Brand Factor: What You Need to Know
What is Brand Factor?
Brand Factor is a search engine ranking signal that considers a brand’s overall credibility and reputation when determining its position in search results. It goes beyond just content quality and incorporates factors like user trust, industry recognition, and positive online presence.
This term “Brand Factor” originates from the Searchmetrics article and Whitepaper “Rebooting Ranking Factors” back in 2016. The paper mentions the Brand Factor in passing, and uses this graphical representation of their (very impressive) data.
Landing pages in the top positions are significantly more relevant for the submitted search query than URLs which Google features less prominently. Exceptions to this rule – as is so often the case – are to be found at the first and second positions, which are mostly taken up by brands that Google rewards according to the “brand factor” . . . Google values recognizability. . . trust and brand image, and reflects this in the SERPs. . .
The most relevant, best quality content for a given search query is very often down in 3rd place.
The quality of the 2nd placed result is about equivalent to the quality of the 7th placed result.
Searchmetrics have dubbed this the Brand Factor. The concept is very, very powerful.
How is Brand Factor Related to E-A-T?
Google’s E-A-T principles (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) apply to both content and brands. Building Brand Factor essentially means establishing strong E-A-T across your entire online presence.
In 2016, the idea of an advantage for a brand with a good reputation, as opposed to a website with a lot of inbound links, was slightly avant-garde. It is now accepted SEO wisdom, led by people such as Marie Haynes and Lily Ray.
Although this would now be called E-A-T applied to a brand or company, I have kept this article pretty much the same as it was when written in 2016, which reflects Kalicube’s focus on Brand.
Why is the Brand Factor important?
Brand Factor is important because it changes Google’s evaluation of content quality using brand credibility as a signal.
Google sets lower requirements on the quality of content from Brand Factor sites than the requirement for the rest of the field. From the graphic above, it would seem the requirement is quite a lot lower.
With lower quality content, a Brand Factor site can consistently outrank its competition across many topics and keywords.
Take a moment to reflect on that.
Note : That doesn’t mean “go ahead and write bad content”. The content still needs to be good enough to rank top 5, so it still has to be very good. It just doesn’t have to the best.
How Do I Build Brand Factor?
The Five C’s of Success
- Context – Clearly define your niche, target audience, and value proposition.
- Comprehend – Demonstrate deep understanding of your audience’s needs and challenges.
- Credibility – Establish authority through high-quality content, backlinks, and industry recognition.
- Confidence – Project confidence through consistent messaging and communication across all platforms.
- Certinence – Earn user trust through positive reviews, testimonials, and brand mentions.
In order to grant you the Brand Factor advantage, Google needs to understand who you are, what you do, that you are reliable, that your clients (or users) appreciate your offers. You will then be in a position of certinence.
How Long Will It Take?
As with anything worth having, this doesn’t come quickly. It requires steady, diligent work over a long period. Depending on where you are starting from and the competition in your market, you can expect this to take anything from a year upwards. Less than a year is unrealistic.
Convincing Google to trust you absolutely requires that you feed it an immense amount of positive, coherent information about you… and that you generate confirmation from multiple reliable sources. That takes time. Plus, don’t forget, you are asking Google to change its “mind” about who dominates your market. That is a LOT to ask.
What are the Rewards?
The potential rewards are enormous. Given that one place higher in the rankings brings about 50% more traffic, a site that currently occupies an average 5th place in their market would expect to triple their traffic by becoming the Brand Factor site on that market.
What is the Catch?
There is no downside, no risk, and no catch.
Worst case scenario: lots of links, lots of wonderful client reviews, lots of great press… and become much more credible to both Google and your potential clients.
How Can Kalicube Help?
Through the Kalicube Process, Kalicube offers a strategy that makes optimising your brand’s online ecosystem super-simple and straightforward: from your site to Google Search to Facebook, to YouTube, to Twitter, to digital PR. It is split into two distinct parts: Brand SERP and Knowledge Panel.
Not sure? Get in touch, so we can discuss which Kalicube solutions are the best fit for you >>
