This is the 4th and therefore last part of our SEO article series. We will finally deal with the OffPage factors «Branding» and «Specific factors». 

OffPage factors are optimizations that are done outside of your website, but have a connection to your website.  

With the core factor «Branding» the own brand moves into the foreground. Strong brands or opinion leaders of the industries tend to be ranked better by Google. In this blog post, we explain why that is.

In the specific factors we talk about the regionality respectively the local SEO. Furthermore, customer-specific needs are taken into account here.

As always in this series, we would like to remind you again that besides «Branding» and «Specific Factors», there are other elements that play a crucial role in SEO optimizations. To increase your organic traffic on your website in the long term, all elements must be continuously considered and applied. This is the only way to permanently increase Google search traffic on your website.

Here is the overview of the different factors:

OnPage factors:

1. Keywords: Read our blog article SEO-Series: OnPage factors «Keywords & Content»

2. Content: Read our blog article SEO-Series: OnPage factors «Keywords & Content»

3. Technology: Read our blog article SEO-Series: OnPage factors «technology & user experience»

4. User Experience: Read our blog article SEO-Series: OnPage factors «technology & user experience»

OffPage Factors:

5. Links: Read our blog article SEO-Series: OffPage factors «links & social signals»

6. Social Signals: Read our blog article SEO-Series: OffPage factors «links & social signals»

7. Branding: will be presented in this blog post 

8. Specific factors (local, regional, etc.): will be presented in this blog post 

Branding

What exactly is meant by branding? With branding, marketing measures are taken to strengthen your own brand. Branding measures show what your company stands for. Dharmesh Shah, branding pioneer and the founder of the well-known marketing software Hubspot defines a brand like this: "A brand is what people say about you after you leave the room".

SEO and branding

So what does this mean for your SEO measures? Of course, people are also talking about you and your brand on the web. Google takes these conversations into account in the form of brand signals. In addition, searchers are more likely to click on familiar brands in search results.

If you're a rather smaller company competing against an industry leader, for example, it's not hopeless by any means. It just means that you need to adjust your SEO strategy accordingly and focus more on less competitive niche keywords, for example.

In detail, this means that you take your brand into account accordingly when it comes to the known ranking factors:

Keywords
It is a fact that Google is often searched directly for the brand or the company name. So don't just use your products or services, but also use explicit keywords for your brand, e.g. your company name, aspects of the company history, the vision or other brand keywords that might be of interest to your customers.

Content
Then create appropriate content with the defined branding keywords. For example, create a page about your brand or your company. Tell your story and include your brand name in the content.

UX (User Experience)
When designing the website, it is worthwhile to incorporate the branding concept into the page architecture. For example, as mentioned above, this can be a page for your company's story. This can be covered with the «about us» menu. Besides your story, you can also present your values, your vision or your goals with additional pages. Keep in mind the essential UX principles when doing so.

Backlinks on brand names
In the blog post «SEO Series: OffPage Factors «Links & Social Signals» we already explained that backlinks are an important part for Google. It is valuable if you get backlinks from well-known brands. Make sure that you don't just get a backlink to your offer from your supplier, but directly to your home page or your company page «about us».  

Now let's turn to the specific factors. 
 

Specific factors

In the case of «specific factors», we distinguish between numerous customer-specific and industry-dependent factors. The best known would be, for example, the «local and international» factors.

Local SEO

A Google business profile can help you with local SEO. Via Google Maps you will be found in the surrounding area. If you have several locations in Switzerland, it is worthwhile to set up a company profile for each location. 

In addition, it helps with local SEO to report on current news in the area. Is there an important event coming up in your region? Write a blog post or news entry in which you link to the event. Or is there important news from your area? Write and publish content about that, too. This can help you get listed locally higher in Google ranking results.

International SEO

With international SEO, SEO measures are implemented that are adapted for your target market. For example, if you are active in China or in the USA, other optimizations than in Switzerland will influence the search engine ranking. For this it is important that you know your target market. Depending on this, it may be worthwhile for you to create a separate website for this country. The international factors are once again an area in itself and cannot be treated conclusively at this point.

Other customer specific needs

The situation is similar with customer-specific needs. Every company has a different starting position and different challenges. It is therefore a matter of targeted SEO optimization for a specific requirement. For this, it is worthwhile to analyze the goals and wishes of your company in a preliminary discussion with your SEO consultant and to develop a successful SEO strategy together.

Conclusion

Branding not only strengthens your brand, but can also help you with your SEO performance. Therefore, engage in active branding, taking into account the SEO factors mentioned above. 

The local and international optimizations depend on whether you operate transnationally or merely regionally. Depending on the area, different measures can help. In the case of local SEO, this would be, for example, a Google business profile or the creation of up-to-date content with a regional reference. With international SEO, the measures depend on your target market. 

Customized needs are best discussed in a kickoff with your SEO agency.

To conclude our SEO article series, we would like to remind you of the following points:

• We have introduced you to all 8 of the most important ranking factors (keywords, content, technique, UX, links, social signals, branding, specific factors). To achieve a better ranking result, all factors must always be considered and optimized. 
• SEO is a long-term process. It is not enough to perform the optimization once. All measures must be continuously reviewed and optimized. Therefore, make sure to plan enough internal resources for this.
• It can sometimes take several weeks before positive results can be measured. Concentrate primarily on the continuous increase of organic traffic (users who find your website via Google).
• With the free Google service «Google Search Console» you can monitor your SEO performance and get important and helpful information like if your pages are indexed correctly or if there are technical problems on your site that cause you to lose visibility. 
• SEO is a constant competition. All your efforts and optimizations are always in direct comparison to your competitor's efforts. If your competitor implements his SEO measures better, he will probably be ranked ahead of you. Therefore, keep an eye on your competition: what does their content look like, how is their website built and for which keywords do they appear in the search results?

Would you like to know how the SEO performance of your company looks like? We would be happy to perform an analysis for you with appropriate recommendations for action. I look forward to hearing from you.