Online Brand Audit

Sometimes Brands and Companies get obsessed with occupying position one in the search engines for their name.  Once achieved they see it as ‘Job Done’.

In reality, for Brand searches on Google, position one will only get approximately 32% of the page one clicks – with the (up to) other nine slots on page one taking the majority of clicks. When someone does a brand search they are often looking for the credibility stamps around that brand (e.g Press, Reviews, Industry body listings etc). This is why Reputation Management Companies are focused on owning and controlling all the clicks on page one for a brand search.

Of course for many companies and brands they do not have a Reputation Management agency working for them to create content that will occupy these positions so end up with content sitting on page one by default.  This content takes the form of Social Media, Blogs, Listings, Press and other. Often this will have created and published over a number of years. by different people in the company (some of whom may have left). Consequently the brand image across these listings can get out of synch with different messages, images, contact details, logos etc. Leaving the brand searcher potentially a mixed view of the organization in question.

It is essential that brands and companies take the time to undertake an Online Brand Audit of ALL their presence online. This not only includes digital content under the brands control but also listings/representation on third party sites such as Industry bodies to check:

• Do you have access (username and password) for all your sites, social media, blogs, listings etc)?
• Are the contact details up to date ? (People, Address, Phone Numbers, email address etc)
• Is the imagery consistent with the current brand? (Photos, Logos etc)
• Is the messaging up to date and consistent (Company Profile description for example, Job Titles)
• Where updates are available (e.g LinkedIn) is their recent updates posted? Does the company look active?

You might be quite surprised how this information may be presented about your brand in different ways online without you really realising.

Think how much your brand positioning has evolved over recent years and how this could now be outdated and inconsistent in the places where no-one has made the effort to update and correct.

Start to see page one of Google as the ten parts of your brand messaging to your target audience and take control of how you look.