Which is more important? Branding or SEO?

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If one day Google close shop! What will happen then?

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what patrick said

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

In my opinion, it's far more important to build brands. Being able to analyze data, target your audience, develop valuable content, and engage your audience based on their needs, puts you light years ahead of just simply having a SEO friendly website. Websites that are successful know how to utilize the information above to create an experience. You could have the most SEO friendly site on the planet but that doesn't mean your work is done nor does it stop users from trusting brands that take the time to listen to and hear them.

SEO is a bullet point in a job description. What I mean by that is web developers build SEO friendly websites and marketers/content writers create content in a SEO friendly fashion. Out of the gate, a new website should be built with SEO elements in mind. Knowing how to structure your website in a SEO friendly fashion is an extremely valuable asset, but it's not an asset that guarantees success solely by itself.

SEO are foundational elements that websites should just have at this point - clean design, relevant titles, easy to use navigation, proper markup, local listings and citations, responsive, etc. If your sole job is based on search engine rankings and performance at the basic SEO level, you're not going to be in business long. The reason being, the elements I just listed above, while extremely helpful, do not mean success - they don't build brands or user trust.

Search engines trust brands. They want to return the best websites to their users in search results - more often than not, those are websites that are making a concerted effort to provide a great user experience, valuable/relevant/timely content to their users, active on social media, engaging their audience, etc. - aka, creating a brand with substance. That being said, those websites usually are SEO friendly as well, but again, that's just the basics for search engine success - they didn't become a "brand" because they had a SEO friendly website.

Merely creating a website that's SEO friendly and crossing your fingers hoping for the best isn't enough anymore. You need to be investing in developing a loyal audience and embracing change as it happens in your audience / industry. Brands are successful at these sorts of things, and will be rewarded because they pay attention at multiple levels.

Make sure you check out Rand's new Whiteboard Friday called Is Brand a Ranking Factor? as well.

Final thought - brands developed and lasted long before SEO was even a flicker of a thought - if Google ever went away, brands will be around long after SEO is gone as well.

Let me know if this makes sense or if you have questions - good luck!