The State of Search: Brand Authority

The concept of “brand authority” is a recurring theme in our internal SEO strategy sessions at REQ. For over ten years, dating back to our earliest days as reputation management specialists, we have believed that Google values a holistic approach to SEO. Inbound links and measurable metrics are certainly part of the mix, but “brand strength” has always seemed to drive search results, even if that piece of the puzzle is more difficult to measure from the outside looking in. A recent episode of the Voices of Search podcast captured how much this trend has come to dominate the industry, and how important it is to understand how Google is analyzing your brand reach, brand awareness, and brand identity online.

What does this mean for you?

We've summarized takeaways from the podcast into a few key points and have identified the following as best practices: 

• Build awareness through various social channels and other engagement opportunities
• Boost the volume of branded search traffic by optimizing third party external references 
• Leverage featured snippets to improve the authority of your brand in all the relevant spaces 

These are excellent bits of advice, and practices our team has been prioritizing for quite some time. As REQ has grown over the years to include a full brand strategy team, we continue to see how much overlap there is among our focus areas – and this helps position our clients for success.