Using Brand value for SEO: Can we use keyword with brand name?
-
Hi Moz community,
I am curious to know this. Let's say there is a brand value for a company. It has it's own popularity that it's been mentioned across the internet and social media directly with brand name without their service or industry keyword. Now if the company started promoting themselves like keyword along with their brand name, will it help them to rank for that keyword. For example, Moz is already famous, now they want to rank for "SEO" and related keywords, so they started calling themselves on internet "Moz SEO"; will this fetch them in ranking for keyword SEO? My ultimate question is, using primary keyword along with brand name will work out in ranking for that primary keyword or not?
Thanks
-
I agree with Robert. So of course with the Clarks examples pages may be:
Clarks Boots
Clarks Sandals
Clarks Slippers
And each of those pages would be different. Filled with contextually rich content surrounding those terms.
"It won't put you on the 1st page" - I don't agree with this. I have many clients who have been hoiked up to page one by adding contextually relevant content to a key phrase (Brand + Category) constructed the page. If you _are _the brand and you construct pages like this (With 300+ words contextual content) you will be No. 1 or 2 in Google, never mind just on the front page.
Just search 'Carousel Projects SEO'
Regards Nigel
-
Hey vtmoz,
Short answer: It will probably help your rankings for that keyword/phrase.
Longer answer: It won't put you on the 1st page, but it will go some distance in helping your rankings along with other established factors.
Potential issue: If your brand features other products or services for which they wish to rank that are irrelevant to the keyword you wish to rank for, be careful that you do not gain rankings for your selected keyword at the expense of others on your site.
For example, say you want to rank for "keyword 1" so you target "Brand" "Keyword 1". If you also have "Keyword 2" and "Keyword 3" that are not relevant to "Keyword 1" you have just shot yourself in the foot for those keywords in order to gain ground with "Keyword 1".
This may not be a problem for you, but something to be aware of.
Personally, I'd be more inclined to make internal pages for keywords I am attempting to rank for, and introduce the brand and specific keyword to those pages to help Google with context. The last thing you want to do is switch up Google's understanding of your site by "traffic hunting" (i.e. putting keywords into your site content to increase traffic rather than to serve your visitors). In this way you might even lose traffic by making the change you have highlighted.
Let me know if you'd like clarification on the above - always happy to help!
Cheers,
Rob
-
Hi vtmoz
It's funny you should say "so they started calling themselves on the internet 'Moz SEO' " because Moz used to be called SEOMOZ and they changed to just MOZ so that they could concentrate on building the brand. There is evidence to suggest that if an article is written about a subject and your brand is linked from that article that Google will recognise the contextuality of the article and associate your brand name with that subject.
For example, one would expect that Nike and 'sports', 'sports clothing' etc would occupy the same space. In the same way - if your brand sold Tennis Rackets, for example, Google would begin to associate your brand name with that range of products.
In the same way, when we SEOs are optimising a page we will use Keyword Explorer. The tool would give us contextually relevant keywords to use alongside a brand name in order to strengthen the SEO of a page.
So if I were writing an article on Nike and I hadn't used the words 'sports', 'sports clothing', 'sports footwear' or even 'Phil Knight', then MOZ will suggest these as relevant keywords to use to strengthen the page's SEO.
I wouldn't include them in the brand name but I would use them on a page. In this way, they become kind of 'baby anchor text' in that they surround the brand.
In order to strengthen that further, you might write an article that is submitted to a blog with a specific anchor text backlink which is not your brand name but the most relevant keyword. So if Nike wanted (and it does of course) to be found for the term 'Sports Footwear' then it would link back to its own page with that anchor text.
Very often when I am constructing Meta titles and heading for a brand page then I would use the subject after the brand as that is often the way someone may search for it in Google.
Example: I would title a page 'Clarks Boots' as the opening two words of the title and as the H1 on the page if I wanted that page to rank for the brand and the category. I would then fill the page with boot products along with a good 300 word + description of the types of Clarks boots, the gender, heels, ankle, mid, high and any other contextually relevant keywords.
I hope that goes someway to answering your question,
Regards
Nigel
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do you think profanity in the content can harm a site's rankings?
In my early 20's I authored an ebook that provides men with natural ways to improve their ahem... "bedroom performance". I'm now in my mid 30s, and while it's not such an enthralling topic, the thing makes me 80 or so bucks a day on good days, and it actually works. I update the blog from time to time and build links to it on occasion from good sources. I've carried my SEO knowledge to a more "reputable" business, but this project is still interesting to me, because it's fully mine. I am more interested in getting it to rank and convert than anything, but following the same techniques that are working to grow the other business, this one continues to tank. Disavow bad links, prune thin content.. no difference. However, one thing I just noticed now are my search queries in the reports. When I first started blogging on this, I was real loose with my tongue, and spoke quite frankly (and dirty to various degrees). I'm much more refined and professional in how I write now. However, the queries I'm ranking for... a lot of d words, c words (in the sex sense)... sounds almost pornographic. Think Google may be seeing this, and putting me lower in rankings or in some sort of lower level category because of it? Heard anything about google penalizing for profanity? I guess in this time of authority and trust, that can hurt both of those... but I wonder if anyone's heard any actual confirmation of this or has any experience with this? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | DavidCapital0 -
Is it possible (or advisable) to try to rank for a keyword that is 'split' across subfolders in your url?
For example, say your keyword was 'funny hats' - ideally you'd make your url 'website.com/funny-hats/' But what if 'hats' is already a larger category in your site that you want to rank for as its own keyword? Could you then try to rank for 'funny hats' using the url 'website.com/hats/funny/' ? Basically what I'm asking is, would it be harmful to the chances of ranking for your primary keyword if it's split across the url like this, and not necessarily in the correct order?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
What we can understand from decrease in % of New Sessions year to year in Google analytics.
Hi, As per Google analytics, we are loosing around 15% of new sessions every year comparing to the previous. But the sessions are increasing. Good that sessions increased; but new sessions are getting reduced. What exactly we can understand from this scenario? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Do Exact Match Domains Still Have Value?
I realise that there has probably been a lot said about Exact Match Domains, however, I want to know 2 things: Is this two exact match domains or one EMD: "londonfootball.com" and "footballlondon.com" so is "London Football" one EMD, and "Football London" another? Does having an EMD add a big advantage in getting ranked? Is it worth paying 2 months SEO expense to buy an EMD? To me if it still has an advantage then it probably is. However, I would like to hear the opinion of the experts. I would specially like to hear from anyone who owns or bought an EMD to rank. Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | RyanShahed0 -
Why am i not ranking in the top 50 for the keyword 'cocktails' even though all my other cocktail related keywords are in the first 2 pages of Google???
I have checked the first 50 pages of google for my website www.socialandcocktail.co.uk using the keyword 'cocktails'. It is NOT to be found. However, if I search for other keyword combinations eg cocktail recipes, cocktail bars etc they are all in the first 2 pages! What is going on????????
Algorithm Updates | | cocktailboss0 -
Keyword density and meta tags
Hi, I've just checked the number of keywords appearing on my website's pages. On some of them the keyword density was way too high (7-10%) if you included the meta tags, but all under 3.5% if I didn't include the keywords and description meta tags. So my question is - when looking at number of keywords used per page, do I have to worry about what's in those meta tags? Do the keywords in there count towards keyword density / number of keywords per page? Thanks, Luke
Algorithm Updates | | McTaggart0 -
If you rank first organically for a keyword, will you rank first for variations?
Hi everyone, Hoping that someone will be able to answer this question for us. If we rank first organically for a keyword, are we safe to assume that we'll rank first (or close to it) for variations of that keyword as well? E.g. If we rank first easily for "Hamilton Island", can we safely assume that we will rank well organically for close variations of that keyword such as "Hamilton Islands", "Hamiltonisland", "Hamilton Island Hotel" due to the fact that "Hamilton Island" is in those keywords? We're deciding which keywords to monitor in SEOmoz and we don't want to waste keywords on very similar terms if we don't have to. Really appreciate any responses! Cheers.
Algorithm Updates | | HamiltonIsland0 -
Is There Any Problem For Google When We Use Capital Letters in the Beginning of Each Word in TITLE?
I'm just wandering is there any difference when we use "Cheap Holidays to Egypt" or "Cheap holidays to Egypt". It is easier for users to read first option but would the second be more relevant for crawls?
Algorithm Updates | | fleetway0