Grow your Business with Branding Identification

Companies want to grow. Obvious statement, right? This is the reason why we all have jobs as marketers; companies need to grow and they need people who understand how to do that.

I have a startup client who uses this as one of their mantras:

I think it's true. Today I want to talk about how small businesses and startups can grow their brand company through smart marketing even when they don't have a huge budget.

Let me also say that I have stopped telling companies "Oh sure, we'll get you ranking for (insert keyword here)," because that's a small-minded approach to marketing and growing a company (especially a startup). I now tell startups to focus on growing their branded traffic, because that is ultimately how you get links, mindshare, and win online. This advice has only increased since the Penguin and Panda algorithms started rolling out. We're not seeking to trick or game the search engines; we're seeking to build brands online.

Here are a few ways to build branded mindshare.

Produce content

As Will Critchlow said in his SearchLove presentation (embedded at the bottom), you don't have to have money, but you do have to have one of these:

• Time
• Talent
• Balls (aka take risks)

Often, what you need to do first is establish your thought leadership, and that is done through content.

Some of my favorite examples are MailChimp's Resources:

And Grovo's resources:

I also respect what the founders of BufferApp have done by getting content all around the Internet to grow their startup. They've written on leading blogs such as ProBlogger, and now they're even being asked to do interviews, such as this one from Blueglass.

Leverage channels other than search

When looking to grow your company, you should not just leverage search (though it is a great medium for growth). For more on this idea, read Matt McGee's classic You Can Diversify or You Can Die from 2007.

We have so many channels to leverage for growth at this point on the Internet. You've all seen this:

I also want you to think about how you can use other platforms, such as forums or social networks, to tell a story and get attention.

For example, Grovo built out their History of the Internet on their Facebook Timeline:

When they launched it, they did outreach through PR and got exposure (and links) from all these places and more, driving over 300 signups:

Their branded traffic increased after being flat, and has kept increasing to this day:

Have a spokesperson

Having a spokesperson, or public face, is highly underrated by most companies. Potential customers don't (usually) connect with a brand, but they do connect with a person.

Would SEOmoz have grown its community, consulting, or software as quickly without Rand as the face of the company? I don't think so. In fact, his author page is the 8th most linked-to page on SEOmoz.

There are many ways companies can get their spokesperson (a CEO, a CMO, an awesome consultant) known:

• Meetups
• Conferences
• Blogging
• Presentations
• Social media
• Q/A Forums (like Moz Q/A)
• Engaging in online conversations (forums, blog commenting, social media)

Display these people prominently on your website.

Get real

This goes along with the spokesperson point above, but one of the best ways to start getting your company known is to be involved locally. I don't care if you are a tech startup or an international pharmaceutical brand - being involved in your local as well as online community is one of the best ways to build your branded searches and brand advocates.

Here's one example:

Yes, yes, SEOmoz is doing marketing that increases their branded searches (for both SEOmoz AND Mozcation). They're not trying to get us to link to them saying "SEO software," either :-)

Be lovable

I've often challenged clients with "What makes your customers happy, and what is going to make your brand lovable?" In my opinion, there is nothing worse than a faceless brand. It's not trustworthy, it's not likable, it's not fun. Even if you are in a serious industry, you can have a brand that people love because they connect with it.

For example, do you know this guy?

Or this guy:

Or this gal:

Mailchimp has Freddie, and they've even sent out large plush versions such as this one in SwissMiss's studio in Brooklyn:

We associate the face or mascot with the brand. It's called affinity and it works.

Look for search opportunity

Finally, one way to do this in the search results (see, we're still talking about SEO as it pertains to marketing) is to look for areas of opportunity. What are your competitors not doing that you can do? Are they not marking up their sites with Schema? Are they not leveraging image search? How about videos and video snippets in the search results? 

That's where you need to go. And use Tom Anthony's SERP Turkey to test if the investment to get those results is worthwhile.

Will Critchlow and Rand Fishkin's presentations from SearchLove

To wrap all this up, I'd like to leave you with a few thoughts. Building branded searches, honestly, is harder than building rankings. Branding is a longterm play, and it's not something that you can do overnight to gain traction. If you're looking for a quick hit to suddenly get a lot of users, branding isn't your answer. But ultimately, it's the right answer for growth and a successful business.

I'd also like to leave you with a couple of presentations about inbound marketing on a budget. This kind of inbound marketing will also win you branded searches. Will and Rand went head to head, as they are known to do at Distilled's conferences, about "Inbound Marketing on a Shoestring Budget". Both had stellar presentations, so I wanted to provide them here for you to flip through and get more ideas:

Can't Buy Me Love from Rand Fishkin

Source: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-brand-and-grow-your-company-through-marketing

Advantage of Google+ for SEO

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Hello Friends, it seems apart from being expert in their job Google engineers also have the ability to foresee the future this am saying because while developing Google+, they also developed an SEO carrier which governs search results better than made by other search engines. However going through the relevance of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter as a latest trend of promoting your products, but both of them impede Google to access their data.  This results in restricting the effectiveness of their SEO campaign. But this problem does not happen with Google+.

Let me explain this with an example. For this search your name on Google+ and check first 100 results on SERP. Just view the graph shown below you will notice difference in the results:

However you can also use this example on Twitter and Facebook, in-fact I also conducted same research and I noticed that Google+ mainly controls the results. Even SEOmoz was taken into consideration by Google+. This was one example you can carry out the same example for huge million of people to understand relevance of Google+. To utilize benefits of SEO there are different ways, in today’s tutorial we shall be focusing on 10 different ways that will enable you take an advantage of SEO.

1. Follow Links of your profile:

Before performing this step I would suggest you to conduct this exercise on SEOmoz you will earn 200 Mozpoints . I would suggest you to provide qualitative comments before you earn these Mozpoint. Whereas Google+ enables the person to get it connected with other profiles. It also facilitates you to implant those links to your bio supported by content which you want to insert. The value of link displayed by Google+ comparative to other platforms is much better indeed. It is authorized by both page and domain.

2. Implant links of other posts:

Google + also enables the person to implant other links on your posts. For this you just need to mention the URL address and Google automatically formats as link.  The worth of links enhances every time whenever it is shared or linked. For this let us view the following example. It is a post posted by Alexia Tsotsis, it has Page Rank 3 and Google caches it at regular intervals by Google.

Now if your post becomes universal or is shared, the value of links also increases.

3. Optimizing Title Tags of G+:

The very first word written on Google+ post is considered as part of title of your post, that is apparently related with ranking and place an important role in determining ranking of your post. It is therefore suggested to make selected keywords very carefully. You should know that it will be the first impression of your post on others. This can be better understood with help of illustration mentioned below. It is one of the post that is posted by Danny Sullivan.

4. Superior Editing Features:

Google+ facilitates blog writers as their own blogging place. In simple words it facilitates blogger to amend his blog according to his choice as many as times he wishes. But this is not same with Facebook or Twitter. However Facebook provides you this facility but to certain extent on the other side Twitter provides you the facility to delete your tweet once you have posted your tweet. The relevance of this feature increases when your blog is universal and you want to update with latest information at regular intervals. You also have facility of editing title and any attached document also. All this is possible only with Google+.

5. Indexing new page rapidly:

If you post any new content on Google+, than Google will index that page instantly. There rumors that new URLs are instantly crawled by Google. This truly vouches the relevance of Google+ that is replacing twitter while performing Google’s search option.  In earlier times when you wished your website to be indexed, you had to fill an application form and wait for your turn. But this is time in current scenario but just clicking +1 button.

                           “Google+ is the new Google Submit URL box.”
                           – Rand Fishkin, GROW 2012 Source

6. Get connected with inspirers:

Google+ provides the facility of almost 17 different notifications options that facilitate you to get connected with the inspirers within your own circle. These notifications can be received in form of notification emails, SMS or through phone depending upon the requirement of person. The 17 notification which you may receive may be like this:

I. Mention them in a post

II.  Share a post with them directly

III. Share a post and you’re in a circle they subscribe to

IV. Comment on a post they created

V. Comment on a post after they comment on it

VI. Add them to a circle

VII. Suggest new people to add to their circles

VIII. Tag them in a photo

IX. Tag one of their photos

X. Suggest a profile photo for them

XI. Comment on a photo after they comment on it

XII. Comment on a photo they are tagged in

XIII. Comment on a photo they tagged

XIV. Start a conversation with them

XV. Send them an invitation or update an event

XVI. Remind them about events

XVII. Any activity on events they created

7. Optimization of your snap to grab traffic:

It is believed that optimization of your photo may also result in increasing traffic on your website. If you have an eye catching photo followed by superb author tag will undoubtedly enhance you to even lead over your contender.

8. Taste social media dashboard on Google+:

With its inception Google Analytics has progressed well followed by social media reports. But if traffic on your website decides your survival than you need to place any information at front and placed in center. Going through this requirement Adam Singer has developed a remarkable piece of art i.e., social media dashboard that can be used for free. This will expedite you to with every necessary information from Google+ traffic and other social networks Including:

•   On Site Social Actions, i.e. Google +1′s

•   Revenue per Visit by Social Network

•   Overall Traffic Stats by Social Source

9. Have a look to ranking of your Circle:

An interesting tool on Google+ is circle count. This can be carried out by pasting your Google+URL to chart that will display increase in number of your followers. This will enable you to compare your posts with other profiles on Google+.

10. Make Practice of early adopter:

Although Google+ has witnessed dynamic growth but still only 1 out 4 people uses Google+ in a month, although number of logging users is increasing but still very less log in. It is of none use until unless your circle member log in to Google + regular. Even 10 minutes of visiting Google+ daily resulting in increasing number of your circle. This can be done:

•  Press +1 option to expand meaningful comment;

•  Add comment on interesting thought;

•  Add +1 button for your own content;

•  Engage/commen/reshare/start a hangout/create an event;

•  Circle known people;

•  Make easy for other to circle around you. 

Source :: http://blog.ribbun.com/tactics-for-enjoying-advantage-google-for-seo/