Brand Authority; the No1 SEO metric you need to know about
Getting discovered by people on Google has always been a slightly mysterious affair. Some swear by it and others see it as nothing more than the ultimate snake oil from the marketeer’s apothecary.
The bottom line, however, is that high volumes of targeted traffic can generate a lot of B2B leads if you do it properly.
But we aren’t here to talk about the benefits of SEO in general. We want to focus on one of the most important metrics that you should be aware of; your Brand Authority.
What is Brand Authority?
Google has a lot of decisions to make and not a lot of time to make them. When you search for a product or service it needs to be decide who’s going to be placed first and receive around 30% of all clicks, compared to around 3% for those placed at the bottom of the page (don’t even think about what happens on Page 2).
To do this it uses a secret recipe in its algorithm that compares over 200 factors. However, more and more we see Google relying on a relatively simple concept known as Brand Authority.
I’ve heard of Domain Authority; what’s the difference?
Domain Authority (DA) is a well-known SEO metric that measures the strength of your domain. The BBC for example will enjoy a DA of 100, whereas the average B2B site in the UK will be score somewhere between 15 – 30 DA points.
The crucial difference is that a brand can be associated with more than one domain. So today if you are a well-respected brand and move to a new domain, changing from bbc.co.uk to britishbroadcastingcorp.com for example, Google will measure your value based on what it knows about your brand.
Why is this good news?
DA has always been influenced by the number of other sites linking to your domain. This makes it difficult for some sites to outperform others and can lead to black-hat practices such as buying links.
A brand however is something we all appreciate and understand. In simple terms, the more effort you put into building your brand, the better the SEO benefits for your business.
Sounds simple?
Well, you still need to approach SEO in a structured and intelligent way. It’s easy to get wrong and takes some thought, planning and skill.
How does Google measure my Brand Authority?
There’s lots of evidence that Google decides on a brand’s authority by measuring the following things:
- How often you are mentioned on other blogs and industry websites
- How many user reviews you have on trusted 3rd party review platforms
- How many other sites link to your website
- The amount of positive sentiment you generate on social media
How do I improve my Brand Authority?
The most effective way to improve your Brand Authority is to think and act like the brands you most admire. Both in your industry and beyond.
This means paying close attention to the consistency and quality of your comms., on all channels and having a fully integrated approach to your marketing.
It’s vital that you ensure all communications are consistent and ‘on-message’ and that everything you do and say feeds back into that one clear idea that you wish to be famous for.
It also means being visible and active on as many consumer touch points as your budgets will allow and not falling prey to the scatter-gun approach to marketing that so many businesses do.
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Building brand authority can be a challenge but we have worked on a number of projects with both SME’s and multinationals, all of which have yielded great results. We work hard to get to the root of what your unique value proposition is before building a brand strategy that clearly and effectively delivers this to potential clients at every point of their journey, from discovery to prospect.
If you’d like to find out more, simply get in touch here!
