand your entity. What your site is about, the relationship between that brand name and the product. Which businesses are you similar too? Basically, understanding your brand entire ecosystem.

It is also about building a returning customer base, so you see brand searches and brand plus product searches grow. I did some research in the insurance and fashion industry SERPS and I saw a strong correlation between brand Plus product search demand and higher organic rankings. That’s when I started paying more attention to Brand SEO.

Stick to your niche and think about what products you offer. In the past, if you offered pet insurance but you only covered single pets, you could still appear at the top of the SERP for ‘multi-pet insurance’. They you could have content that said, ‘If you’re looking for multi-pet insurance, although we don’t offer it, you can...’

You can’t get away with those kinds of things anymore. I see lots of sites go after lots of generic terms that are so far removed from what they offer just because it is in the same industry and, with AI, it’s only going to get worse.

When you’re doing your keyword research now, go to social media see what people who interact with your brand are saying about your product and what search terms they are using.

Carrie Rose gave a really interesting presentation at MozCon about how she has been using social media to see what’s trending, make sure it’s optimized on the client side, go to PR with it, jump to #1, and get loads of sales from it. For my brands, I have been going to forums and Trustpilot and looking at what people are saying – not just thinking about brand reputation but translating it to content as well.

A practical example of this is Monzo. I love what they are doing with their content. They are getting their customers and employees to write about how they use Monzo to solve their debt problems, split their bills, or save for a festival. It’s about getting your customers to come to you because the generic market is so flawed. In my MozCon presentation this year, I talked about searching for quotes on love and then being served 4 million results. With very similar page titles and content, how do you navigate that?

You want to instil loyalty in your customers and you want them to come directly to you. You want them to be thinking, ‘I know this brand. This brand has the same social ethos as me, and it always offers what I’m looking for.’ Then they come to your site and do that search. Build that trust and make them come to you.”

Do you have to reach out to users for them to create content for you or will they naturally write on your behalf if you have a great product?

“Users won’t necessarily naturally write for you. They might write on social media, forums, or Trustpilot and leave feedback for you.

However, there are people within your organisation (not just copywriters) who are interacting with the products that can write content for you. That’s what Monzo does as well. Their employees are using their Monzo cards in ways that the general population does and they get them to write articles about their use case.

You can also look for writers who already have EEAT. If you’re in the SEO world, you would reach out to someone like Chima Mmeje (who speaks a lot about content), to write content about SEO for you. That content would automatically have weight. Don’t just go and look for generic writers. Search for writers who already have EEAT in that category.”

How do you find a writer who has EEAT?

“Look at what they’ve written in the SERPS. Google a writer, look at their profile, and look at where their by-lines are. It’s very important to see that they have by-lines elsewhere and that those correlate to the topics they’re writing on.

Then, get your people trained. We ran a website talking about hair, and we got the writers to go on a trichology course and they became qualified trichologists. Now, they can give advice and opinions on that subject. That way, you can start building the EEAT of your writers yourself.

I encourage my writers to have at least half a day where they do some research and try to get their by-line into publications that talk about the topics they write about. It’s in your interest to build their profile. Send them on training courses, and get them to have by-lines in publications that offer the same kinds of things that you do.”

How does brand SEO interplay with search generative experience and AI results?

“Search engines exist to make money. There’s going to be paid search, then there’s going to be SGE, and then organic search results below that. Organic is going to move lower and lower.

Trust is what will make Google pull your result into SGE. It’s all about building your brand’s trust so that you are considered for SGE. The same metrics around EEAT will get fed into SGE. If your brand is not reputable and doesn’t have EEAT, it’s not going to get pulled in the SGE result.

You need to get as high as you can. Organic search results are going to drop and paid search spending is going to go up. Paid search spending is going to go through the roof because, as the organic search space gets more competitive, visibility drops. More things are taking their baseline: map packs and other features in the SERP. Google exists to send what it wants to its users, so you need to get yourself into the space where you’re able to earn the SGE results.

If you’re not able to earn that, you need to make sure that you’re doing enough to build your customer loyalty so that people search directly for your brand. You need to get people to come directly to you.

From my rudimentary experimentation, when you search ‘brand+dresses’, the brand that has the highest search volume in that niche is usually in position one. If your demand is naturally high, you come out stronger in the organic SERP. Driving demand and making your brand front of mind makes a difference, and it affects organic search.

Moz has launched a brand authority metric to see the strength of your brand and how it is tracking amongst competitors. That’s really interesting. Loads of people have gone after generic so much that they’ve literally forgotten their brand.

Search habits have changed. UX people talk about journeys but nobody searches that way anymore. If they know the brand they want to use, people will go and type that into search. Most people will now type ‘brand+query’ and expect the page to surface. We have become so hyper-focused on generic keywords that a lot of brands are not covering that.

As an example, I researched Expedia. They were bidding on the PPC keyword, ‘how to book tickets through Expedia’. They had no organic page ranking for that keyword. They were spending money bidding on PPC, but a generic content website was ranking in position one for that query because they had created a blog post, a video, and a step-by-step process on how to book tickets through Expedia. Big brands need to start thinking about all of those things.

Start thinking about your returning customers and how to serve them –because they will have a higher conversion rate. For smaller brands, it’s going to be so competitive. You need to build that niche for yourself. If anyone is saying that you need to cover everything and go after every generic keyword, you should be very suspicious of that.

I heard an interesting a talk about a tech brand generating around 500 pieces of content a year using AI. There are thousand tech brands out there, so times that by 500. We’re all going to be drowning. You need to start narrowing your focus and being more specific.”

If customers are coming directly to you, is this still SEO, and how do you measure the value of brand SEO?

“We’ve been asking what SEO is since I first started. Before, it was on-page link building, then speed became a metric and we all went tech, and then we went into the code – and everyone said it was still SEO. SEO is a fascinating industry because of how much it evolves.

This is where it’s going, and you have to get on board with it. I’m collaborating with brand teams and product teams in a way that I never did before. The developer knows how to fix the thing that is broken, but the product team is creating the feature in the first place. If I’m liaising with them before it even gets built, I’m getting all my requirements in there, and then getting the developers to scope it out. The way we work will always change and evolve; that’s the nature of the industry.

The SEO budget is always the first thing pulled, so we got really into tracking data. Now, we need to start thinking about the integrated search experience and doing tests with the PPC team. Think about incremental tests and the incremental value of every channel, and look at combined CPAs.

In practical terms, direct traffic, an increase in brand search, an increase in brand+product searches, the number of returning customers, the conversion rate of returning customers, etc. – those are all the things that you track. Those are the practical metrics you can look at now. For the rest, we have to evolve and get better at showing incremental value when we step away from specific keywords and specific pages.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2024?

“Stop chasing generic keywords that are so far removed from what you do, just because they’re somewhat related to your industry. That will save you a lot of time. Instead, go to your content, do an audit, and prune anything that is not adding value.

Then, focus on those things that are within your niche and are exactly what you offer, and think about how you can enhance them. If you’ve written a page that’s ranking on position one, go and work with your media team or social media team, and say, ‘How can we create YouTube Shorts for this?’ That’s adding value.

If you’ve already covered the top 20, 30, or 100 keywords in your niche, then think about how you can repurpose that content. What else can you do to add value? This is where people usually struggle because we like to stay in our lane, but we have to get more innovative – which is what SEO is all about.”

Miracle Inameti-Archibong is Head of SEO at John Lewis Finance, and you can find her over at MiracleInametiArchibong.com.