Brand Knowledge Content: Your Top SEO Priority Going Forward
Online findability fundamentals that are usually neglected (but cannot be anymore)
The importance of branding is nothing new. I’ve been saying this for ages: Becoming a well-known brand is your top SEO priority.
It has been ignored by many brands.
Well, guess what, it can no longer be neglected if you want to remain findable.
Here comes brand knowledge.
What is brand knowledge?
Brand knowledge is a consumer's understanding and recall of a brand and its products.
In other words, when someone says “smartphone”, you immediately recall iPhone and Apple. That is the strongest brand knowledge out there.
Brand knowledge is built on associations with your brand.
In the zero-click discovery era, brand knowledge is key because that’s how you are going to be discovered through AI-driven interactions.
ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. rely on our - human - knowledge. So unless you have those important associations and people don’t recall your brand when discussing related concepts and problems, your brand will not come up in any AI answers.
So how to build brand knowledge?
This is a long, never-ending process of getting your brand searched for and talked about.
But one important component of this process we haven’t talked about yet is creating brand knowledge content.
What is brand knowledge content?
It’s content that talks about your brand.
The idea is pretty simple here: If not enough people are talking about your brand yet, you do it yourself.
Examples of brand knowledge content:
A solid About page
A detailed FAQ answering even weird questions, like why your company should be trusted and why your products are better than competitors (very important)
An interview with a CEO (or other person who actively talks on your company’s behalf online and elsewhere)
Brand statement
A lot of your brand knowledge content can and should be syndicated, repackaged, and promoted off your site:
Send traditional press releases for company news, and repurpose them on social media
Re-publish your interviews (or takeaways from interviews) on Linkedin, Medium, etc.,
Visualize your FAQs and post them on Instagram
Create video takeaways from interviews and re-publish them as Shorts, Reels, and TikToks.
Your brand knowledge content should be everywhere, in different forms. But it should also live on your site as well, using schema.
I understand talking about yourself and your company may feel awkward (I struggle with that a lot) but brand knowledge content is fundamental for AI discovery. It will also help you control your branded search too.
If you need help, let us know!
I appreciate your practical approach to all this, and the common sense accompanying it.
What I hear you saying is that it's okay to talk about ourselves, our company, our brand? For so long, that's been anathema- it was all about speaking to the customers' and prospects' needs, pain points, etc. You know, "They ask, you answer," to use Marcus Sheridan's term.
Is there a formula I could use to determine how much content should be brand-related and how much should be customer-focused? If so, please share. Otherwise, thanks again for sharing your knowledge, Ann.