Last Updated on 2020-12-27 by ppcguybklyn
If we want to open a store on an e-commerce platform today and create a brand new brand, then the most important thing is definitely to name this new brand. We all know that the brand name is very important to the difficulty of marketing. From a digital marketing standpoint, how important is the choice to the brand name? In this article, I will discuss the importance of brand names and branded keywords based on the influence of brand names on SEO and PPC advertising, and how we can name our own brands.
The importance of branded keyword ranking and traffic
The importance of brand names for digital marketing-especially SEO and keyword advertising, is mainly determined by the exposure and online traffic that can be brought by the keywords related to the brand name, which are commonly known as branded keywords. And the functions of branded keywords can be roughly discussed by the following two points:
The search result page of the branded keyword is the best way to maximize exposure
When searching for keywords related to our brand, the ideal situation is that the first position of the paid search advertising, the first position of the natural search result, and the business information on the right side of the search result are displaying our website and information. This way we can take up at least more than half of the first page of the search result.More than 75% of search userswill not read search results other than the first page, so being able to occupy more than half of the first page will greatly increase the click-through rate of our website. At the same time, occupying a large portion of the first page of the search can be more authoritative and reliable in the eyes of the audience. If someone searches for our brand for the first time, it may leave a better first impression of our website that can lead to improvements of traffic quality.
Highly recognizable brand words can effectively increase the overall conversion rate of the website
Another function of the branded keyword is to increase the conversion rate of the website. When we have a certain degree of brand recognition and exposure, there must be many customers who already know our brand to visit our website, and these visitors will stay on the website because they have certain knowledge and interest in our brand. The interaction time is usually longer, and there will be a greater chance of engaging in conversion behavior on our website, thereby increasing the overall conversion rate of our website.
For example, if we want to rent a car in the United States today, our first action is usually to search for well-known car rental brands such as Enterprise or Avis, and complete the car rental reservation directly on the company website. We will want to search for non-brand words such as car rental only when a well-known company does not meet our needs . In this case, the stronger the relationship between the brand and the service and the higher the recognition, the more likely the visitor is to complete the conversion directly on the company website.
Photo Credit: Iterable.com
The impact of brand recognition on SEO and PPC campaigns
After understanding the positive impact of branded keywords on our website if they are used properly and performed well, we can look at it from another angle. If our brand recognition is not high, what impact will it have on SEO and advertising activities? I think we can start from the following two points:
Names that are easily confused with other brands will be difficult to improve SEO rankings
Before naming a brand, you must thoroughly investigate whether there are similar brand names in the market that already have a certain scale. If the brand names are too similar, then although SEO and paid search campaigns may have the opportunity to be derived from the search traffic of the other brand name and get traffic, but it is also possible that the other party already has a very good SEO ranking and authority, thus increasing the intensity of competition and making it difficult to improve the SEO ranking of our own branded keywords.
Another thing to consider is that if our brand name is similar to other brands, in addition to the fiercer competition on SEO, it is easy to confuse the visiting audience regardless of the difference between the services provided by us and the other party. If visitors find our website very different from what they originally wanted to search for, there is a great chance they would exit the site instantly, increasing the bounce rate of the website and greatly reducing the overall conversion rate.
Without brand recognition, the advantages of branded keywords cannot be fully utilized
As mentioned earlier, the biggest advantage of branded keywords is that they can easily bring us high-quality traffic that is likely to be converted. This is also true when operating paid search ads. By making full use of branded keywords, you can use relatively low CPC comes to reach advertising audiences with high click-through rates and high conversion rates.
But these benefits and advantages are based on our already very high brand recognition, that is, when consumers want to find content related to our products and services, they will think of our brand name first. If the brand name itself is not highly recognizable, it will be more difficult to obtain these high-quality traffic. At the same time, PPC ads will be unable to use branded keywords to increase the exposure of the search results page due to low search traffic.
Once we are unable to use the advantages of branded keywords to bring profits to our digital marketing, we should think about whether we should change the direction of our marketing strategy. For example, paid search advertising should focus on non-brand keywords and use more display network campaigns and other available resources to let potential consumers know our brand, etc. If the brand name itself is not good, then more time and resources will be spent on marketing and promotion, before we can have success in digital marketing.
Choose brand names from a digital marketing perspective
Based on the above points, choosing a brand name is very important for SEO and PPC advertising performance. Brand awareness and recognition have a complementary relationship with digital marketing. A good brand name can make digital marketing more effective. So if we are a new brand, how do we choose a brand name to have a good start in digital marketing? I think to choose a good brand name can consider the following three points:
- Similarity with common keywords of service and product content
If our services and product content are relatively common things, rather than brand-new or unique new products, we can consider making full use of the search traffic of keywords similar to our services and products when naming our brand. A good example is Pizza Hut or Footlocker, both of which directly tell consumers what their products are in the brand name. Although these two brands did not have digital marketing at all when they were founded, this name naming method that comes up with a unique brand name can be used to make it easier for consumers to find the websites in SEO and PPC advertising by utilizing the search traffic (Pizza or Footwear) of the product keyword.
The disadvantage of this naming method is that if the market for the product itself is large, then the potential competition will be very fierce. For example, there are so many websites and shops that sell shoes on the market, and you must spend more when competing for SEO and advertising rankings. We will need more resources and time to beat other brands (Zappos, even NIKE or Adidas) and gain better search and advertising positions. At the same time, if there are already a lot of similar websites on the market, we must spend more time studying whether the brand name we thought of has been taken away when naming it, so as to avoid racking our brains to think of a name we really like only to find out that it had been used by others.
- Easy to pronounce, no difficult words
When naming our brand, a simple, easy to pronounce name with not too many unfamiliar words usually can get more traffic. When operating a paid search ad campaign that aims to increase brand recognition, it will be relatively simple to make the audiences remember our brand name. If it is an English brand name, try to control it to two to three syllables, and don't have too many other pronunciation combinations to cause confusion. The best examples of this naming method are Sony and Amazon. Both brand names are very simple and easy to identify, but they are not so simple that they are not memorable.
The difficulty of pronunciation of the brand name is important because we hope to let consumers know us as quickly as possible during the inauguration of the brand. At this time, if the brand is too wordy or mouthful, it will be more difficult to promote it. We all hope that advertising and promotion activities can maximize the efficiency, and a simple and powerful brand name can help do this.
- Unique and memorable
The last and most important point is that the brand name must be unique and memorable. Take Expedia and Trivago as examples, these two companies cleverly made the characteristics of the services into concise and powerful brand names that no one can think of. Expedia is a combination of Exploration and Speed, and Trivago is a combination of French (Tri), Spanish (Va) and English Go, so the entire brand name is Go Go Go, and both brands have successfully become famous brands of their respective businesses.
Although a unique name may not be able to use the keywords of products and services to gain traffic, once it can gain a foothold, because of the uniqueness of the brand name, it is relatively difficult for competitors to use SEO to compete with our brand words for ranking and ad position. Therefore, when naming a brand, if you can spend a little time playing word games and creating your own unique name, it will definitely help the future digital marketing.
Conclusion
Naming a new brand is a very laborious task, and once the brand name is determined, it is difficult to replace it halfway. So you must do your homework before naming it: know the possible naming options and what is the impact on future marketing activities. Sometimes our favorite brand name may not be the best choice, so we must consult other people before making a decision to ensure that we can achieve our goals when we use digital marketing tools for promotion in the future.
