How to Turn Your Site into a Google Brand

The most important SEO tactic is usually neglected....

Turning your site into a brand is the best SEO strategy out there. When Google knows you as a brand, you become part of Google’s Knowledge Graph. Becoming a Google entity means being trusted by Google which is the most important SEO signal out there.

Branding also ensures your site’s discoverability through generative AI platforms.

This means two important things:

• Becoming a brand should be the ultimate goal of your SEO strategy

• Any SEO strategy should include more than just keywords, content, technical audits, and links because there’s no easy way to become a brand.

Google won’t tell us what it takes to become an entity, i.e. part of its Knowledge Graph. But from their documentation and personal experience, a good combination of the following helps:

• Being referenced by other entities (having a dedicated Wikipedia page is still very effective too)

• A good amount of branded searches

• A lot of brand mentions around the web.

So what should any SEO strategy include:

1. Create an ongoing branded (entity-driven) link-building strategy

Entity-driven link-building tactics may include:

• Getting interviewed

• Participating in webinars and podcasts

• Getting awards

I did a whole newsletter episode on this here: Google SEO and Topical Authority: It Is All About Vanity Metrics, Yet Again 

2. Launch regular viral marketing campaigns

Viral marketing helps on so many levels: It generates links, clicks, and brand mentions. All of these are important Google signals.

Anything that gets your brand discussed is helpful. Not all of your initiatives will go viral. The key is to never stop trying. We have a cool service that focuses on infographic marketing.

3. Get more people to search for your brand

Viral marketing and entity-driven link-building will help with this. But there is more you can do:

• Run regular social media ads (including ads on Reddit which are the most effective here). We can help with this too.

• Engage with influencers on social media and get tagged

• Monitor your brand mentions and become part of the discussion

• Be part of the community (niche forums, relevant subreddits, etc.)

All of these will encourage more people to research your brand online which means they will search for your name in Google and ask generative AI questions about you (which may teach those platforms to surface you in more answers).

This also means paying more attention to your branded search, of course.

4. Get mentioned a lot

This is not just about linked mentions. Any context mentioning your brand is helpful.

There’s a variety of tactics to get your brand mentioned online, for example:

• Good old PR campaigns

• Blogger/journalist outreach

• Sponsorships of online contests

• Collaborating with other brands on co-marketing campaigns, etc.

There’s no easy way to become a brand but the good news is, while trying, you’ll build other important signals reinforcing your consistent online visibility, like links and clicks. So it is definitely not a waste of time!