Incorporation of Company Branding and SEO

SEO is not an exact scien­ce. This beco­mes appa­rent when try­ing to incor­po­ra­te both SEO and bran­ding into a stra­te­gy. This pro­cess is finic­ky to say the least. On the one side, SEO deals with the pla­ce­ment of key­words and phra­ses. On the other side, bran­ding deals with com­pa­ny loy­al­ty and cul­tu­re. Incor­po­ra­ting both sides dilu­tes the pro­mi­nen­ce of both. But eli­mi­na­ting one or the other may not meet all stra­te­gic and mar­ke­ting goals.

Once aga­in, it sho­uld be empha­si­zed that SEO is a series of guide­li­nes rather than an exact scien­ce. Having said that, the fol­lo­wing recom­men­da­tion can be used to satis­fy both sides of the equ­ation. In gene­ral, key­words and phra­ses (i.e. SEO) sho­uld rema­in the focus of any ear­ly-sta­­ge com­pa­ny, whi­le the incor­po­ra­tion of com­pa­ny bran­ding sho­uld appe­ar later in the evo­lu­tion. This is sim­ply a gene­ral sta­te­ment and sho­uld not be taken word for word.

The reaso­ning is pret­ty stra­ight­for­ward. At first, no-one knows the name of your com­pa­ny, but per­haps they are sear­ching for your pro­ducts or servi­ces. In other words, you want to tar­get key­words and phra­ses that focus aro­und your offe­ring rather than your com­pa­ny. As you build loy­al­ty and cre­di­bi­li­ty, bran­ding beco­mes more impor­tant. It’s at this point that you may want to incor­po­ra­te cor­po­ra­te mes­sa­ging to streng­then the rela­tion­ship with custo­mers and instill trust in your brand.

One final tho­ught abo­ut bran­ding: if a sear­cher types in the name of your com­pa­ny, they are like­ly to find your websi­te any­ways. This is due mostly to anchor text and back-links. The­re­fo­re, opti­mi­zing for the com­pa­ny name is rather insi­gni­fi­cant in most cases.