With the continuous popularization of the Internet, more and more search engine users are getting used to searching for specific brand-related information by inputting a specific brand name as a keyword. Through this simple search, you can easily find the official websites of almost all international large companies and famous companies at the top of the search engine results. This is what the SEO industry refers to as "brand keywords" and their function.
Brand keywords signify the reputation of a product (service), widespread user recognition, and a higher purchase conversion rate. Netizens searching for information can obtain first-hand updates and latest product information from the official websites of specific well-known brands, and even directly purchase branded products on these websites.
Moreover, these brand keywords, especially those of well-known brands with high visibility, have strong exclusivity. Once brand keywords are established, unless the owner of the brand keyword self-destructs, it is very difficult for other websites to use SEO or SEM promotion methods to rank at the top of search engines for well-known brand keywords, let alone attract consumers who favor these brand keywords to their own accounts.
Precisely because of the enormous commercial value hidden within brand keywords, this "fatty piece" has also been targeted by many small and medium-sized websites. Various "hitching onto famous brands" behaviors, and even cases of "Li Gui" pretending to be "Li Kui" deceiving consumers, have emerged one after another. Due to inadequate protection of brand keywords, search engines (and well-known sales platforms like Taobao) that have faced much questioning and criticism in recent years have continuously strengthened their efforts in protecting brand keywords and severely cracking down on "Li Gui" behaviors. This is not only to protect the interests of well-known brand enterprises and netizens but also to consider the reputation of the search engines themselves.
From the development trend of brand keywords, a branding strategy will be a major trend in the future development of modern commerce, including online marketing. How to make full use of the advantages of online marketing, such as relatively low cost and wide influence, to build a network brand will undoubtedly be the mission of future online marketing promotion (SEO) workers.
Especially in today's fiercely competitive online marketing environment, the disadvantages of SEO promotion effects, uncontrollable promotion time, and unstable keyword rankings are becoming increasingly evident. Recently, an online post about a "woman being stripped for theft" has sparked heated discussions among netizens. In the situation where the advantages of lower promotional costs and natural rankings are shrinking, grasping the key to building brand keywords and shaping a network brand may be the last chance for redemption for those SEOers with a strong sense of survival crisis. Because for many small and medium-sized enterprises (grassroots webmasters) lacking in advertising funds, the importance of website promotion using brand keyword SEO as a basic promotion method is self-evident, based on the continuous release of unique original content.
Although currently most online marketing promotions (SEO) work depend on the results of present sales conversion rates and sales volumes; despite facing intense market competition, SEOers are already exhausting their mental and physical energies just to keep up; although creating brand keywords is a long-term, labor-intensive, costly project that shows no short-term results, slightly forward-thinking SEOers cannot avoid such challenges.
This is not only because of the allure of "the greatest success of an SEOer is not ranking highly competitive industry hot keywords on search engines, but creating an industry hot keyword (brand keyword) from scratch."
It is also due to the powerful question raised by Zhan Hui in 2006's "SEO: Do You Wear a White Hat or a Black Hat": "A undeniable argument of black hat SEO is: you can't guarantee that fully following search engine rules will result in a site valued by search engines ten years later. Who knows when search engines might drastically change their algorithms, causing thousands of white hat sites to disappear from search results?"
To this day, SEOers still cannot answer this question satisfactorily. On the contrary, their practices continue to confirm that blindly following search engines' guidelines is tiring and passive, necessitating a complete change.
Of course, building brand keywords is not a smooth road for SEOers. As Jack Ma said: "Counterfeit goods were not created by Taobao." Brand keywords are not something that can be built solely through SEO techniques; they require long-term close cooperation from website planning, website services, marketing promotion, and various aspects.
However, SEOers can fully leverage their technical expertise in the process of building website brand keywords, collaborating with website planning and focusing on brand creation, to maximize the role of search engine optimization. Before the website goes live, work on website structure construction and section settings, target keyword distribution across different channels, etc. After going live, while maintaining regular updates of original content and optimizing keyword rankings, carefully planned content can organically combine website brand promotion with external link building (URL promotion), effectively increasing the exposure of website brand keywords. Ultimately, combining keyword rankings with brand keyword creation, current website marketing with long-term brand keyword creation, aims to successfully build website brand keywords.
But this is not yet the best outcome for SEOers. Ambitious SEOers must seize opportunities through continuous brand keyword creation to establish their professional brand keywords. Only in this way can the "brand keyword" strategy achieve its ultimate perfection.
In fact, search engines also hope that SEOers take this path, though challenging, but brighter. The Baidu Search Engine Optimization Guide 2.0 says to webmasters: "Continuously strengthen the brand concept: brand building on the Internet involves exchanging quality content and services for user trust in website content, transforming users from search engine passers-by into loyal users. While satisfying user needs, appropriately promoting the brand not only helps users choose which result to click on when faced with multiple options but also plays a significant role in word-of-mouth promotion."
Google's attitude can be seen from Matt Cutts' metaphor (creator of the nofollow tag): "The UK SEO expert David asked Matt Cutts (about nofollow tags) for any comments, and Matt Cutts replied with a very illustrative metaphor: Using nofollow on internal links indeed affects Google rankings, but this is a secondary factor. It’s like having $100, and using nofollow is akin to meticulously studying how to spend this $100, which is useful for some people. But more useful is putting effort into earning another $300 instead of pondering how to spend the existing $100."
"Since ancient times, those who do not plan for eternity are not qualified to plan for the moment; those who do not plan for the whole are not qualified to plan for a part." SEOers should think about how to better utilize their professional strengths, "transforming users from search engine passers-by into loyal users," and "more useful is putting effort into earning another $300."