Does traffic for branded searches help a site rank for general terms?
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A year or two ago we put up some websites which were specific to brands we own. Sure enough those sites (eg 'myBrand.com') started to rank pretty well for those brand terms eg 'mybrand curling tongs' (it's not curling tongs, btw, but you get the idea). We were getting a decent amount of traffic presumably from people who have bought or seen these products on our amazon/ebay stores.
Before long, we see us starting to rank well for non branded searches eg 'curling tongs' even among decent competition. Next thing you know I'm getting told by the boss that we need to put up websites for all specific ranges, not just brands, because specificity is a bonus for ranking well.
While there's probably a point that a site for MybrandCurlingTongs lends itself well to ranking for curling tongs, is there also an element that the branded searches we got (via making our brand known on amazon/ebay) helped the site gain recognition and authority? As such a new website about 'ionising hair dryers' would not rank well based on being specific, because it wouldn't be helped by a lot of branded traffic?
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Sometimes branded keywords help a lot in ranking. If you are working for a brand website or any other brand business then try to work for brand keywords as I do for my cornerstone built homes page.
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Branded searches are always a good way to get some extra clients, but you shouldn't neglect the power of Domain Authority.
Google has given less priority to domain names recently than when it did before. A few years ago, if you had a website curlingtongs.com, it would put you in a huge advantage over any other competitors just because of how you named your domain. Nowadays the domain name is still an advantage, but mainly since it makes it easier for you to target the keyword already being present in your title and header.
The main issue with creating new sites is that you have to put more effort into creating, optimizing and building backlinks for the site, and it would be much better in the long term to build a main site and add the products as posts/pages, so that they can rank more easily by utilizing the domain score and internal linking of the main site (and vice-versa). Having the main site branch off to product pages also increases the trust customers have in buying your product as the site would be better-implemented.
Sure, there is space for discussion when it comes to relevancy versus increasing the domain score, but I would personally split a site only if the two products are vastly different, say kitchen appliances vs construction, or if they are offered in multiple countries (since Google is quite fond of localizing sites).
Daniel Rika - Dalerio Consulting
https://dalerioconsulting.com/
info@dalerioconsulting.com
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