So what is branding?

 is it just a collection of colors, logos, and images?

No!!

It’s the relationship between your customers, prospects and your company and the emotions they experience when they interact with or think about you! 

Not only does a good brand can get your customers to buy more, pay higher prices, shorten sales cycles, and become brand advocates,  it helps with search engine optimisation!

Your brand impacts you customer results and affects your SEO!! 

And when you think SEO – you think 

Google

People are doing research. Everyone has phones in their pockets. And so it’s really easy to look up information about what’s the best product service – and there will always be a product that’s cheaper and better than yours!

The goal is to move yourself up in the rankings – and build. strong relationship with your customers, prospects and audience. 

Here is my BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious!!)

You need to treat Google as a valued customer – How can you help them become an advocate?

Similarly, you need to treat your customer as you treat Google! 

(Gpwtwaygwyw) give people what they want and you will get what you want! 

google want their users and customers to have a fantastic user experience. If you can do that for them – they will put you at the top of the Google  ratings

With Google 

You make your way up the rankings, by proving to them over and over again, that you’re bringing value to their customers – the searchers, and therefore help them fulfill their mission.

With your Customers 

You make your way up their rankings, by proving to them over and over again, that you’re bringing value to them, and therefore help them fulfill their mission.

With Google and your Customers and Prospects,  SEO ranking is key 

It’s all about how you’re immediately showing up and being visible.

Kylie Smith and Chris Wilks talk about the power of branding and SEO

Chris Wilks: There’s a number of benefits to investing in SEO. The main, the most obvious one, is going to be more traffic, right? That’s what people typically jump into SEO for, they want more visitors to their website. But there are other benefits, namely:

• higher brand recall
• more visibility
• staying power in rankings
• more brand credibility
• establishing yourself as a thought leader

How does your prospect  start out on a purchase journey?

(Ivan’s comment) My bet is they will definitely search for the product , service or you on Google – and your Social Media – 

So you need to make sure your social media, 

Your web, your LinkedIn , your Pinterest, Insta , Facebook – puts your best foot forward and shares your value proposition and your pulse !! 

SEO and brand building and getting results requires a long term investment. You need to infuse your culture online

 There  are no shortcuts – it needs to be authentic and continuous 

Google needs to see a lot of things, 

• The content 
• Outside sources 
• Your website 
• A great CX

What you want the SEO to do 

Lead people to your website. 

So your website needs to be able to convert!!

So how do you build your brand?

• How do you build a positive sentiment from your target audience, good brand experiences that people want to talk about, that your customers want to share?
• How do you make them into advocates?
• How do you make them tell their friends
• If they have a Facebook page, they’re will share their wonderful experience that they had with your brand. 
• They’re going to go to Google Reviews and say that your company is amazing and exceeded expectations. 
• If they have a personal blog or podcast  or some other forum, they’re going to link off to your site where they are going to showcase this new, wonderful product or service you provided them, and talk about how it made them feel and how it solved their problems.
• You will be invited to speak at a #bbgforum!

Google sees those reviews, those mentions online, and will start taking notice of those and putting those into their index and taking those cues into account.

Google is taking notice of this buzz around your brand. 

They’re saying, “Oh, look, this brand is providing a great user experience, as evidenced by all these great reviews and these links and all that kind of stuff. So what we’re going to do as Google is we’re going to bump them up higher in rankings.”

• They track bounce rate, 
• they track pogo-sticking, 
• they track engagement rate. 

If someone clicks onto your result, and immediately leave, Google’s going to take that you are not providing a great experience.

If someone finds what they’re looking for, and has a great experience, and then goes a step further and talks about it later, then they’re going to move you up even further.

Examples of Great Branding Resulting in Great SEO

Kyle: 

Branding is created as follows 

• perception and reputation  in the marketplace,
• it drives awareness. 
• awareness drives search, 
• search drives traffic, 
• and if your website is optimized that traffic results in revenue.

Perception – awareness – search – traffic to website – sales 

Kleenex

Chris: how can you make your brand sound like a generic 

Pass me a Kleenex vs pass me a tissue?

If you go look right now in Google Trends, over the past year, Kleenex versus facial tissue, Kleenex has searched significantly more commonly than facial tissue. They have become a prominent brand in their  niche,

How do you become a prominent brand in your niche?

So that when someone says 

“Hey, Google”

“Hey Siri”

“Hey Alexa”

Find …… (your product or service) they find you 

Examples of Amazing Brands

• When you think of a video meeting you think Zoom (do you want to Zoom)
• When you think of whiteout you think tippex
• When you think of quality car – you think Mercedes
• When you think reliable – you think Toyota
• When you think search you think Google
• When you think online shopping you think Amazon 
• When you think canva you think graphics
• When you think developer collaboration you think jira 
• When you think tv – you think Netflix
• When you think running shoes you think Nike 

Hint 

How can you compete – think global and act local 

Own your niche in your territory ……  It’s all about becoming a centre of influence 

• How can we make #bbgforum be synonymous with -becoming a “centre of influence” – Connection collaboration contribution continuity and community?
• How can we make Ark synonymous with trust, safety and financial independence
• How can we make BSI Innovation be synonymous with getting grants ?
• How can we get BSI Learning synonymous with Vocational Education ?
• How can we get Nexttech synonymous with IT certifications , Microsoft , AWS, Cyber , Oracle Project Management upskilling and reskilling – the Amazon of training – the UBer for training – a platform for education?
• How can we get Referron to be synonymous with referrals and warm introductions? 
• How can we get Mitronics to be synonymous with office products?
• How can we get Bill Mclellan to be synonymous with Hr
• How can we get JR synonymous with coaching? 
• How do we get Danny and all angles video synonymous with corporate video 
• How can we get aboriginal empowerment synonymous with Tribal Warrior and the Lady Northcott 
• How do we get Australia synonymous with social responsibility , caring , a place to aspire to belong (hint – it’s not selling coal to China)

If you put together really good branding, Google’s going to understand it and reward you.

Making your brand synonymous with your product or service is huge, you own that space.

If you do really good branding, then the SEO will follow – it’s a flywheel – it feeds off each other .

The psychology behind it all

Brand recall, visibility, trustworthiness, thought leadership and all those things become associated with your brand.

Anytime someone searches for whatever service that you provide or product you provide, they automatically see your brand….. that’s the goal!!

So there’s this subconscious association that makes you buy into that brand more because you feel like it’s more trusted.

Zoom Example

Kyle: how did Zoom dominate over Google Meet and Microsoft Teams?

What was the X factor ?

Chris: 

Zoom spent years adding value in their niche – offering an amazing free service – while webex was charging back ver the top !

They were showcasing their value and knowledge, and when the timing was right, when people were ready to buy, the goodwill they built up, the thought leadership, the expertise that they instilled in their customers as the go-to source when it came to video – paid off!!!

No-one wants to be sold to. 

People want you to help them solve their problems.

Zoom has been  building a brand for the better part of the decade making their brand synonymous with video conferencing. When  the pandemic hit, their business was positioned to seize that opportunity because they had invested in their brand.

They did the hard work up front, and now they’re reaping the benefits of that – big time 

Building brand advocates 

The goal is to build loyal customers and advocates  – create an outstanding customer experience – it’s all about the customer. and make that flywheel turn.

(Gpwtwaygwyw) give people what they want and you will get what you want! 

Schwartzkopf , John Lee’s and the Value Gap 

My friend John Lees who helped Schwartzkopf become a household name – talks about the value gap. 

His customers  you would think are everybody who washes their hair – wrong!!

Their clients are  hairdressers – their pain was marketing and finance – he helped them with that – and in return they would sell his shampoo – and premium prices… to people that klt them (know like and trust).

They were only interested in targetting their SEO to hairdressers …. When hairdressers went to Google – what were they interested in ?

The bigger the gap between your product that you provide  and the value that the client perceives about your product or service  – the more valuable the brand.

As soon as you compete against price – it’s a race to the bottom. (See this link for more about this)

Referrals and becoming Referrable 

Referrals are an amazing way for a business owner and leader to expand their centre of influence. 

If I make a referral to a friend, where are they going to when they need a service or product that I provide they will use me …… price becomes irrelevant!!

Well, they’re still going to go to a search engine. And if I’m  positioned to be the first result there, there is a higher likelihood to do business with you, because it’s through a referral as well.

It starts with understanding who you are, what you want to be, where you want to go and most importantly – who your customer is! 

When you have a consistent brand, that people trust –  you create advocates, and that creates awareness. And then your brand is more likely to be found online. 

Thanks for the insights – Kyle Smith. View Bio.  Chris Wilks  View Bio. Russ Jones @rjonesx andAleyda Solis  @aleyda