Traditional SEO focused on using links from authoritative sites to improve a site’s authority, ranking, and trust. However, the evolving nature of searches and Google algorithms has made links less significant.
Instead, brand mentions have become the most popular way of growing a brand’s reputation online. So what are brand mentions, and how can online businesses use them to increase rank?
What is a Brand Mention?
A brand mention happens when a site talks about your product or service. The website doesn’t need to create a link to your site. The simple action of mentioning your brand creates an organic buzz around your business.
Technically, Google refers to it as an implied link. According to Google’s 2014 patent application, an implied link is a citation to a target resource included in a site but is not directly linked to the target resource. Brand mentions fit this definition perfectly.
Why Use Brand Mentions
Attracts Organic Traffic
For years rankings have been based on link building. However, links have not always yielded organic growth because some sites heavily rely on link schemes to increase popularity on a search engine.
Moreover, Google reports increasing use of manipulative link tactics to enhance SERP, not to mention the dated notion that a site’s ranking depends on the number of hyperlinks it uses.
Updated Search Guidelines
The evolving nature of web searches means that search engines use a range of interconnected factors to rank a page.
What’s more, Google’s Search Quality guidelines are always changing their ranking algorithm. For example, for Page Quality rating, Google looks for an external, independent reputation about a site.
Help Identify Good and Rogue Websites
Some years ago, online merchants leveraged bad publicity to rank on Google because the bad reviews generated buzz around the brand.
Google incorporated an algorithmic solution, in response to the practice to ensure merchants providing poor user experience had a low ranking.
6 Ways to Get Brand Mentions
Getting your brand mentioned on another site can be an uphill task, especially for new websites. Here are some handy tips to help you get started:
1. Increase Your Social Media Presence
Brand mentions often occur on social media because social media platforms provide a vast landscape of digital interactions through referencing, commenting, sharing, and discussions. As such, it is a rich platform to grow brand mentions.
2. Guest Blogging
The practice is often used to build links, but the actual payoff of guest blogging is to provide top-notch information. Thus, whether a link is included or not, guest blogging helps grow brand mentions.
The more places your website, company, or business is mentioned, the more likely it will stand out in the ever-changing digital landscape.
3. Social Campaigns
A successful social media campaign can create a huge buzz around a brand. The technique is quite rewarding but a little challenging to implement as you need to identify your audience and create a campaign that resonates with their interests.
Tools such as Google Analytics come in handy as they help identify details about audience demographics and psychographics.
Most social platforms have tools that provide essential metrics to help you create a campaign that capitalizes on their interests.
4. Build Your Brand
Entrepreneurs and marketers who have already developed a personal brand can leverage it to grow the business brand.
Mentioning the name of the company in guest blogs, personal blogs, and offline mentions goes a long way in enhancing a brand’s reach.
5. Engage in Discussions in Communities and Forums
While forums are a dated marketing technique, they make an effective way of increasing mentions. LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, among other platforms, provides an opportunity for you to make brand mentions directly.
This is because the forums allow participants to discuss the brand, and such discussions create an organic presence that stirs interest from a larger audience.
6. Keep Adding Content to Your Site
Content has become a valuable marketing technique in the wake of the link building craze. Additionally, the recent changes in Google’s algorithm shifts (Hummingbird, Panda, and Penguin) have shifted marketing efforts in the direction of content.
When businesses are committed to growing content, your brand mentions that reputation, authority, discussion, and trust also grow.
Extra: Convert the Mentions into Links
While Google is moving away from links, having high-quality links can still affect your rankings in SERPs, and turning unlinked brand mentions into backlinks is one of the best strategies for achieving this goal.
Once you have found sites mentioning your brands, consider asking them to change the mention into a link. Be sure to check their domain score to ensure it is a high ranking site (websites whose score is above 40).
Wrap Up
While the use of brand mentions is an emerging trend, online businesses need to adapt the practice if they want to remain relevant and increase ranking on SERPs. Brands can also use mentions to improve their audience perception.
