12 Brand Awareness Strategies to Scale Your SEO for 2017 (and Beyond)

As any Marketing Manager or Marketing Director knows, keeping up with effective brand awareness strategies often feels like you’re chasing an ever-moving target. And that’s precisely because it is an ever-changing digital world out there.

Use our guide for 9 great tips to follow to keep your 2017 SEO strategy competitive.

Each one of these tips is fairly easy to implement on its own. When you add them up, you’ll give yourself a powerful

arsenal to boost your brand – and get even better results.

1. Really Close in On Your Ranking Strategy

As you already know, ranking strategy boils down to the best possible keyword usage. Ask yourself these questions to narrow down the best options where you should place your focus:

What Problem Is My Business Solving?

What Keywords Are My Competitors Ranking For?

Are There Any Keyword Gaps Our Business Can Fill?

2. Use Google+ (Seriously)

Just like YouTube, Google+ is another valuable asset for any SEO strategy.

For example, imagine Rachel is a Marketing Director for a modestly-sized business of 50. To boost her SEO results, she

uses G+ in all the following ways:

Posts Relevant Content and Shares Others’ Posts

Cultivates a List of Followers

Includes Keywords Relevant to Her Brand in Posts and Company Info

Adds Local Information to Her Company’s Account

3. Create Evergreen (Timeless) Content

The best type of evergreen content will vary based on what your company offers. In general, however, you can follow this list for effective content (thanks to Stephanie Norman of Positionly for the list):

● Write for Beginners: The content should be good for beginners in what you’re talking about.

● Use an Exact Topic: Make the content about just one specific topic.

● Format for Easy Reading: Make the content easy to read, see, and understand.

● Showcase Authority: Make sure to convey that you’re an expert on whatever subject you’re discussing.

● Include a Call-to-Action: Encourage and motivate your audience to take action based on what your content is about.

● Update: Make updates to the content as times change or new developments occur.

● Repurpose and Re-share: Updates and revisions can give you a great reason to re-post and share this content again – both to original readers and a new audience.

4. Optimise Your Page Speed

Speed matters in your content. According to research from the Aberdeen Group, every single second your web page has a delay causes…

… a 7% decrease in your conversion rate.

… an 11% drop in page views.

… a 16% dip in overall audience satisfaction.

That’s why it’s so essential to optimise your site for speed and performance!

5. Iron Out Your Mobile Page Presence

As mentioned above, Google is now prioritising mobile in its search results and ranking. Even with this announcement fresh in our minds, many businesses still think of their mobile websites as secondary in their brand awareness strategies!

With these new changes in Google’s policy, here’s what your company is doing:

Working to Rank on Secondary Search Index

Losing Out on Mobile Traffic/Customers

Losing Out on Conversions, Customers, Revenue, and Business

6. AMP Up Your Mobile Page Speed

We already mentioned how quickly your customers will abandon you if you have slow-loading content. And this page speed is critical both on desktop and mobile formats.The good news is that there’s a much more effective speed optimisation method for mobile – Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).For those who may not know, AMP is a Google open standard used to keep mobile pages loading much faster. The goal is to provide a better user experience for mobile-based content. And that’s a benefit for everyone.

7. Don’t Be Afraid to Create Longer-Form Content

An analysis of SEMRush data by Backlinko actually found that longer content will consistently rank higher in Google SERPs!

As always, though, you need to stay focussed on quality to help create brand awareness. Your longer content needs to maintain that level of quality from start-to-finish.

8. Simplify Your URLs

Here are some tips:

Organise for Easy Reading with a “Human First” Approach

Keep Keywords Closer to Front of URL

Abridge Your URL from Title – No Need for Exact Matches

Only Use Lowercase Letters

Separate Words with Hyphens

Don’t Bother with Articles (e.g. “a” “an” “the”)

9. Natural, Organic Content Always Wins

Finally – and arguably the most important out of all these tips – your content needs to remain natural and organic.

It’s easy to get carried away in all the technical details listed above. But if you’re content is more about the technical elements over the natural, organic subject, you’re doing your company a disservice.

Always remember that quality, natural content will always better serve your SEO and brand awareness strategies than any other approach.

After all, it’s about connecting your audience with content they want to experience. If that’s not happening, then why would you expect your targets to stick around?

Download our free e-book to learn more, “Building Brand Awareness: The Guide For 2017.”