Justin Harrison

When most people think of branding goals when it comes to Internet marketing strategy, many misconceptions are carried across from traditional print media.

The misconception online it is that a strong brand consists of all the traditional elements such as, brand name in association with product, or how easy it is for people to remember your brand as opposed to that of the competition.

Whilst many experts will make the argument that these factors are just as relevant online as they are off line, nothing could be further from the truth, in a matter of speaking.

Due to the way that most websites are accessed which is normally via search, I prefer to advise that online branding is really a measure of your “search market share”.

If there are 1000 searches on any given product per day, and your website receives 900 of those visitors, then it would be fair to say that you have a 90% market share on that specific search term.

Additionally it would be safe to assume that if you currently get 90% of all search traffic under a related term, then your brand presence in the market place is 90% better than that of the competition.

Hence it makes sense that any branding goal as an internet marketing strategy should first and foremost be guided towards search engine placement, and branding as a goal will naturally follow your market share.

The common misconnection is that online branding is a similar process to offline branding, where branding offline is the process of cementing your brand in the eyes of the client / potential client, as apposed to online where being able to be found is actually the branding process.

So here is a simple rule to apply to your branding goals within your internet marketing strategy:

If you can’t be found online in the search engines under terms related to your products and services, then quite simply you don’t have a brand.