Yes, Branded Pages Should be Optimized Too
This article was published on April 26, 2019
Categorized in: SEO
SEO best practice is to optimize every page of a website by writing unique titles and descriptions for each page and optimizing on page content where applicable. A common mistake that we see some website owners make is to only optimize their “priority pages” which are typically their primary service and/or product pages. While this is important, not optimizing other pages of the site means that opportunities are missed. For example, branded pages such as contact us pages, about us pages, company history pages, employee directory pages, etc. are often an afterthought. However, people do conduct branded searches which means that these pages should be optimized with branded keywords. Here are 3 reasons why it’s worthwhile to optimize branded website pages:
A better user experience
Search engine users know that the more information they type (or say) into the search bar, the better the search results will be. For example, if someone wants to contact a business they might type “contact Company X” into the search bar or “Company X phone number” or “Company X email.” If you don’t have an optimized Contact Us page on your website, the top search result might be the homepage. While they’ll eventually be able to find the contact information, it might take a few extra, unnecessary steps to get there.
Sitelinks
When you search for a brand/company name you’ll notice that Google might include a handful of links right below the main link to other important pages on the site. In many cases, these links are contact, about, and other branded pages that people might be looking for. When these pages are properly optimized and include neat, concise title tags it increases the chances that Google will include them as sitelinks. This not only looks nice on the search engine results page and improves user experience, it also takes up more space on the search engine results page and can push down competitors or negative brand mentions, if you have any.
To differentiate from other companies
When starting a business, the first thing you should do is search for the potential company name online to see if there are any other businesses with the same, or even similar, names. Unfortunately, not everyone does this or they do but don’t care if they share a name and go ahead with it anyway. Google is smart and can usually understand which company people are actually searching for, but optimizing branded pages with keywords is a way to differentiate from any other company or brand that has a similar name.
We get it that the on-site optimization process is time consuming, but that doesn’t mean that you should pick and choose which pages get optimized. Properly optimizing branded pages as opposed to leaving titles, descriptions, and other content with generic filler or letting the search engines pull whatever text they want, keeps all branded searches looking clean in the SERPs and encourages click through.
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About the Author: Brick Marketing President, Nick Stamoulis
Nick Stamoulis is a digital marketing expert and President of Brick Marketing. With 25+ years experience, he specializes in solving complex digital marketing challenges through SEO, content marketing, social media, PPC, email marketing, SEO for AI (GEO) and conversion optimization.
