In today’s article, we are going to focus on the every increasing importance of branding yourself and why its critical to your long term success online. About 15 years ago, branding was not something people generally paid much attention to, except a few companies. However, as the search engines have improved upon the search capabilities, its becoming more important. So, lets dig into this more and discover why this is the case.
If you are solely relying upon SEO – search engine optimization and organic ranking of keyword terms, your days could be numbered. I have read so many people having horror stories, like all of a sudden loosing 5 to 10k or more a month. All because of a sudden algorithm change by Google. I too have lost rankings recently on 2 sites, including this one, out of the blue. However, I suspect the problem in my case was more of a error internally. You see, I just didn’t loose keyword positions on G, but, rather I lost them in all of the search engines. I still can’t pinpoint what the actual cause was.
However, I do believe I fixed the internal problem and it seems to be more of a technical thing, rather than anything stupid on my part. So, why am I telling you this story today? Its because if I had done a better job at branding myself and creating a huge opt in list, I would essentially care less about Google or any other search engine does. I would be immune to the fluctuations and their petty nuances in the search engines. Nope, this is also the last time, I rely upon those bots for any traffic. I will be generating most of my traffic by other means.
Now, does it mean I don’t want to rank for any keyword terms? Hell no! Of course I want to rank for as many terms as possible. However, it will be the icing on the cake for me. That is the best way to insulate yourself from any sudden changes or lost rankings.
The fact of the matter, its always been about branding. Its just during the past 5 years of being online, you go through various stages of your online life and some things just get pushed to the back burner. In my case, its something that I should have done from day one and in some ways I did do, but, I just didn’t do enough of it.
Lets look at some concrete examples to better illustrate what I mean. Take a look at companies like Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot. Do you think they rely upon ranking for keyword terms as there primary means to generate money? Well, in the case of Amazon, I am sure its a nice junk of change they generate for all the hundreds of thousands of keyword terms they rank on page 1 for. However, over the years, they have been keenly aware of the importance of branding and have done a spectacular job at branding their online name. When you think of buying something online, I would bet that 8 out of 10 people think Amazon first.
Just like Walmart and Home Depot, they don’t rely upon online sales as their majority of business. In fact, aside from Amazon, most large companies only really got into the online business in a serious way after 2000. For companies like Walmart and Home Depot, its all about branding and always has been. They don’t worry if they rank or not.
My point here, is organic rankings is just a bonus for them and nothing more. Because all of those companies are so well known or branded, they get business no matter what the search engines do or don’t do.
Another example, out of the blue, I lost my rankings on page 2 for the term, internet marketing tools about 3 weeks ago. I have no idea what I did to deserve it or warrant it. However, the fact of the matter, its gone. I do hope it comes back. However, my new site that I am setting up, will be much more basic and less reliant upon organic listings for traffic. Rather, it will be focused on building a proper opt in list and I will be focusing not on quantity, but always quality of information. Over time, people will get to know this site and traffic will start to trickle in from organic listings. But, my main way, will be by producing quality content and getting it out, to as many places as I can.
A couple of other things to keep in mind to avoid being penalized and this is not some grip with G or the other search engines this time around. Because, clearly something happened internally. I have also cleaned up this site for overlap articles. I used to have several articles about making money. Not any more, because I deleted all of them except 1 article now, that is solely focused on how to make money online and its already over 4000 words long. I have always wrote long ass articles anyways. But, to ensure that when I am in the good graces of the search engines again, I don’t want to give them any reason at all, to hit the big de-index button on their end. I want to them to see for any manual inspection, that my site has all original quality information.
In closing, the search engines have for some time been aiming for this day, to reward sites and branding is one of the key pieces of the puzzle and it ensures you get tons of traffic to your site each and everyday. One other example that comes to mind, is Frank Kern. Being online and having developed a large following, I am sure Frank could care less about what the search engines do today. You see, I would bet his list is in the hundreds of thousands. Plus, he really doesn’t need to sell anything, because his primary business is referral traffic anyways. Just some things to keep in mind, when building up your online empire and making sure, its there in 1, 3, and 5 years from now.
Until next time, make it a great day
Darrell Lischka
