Building a brand is the BEST marketing strategy for 2018
Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2025 7:03 am
They get better rankings with fewer links. They get “penalized” for misconduct, only to resurface a few weeks later.
Small brands, on the other hand? Not so lucky.
They never get the benefit of the doubt. They need to get double the clicks and links. And they never resurface after a penalty.
And it's only accelerating.
So much so, that there’s pretty much nothing else you should be focusing on in 2018 other than building a solid, professional brand. Big brands will be showing up in the SERPs (Google results). And small businesses will be left in the dust (sorry to say).
Here's why building a brand is the best SEO strategy for 2018 :
SERPs are changing drastically
Google is known for updates. Thousands of times a year.
But it’s not just algorithm updates that we korea telegram data pay attention to. The cause and effect of layout adjustments also changes user behavior.
For example, the “Featured snippets” that here in Brazil became known as “Zero Positions”:
The result above is from an article on our blog that was chosen by Google to be a “Featured snippet” even before the official result from Facebook itself.
Moz found that this type of result increased from 5.5% to 16% in just two years. But they recently saw a 10% drop in featured snippets in four days.
So what happened?
Featured snippets have gotten a big boost in visibility, for starters. Search terms like “Bread,” which once featured snippets, have now become much more complete and diverse information:
Moz also found a 30% increase in knowledge panels for SERPs without a featured snippet in the first place.
So what's going on?
Google is trying to answer your query with content from other people, without requiring them to click through to the source of the information.
Where searches for “travel” would otherwise surface travel-based blog posts or definitions on branded sites, Google now pulls data and information directly into the SERPs (search engine results).
And most of this content comes from big brands and definition-based sources like Wikipedia.
This means the pool of useful content is reduced to a few big players.
People don’t need to click on an organic listing to get more information. And currently, only one brand is showing in a given knowledge panel.
Spoiler alert: it's probably not you.
Fewer and fewer people are clicking on current search engine listings now. We're currently at a 60/40 split.
Only 60% of Google searches result in a click. That's 40% generating zero clicks. And smarter people than me expect it to hit 50% soon.
And for smaller fish trying to swim past the reef, it's bad news.
Google's implementation of the Knowledge Graph is all about solving user problems without the need to click. And most of the brands that rank in knowledge panels are the most important ones.
This means less traffic to your website, fewer clicks and, most importantly: less organized sales.
Brand Recognition in 2018 will be critical to getting Clicks
Do me a favor really quick:
Run a basic test now on Google. Do an anonymous, long-tail search for an industry keyword and analyze the results.
What do you see? What appears instantly?
Specific brands.
See the example of a result presented with the phrase search: buy cheap sneakers online
Brand recognition is a powerful thing. Powerful enough to get you a top-ranking Google publication. Powerful enough to drive a more expensive sale.
For example, a Nielsen study found that global consumers are much more likely to buy new products from brands that are familiar.
70% of consumers prefer to buy new products from a familiar brand they remember rather than switching to a new one.
Based on the results presented above, which sneakers would you buy?
Trust is one of the most important factors when making a purchasing decision. And it’s no different when it comes to organic search results.
Small brands, on the other hand? Not so lucky.
They never get the benefit of the doubt. They need to get double the clicks and links. And they never resurface after a penalty.
And it's only accelerating.
So much so, that there’s pretty much nothing else you should be focusing on in 2018 other than building a solid, professional brand. Big brands will be showing up in the SERPs (Google results). And small businesses will be left in the dust (sorry to say).
Here's why building a brand is the best SEO strategy for 2018 :
SERPs are changing drastically
Google is known for updates. Thousands of times a year.
But it’s not just algorithm updates that we korea telegram data pay attention to. The cause and effect of layout adjustments also changes user behavior.
For example, the “Featured snippets” that here in Brazil became known as “Zero Positions”:
The result above is from an article on our blog that was chosen by Google to be a “Featured snippet” even before the official result from Facebook itself.
Moz found that this type of result increased from 5.5% to 16% in just two years. But they recently saw a 10% drop in featured snippets in four days.
So what happened?
Featured snippets have gotten a big boost in visibility, for starters. Search terms like “Bread,” which once featured snippets, have now become much more complete and diverse information:
Moz also found a 30% increase in knowledge panels for SERPs without a featured snippet in the first place.
So what's going on?
Google is trying to answer your query with content from other people, without requiring them to click through to the source of the information.
Where searches for “travel” would otherwise surface travel-based blog posts or definitions on branded sites, Google now pulls data and information directly into the SERPs (search engine results).
And most of this content comes from big brands and definition-based sources like Wikipedia.
This means the pool of useful content is reduced to a few big players.
People don’t need to click on an organic listing to get more information. And currently, only one brand is showing in a given knowledge panel.
Spoiler alert: it's probably not you.
Fewer and fewer people are clicking on current search engine listings now. We're currently at a 60/40 split.
Only 60% of Google searches result in a click. That's 40% generating zero clicks. And smarter people than me expect it to hit 50% soon.
And for smaller fish trying to swim past the reef, it's bad news.
Google's implementation of the Knowledge Graph is all about solving user problems without the need to click. And most of the brands that rank in knowledge panels are the most important ones.
This means less traffic to your website, fewer clicks and, most importantly: less organized sales.
Brand Recognition in 2018 will be critical to getting Clicks
Do me a favor really quick:
Run a basic test now on Google. Do an anonymous, long-tail search for an industry keyword and analyze the results.
What do you see? What appears instantly?
Specific brands.
See the example of a result presented with the phrase search: buy cheap sneakers online
Brand recognition is a powerful thing. Powerful enough to get you a top-ranking Google publication. Powerful enough to drive a more expensive sale.
For example, a Nielsen study found that global consumers are much more likely to buy new products from brands that are familiar.
70% of consumers prefer to buy new products from a familiar brand they remember rather than switching to a new one.
Based on the results presented above, which sneakers would you buy?
Trust is one of the most important factors when making a purchasing decision. And it’s no different when it comes to organic search results.