In theory it should be simple to rank first for your brand name, but increased competition has made it tougher to dominate the rankings. This blog post will explain how to rank first for your brand name as well as dominate all ten positions in the Google search results.
The Market
Increased competition has made it harder to rank for your company name. If you don’t want to fork out for every version of your domain then you could come up against a .co .net or even a .biz competitor. Many industries have also seen competitors sprout up overnight by simply using a dash version of a website i.e. www.brand-name.com
Many websites have named their brand after a primary keyword so exact match domains can help sustain tasty rankings. The problem is that many people have the same idea. Other problems include UK brands being outranked by US brands in .co.uk search engines. To give your site the best chance of ranking first in Google you should implement the following.
Press Release
Simple but effective. Writing and distributing a range of press releases will help you rank for your brand name. An official release will give search engines ‘brand signals’ and you can get a link back to your website (with the brand name in the anchor text). Referencing the brand name in the title and body text will also help get the release ranked for your company searches.
Meta Data
If ranking for your brand name is imperative I would suggest referencing the company in every Meta title and description. This will show you are hugely relevant but it will also show up highlighted in Google search results. If you don’t want to do this on every page it is essential you at least do it on the Home, About Us and Contact pages.
Social Profiles
This is an excellent way to clog up ‘brand related’ search results and dominate company rankings. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube pages are always given authority in search results. Once you have secured the page names it is important to keep the profiles populated with fresh content. One way to do this is to link your blog to the social profiles. Updated profiles will ensure you dominate the top ten positions for your company name.
Google Places Profile
Creating a Google Places profile can be a huge step towards dominating brand related search terms (particularly for local phrases). Make sure you include the full brand name in the title and description of the profile. If you have a range of branches you can do this for each location.
Local Profiles
Securing local profiles can be another useful way to dominate search results. Creating company pages on sites like Yelp, Qype and Brown Book will help search engines clarify your company name (and location). Reviews referencing the brand will also send additional ‘brand signals’ to search engine crawlers.
Patent
If you patent a specific product or brand name this will give search engines additional information on the authority of your brand name. Some official patent organisations also provide the opportunity for a link back to your website.
Blog
Typically a blog gets ranked separately to a website. This is another way to dominate search results. A blog gives you the opportunity to openly talk about and mention yourself – all of which bodes well for search results.
Comment on Other Blogs
Leaving comments on topic related blogs can help give search engines addition brand indicators. If you reference your company name and link back to your site this will help aid search engine rankings.
Conclusion
For brand protection it is essential to dominate all ten search positions for your company name. These days you have to compete against customer reviews and other domain name rip-offs, not to mention Google AdWords which lets your competitors advertise next to brand related results. If you implement the suggestions above you will be able to stream the majority of brand related traffic.
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