Technical SEO<\/h3>\n
Great content is insufficient if the website hosting doesn\u2019t have a sound technical foundation.<\/p>\n
Technical SEO covers areas like indexability and performance of the website.<\/p>\n
It ensures a website loads its pages fast, and search engines can easily crawl the content.<\/p>\n
Notably, Google has developed a set of metrics called Core Web Vitals<\/a> to measure a web page\u2019s technical performance and usability.<\/p>\n This pillar helps search engines understand the page\u2019s content by creating a better website <\/a>structure<\/a> and its pages.<\/p>\n Site navigation hierarchy, schema markup, page titles, meta descriptions, heading tags, and image alt text are tools to create an easy-to-understand website and page structure for search engine crawlers and visitors.<\/p>\n Having great content and a great website is just the beginning.<\/p>\n A website can\u2019t rank well on search engines if it lacks authority and doesn\u2019t garner trust in its subject domain.<\/p>\n From the onset, Google uses the amount and quality of backlinks<\/a> as an indicator to evaluate a website\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, even as far-reaching as these four areas appear in creating a search-optimized website, they can only help drive part of your website\u2019s search traffic, i.e., the type of traffic coming from non-branded searches.<\/p>\n What are non-branded searches, and how are they different from branded searches?<\/p>\n They contain branded names in the search terms.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re Apple Inc., the search term \u201capple\u201d is a branded term.<\/p>\n Yes, Google knows you\u2019re looking for the company founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak rather than the fruit. Moreover, \u201ciPhone,\u201d \u2018iPad,\u201d and \u201cMacBook\u201d are also branded terms.<\/p>\n Branded searches are conducted by people looking for information, especially about your brand or products.<\/p>\n On the other hand, non-branded queries don\u2019t contain any branded name in the search terms. Again, for Apple Inc., \u201claptop,\u201d \u201csmartphone,\u201d and \u201ctablet\u201d are non-branded terms related to its products.<\/p>\n Non-branded searches are from people who may not know about your brand or products but are looking for information about the type of products or solutions you offer.<\/p>\n With this in mind, for a brand as strong as Apple, you may think its search traffic is largely from branded searches. And, for the most part, you\u2019d be correct.<\/p>\n According to Semrush, more than half<\/a> of search traffic to Apple\u2019s website comes from branded searches.<\/p>\n Branded search traffic not only reflects the level of interest of a specific brand, but also has higher commercial intent and a higher conversion rate.<\/p>\n Generally speaking, non-branded search traffic feeds the upper part of the marketing funnel, and branded search traffic feeds the lower part of the funnel.<\/p>\n A brand needs to grow both types of traffic to maintain a healthy and growing business.<\/p>\n That said, most businesses don\u2019t have the level of brand recognition like Apple\u2019s.<\/p>\n What can marketers do to drive branded search traffic to a website?<\/p>\n As illustrated by the formula below, search traffic is driven by two factors: keyword search volume and clickthrough rate (CTR) on the search engine results page (SERP).<\/p>\n A website with high aggregated keyword search volume and clickthrough rate will have high search traffic.<\/p>\n Search traffic = Keyword search volume * Clickthrough rate<\/p>\n Wait a minute! Where does keyword ranking fit into the equation?<\/p>\n Keyword ranking is, in fact, a critical factor in determining the clickthrough rate.<\/p>\n The higher your keywords rank, the higher the clickthrough rate you get.<\/p>\n According to Advanced Web Ranking, position #1 on Google can have a 38%<\/a> CTR. CTR drops to about 5% on position #5 and stays around 1% or below after position #10.<\/p>\n Bearing that in mind, how do the four pillars of SEO contribute to a website\u2019s search traffic?<\/p>\n They help a website increase its search traffic in two ways:<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the problem is that these SEO techniques work on mostly non-branded searches only.<\/p>\n They have limited effect on branded search, because branded search and non-branded search have different traffic drivers.<\/p>\n For non-branded search, a website can harvest a virtually unlimited amount of keywords and aggregated search volume.<\/p>\n The main lever of non-branded search traffic is improving your target keywords\u2019 ranking to gain a higher clickthrough rate and capture a larger share of the search clicks.<\/p>\n For branded search, assuming your website is already ranked No. 1 for your brand name (if not, you need to fix this problem first), ranking is generally not an issue.<\/p>\n As the brand owner, you always have an advantage on Google for your branded keywords.<\/p>\n The main lever of branded search traffic is simply increasing your branded keywords\u2019 search volume.<\/p>\n However, the first four pillars of SEO have little effect on getting more people to search for your brand or your products.<\/p>\n As a result, they are ineffective on branded search.<\/p>\n In short, branded search traffic results from a brand\u2019s awareness and interest.<\/p>\n People wouldn\u2019t search for your brand if they didn\u2019t know or have any interest in your brand or your offerings.<\/p>\n To grow brand awareness and interest, you need to increase a brand\u2019s visibility to its potential customers, develop authority, and garner trust for the brand.<\/p>\n Content marketing<\/a> and the growth of non-branded search traffic could help increase brand awareness.<\/p>\n However, solely relying on people coming to your website to learn about your brand and offerings won\u2019t take you very far.<\/p>\n To grow brand awareness at scale, marketers need to bring their brand to their potential customers. You can\u2019t just wait for them to come to you.<\/p>\n Luckily, there are plenty of tools in the digital marketing arsenal to help marketers build brand awareness, including advertising, influencer marketing, customer marketing, and digital PR.<\/p>\n At AdRoll, we classify advertising into two categories: retargeting and brand awareness campaigns.<\/p>\n As the names suggest, retargeting campaigns target people who have engaged with you (e.g., visited your website), and brand awareness campaigns target potential customers who have not yet interacted with you.<\/p>\n Marketers can choose from several targeting methods to bring your brand to potential customers.<\/p>\n Contextual targeting is one of the oldest advertising targeting methods.<\/p>\n Think of a hotel chain placing its ads in a travel magazine. A brand can place ads on websites or mobile apps with content relevant to its products or services.<\/p>\n A big difference between contextual targeting and other targeting methods is that contextual targeting doesn\u2019t rely on personal or behavioral data about the target audience.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a more privacy-friendly way for marketers to find and connect with their potential customers.<\/p>\n With regulators and technology companies looking at ways to improve consumer privacy protection, the importance of contextual targeting to advertisers is likely to increase.<\/p>\n Demographic and interest targeting leverages your knowledge of existing customers to find new customers.<\/p>\n Suppose your customers fit into any specific demographic segment or are interested in certain activities or subjects. In that case, you can bring your brand to potential customers by running ads targeting people with similar demographic characteristics or interests.<\/p>\n Lookalike targeting<\/a> is similar to demographic and interest targeting.<\/p>\n But, instead of manually defining the target audience segment based on a list of demographic or interest attributes \u2013 advertising platforms use machine learning technologies to find target audiences who look or behave similarly to the seed audience provided by marketers.<\/p>\n The seed audience is typically a subset of existing customers.<\/p>\n Influencer marketing covers a broad range of tactics for leveraging someone who influences your target customers to promote your brand and products.<\/p>\n Even before the digital age, it was common for big brands to hire famous athletes or celebrities to endorse their products. Think Michael Jordan and Nike in the \u201880s.<\/p>\n Today, \u201cinfluencers \u201d are social media personalities who have built a following with a particular audience.<\/p>\n The vast number of influencers on social media also means influencer marketing is no longer a privilege available only to those brands with deep pockets.<\/p>\n Marketers can recruit influencers at very low or no cost by reaching out to those who have shown interest or already invested in the niche you serve, including your customers (more on that in the next section).<\/p>\n While many influencer marketing activities are in the B2C sector, it also works for B2B<\/a>.<\/p>\n When you shop at an ecommerce marketplace, such as Amazon, you might look at the product reviews before making a purchase decision.<\/p>\n The number and rating of a product\u2019s reviews are also ranking factors for product searches on Amazon.com.<\/p>\n The more people review a product and the higher the review rating, the more visibility and traffic a product gets.<\/p>\n The same logic applies even if Amazon may not be the channel for your business.<\/p>\n For B2B SaaS providers, customer reviews on G2, Trustpilot, etc., play the same role.<\/p>\n For direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, customer reviews and sharing on social media bring your brand and products to new customers and help establish trust for your brand.<\/p>\n Take Halfbikes.com as an example.<\/p>\n This D2C company from Bulgaria has a team of brand ambassadors \u2013 their customers \u2013 all around the world to promote its brand and product simply by sharing their experiences on social media.<\/p>\n Some of their customers even created YouTube channels dedicated to Halfbikes.<\/p>\n Among all the strategies driving brand awareness, digital PR is the one most directly related to SEO. In fact, it\u2019s often considered \u201clink building 2.0.\u201d<\/p>\nOn-Site SEO<\/h3>\n
Off-Site SEO<\/h3>\n
Non-Branded Vs. Branded Searches<\/h2>\n
Branded Queries<\/h3>\n
Non-Branded Queries<\/h3>\n
Why Is Branded Search Important?<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/why-brand-awareness-is-the-fifth-pillar-of-seo.png\")
Image created by author, August 2022<\/em><\/span><\/div>\nDifferent Traffic Drivers For Non-Branded And Branded Searches<\/h2>\n
\n
Non-Branded Traffic Driver<\/h3>\n
Branded Traffic Driver<\/h3>\n
How To Grow Brand Awareness & Branded Search<\/h2>\n
Advertising<\/h3>\n
Contextual Targeting<\/h4>\n
Demographic And Interest Targeting<\/h4>\n
Lookalike Targeting<\/h4>\n
Influencer Marketing<\/h3>\n
Customer Marketing<\/h3>\n
Digital PR<\/h3>\n