Speaker 1: 0:54

Hello and welcome to. Seo is not that hard. I'm your host, ed Dawson, the founder of the SEO intelligence platform, keywordfupoleasercom, where we help you discover the questions people ask online and learn how to optimize your content for traffic and authority. I've been in SEO and online marketing for over 20 years and I'm here to share the wealth of knowledge, hints and tips I've amassed over that time. Hello and welcome back to SEO is not that hard. I'm here at Dawson, as usual, hosting, and today we're going to talk about owning your branded search. Now I've got to start by saying I've got to give a hat tip here to Carl Hendy, who friend of the podcast, friend of mine, who's been involved in SEO so many years. He helped us out broadband at Codecouk back through Panda and Penguin days when we got hit badly with those, and he's someone that's just so clued up on SEO. You can find more details about him at auditscom. He's worked with companies such as BlackRock, eventbrite, betfair. You know he's worked with Blue Chips. He's worked with all sorts of sites as well. I know the ones that I know of sites he's worked on that he can't talk about publicly as well. Um, and you know if you have, especially if you've got kind of a large or um enterprise site and you need seo help, then I would strongly recommend carl and do tell him. If you do go and speak to carl, tell him that ed sent you just because he might buy me a beer for any recommendations.

Speaker 1: 2:14

But this whole podcast today is really based around a LinkedIn post that he put up recently where and it's a subject I've heard him talk about before but this post today he put up really reminded me that this is a really great piece of advice. So, first of all, go find Carl on LinkedIn and follow him. So it's Carl Hendy H-E-N-D-Y and he's, for many years, always been reminding people that they should own their branded traffic. So this is around things, particularly around coupon codes, because there's lots of sites out there that specialize in putting together coupon codes and driving traffic to third-party sites with together coupon codes and driving traffic to, you know, third-party sites with those coupon codes. And carl's basically saying that what you should do is, if you're a brand and you use coupon codes, then really why don't you promote them yourself? Because some people are gonna search for your brand plus coupon codes and variations of, so they might as well get them off you first rather than off an affiliate.

Speaker 1: 3:20

Okay now, obviously I am an affiliate. I've affiliate sites for years, so you know affiliates make their money by finding those gaps where branded sites aren't appearing well or doing well. So if you want to beat the affiliate, if you own a brand, then this is one of the ways of doing it to beat those coupon code affiliates. And especially because the coupon code affiliates really don't add much in the way of value. I don't think to the customer journey, because if you're you know looking for a brand and a coupon code, you've already decided to buy it. You've, you've made your decision based on information you found out where you might have been on the brand's own site. Okay, really, to me, coupon code affiliates are cannibalizing the affiliate journey. They're not really adding a lot of value. Sorry, if you're a coupon code affiliate site, well that's what you do. But and I don't blame you for doing it because you're just exploiting a gap where sites aren't controlling their own branded traffic.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Carl here is saying you should really control your branded traffic and you do that quite simply by having a page on your site targeted to that keyword term your brand name, coupon code, your brand name, voucher code, your brand name discount code, all those kind of things, your brand name special offers, your brand name voucher code, your brand name discount code, all those kind of your brand name special offers, that kind of thing. So that if people have obviously decided, if they're looking for a coupon code, they've decided to buy a few. So these are people who want to buy a few, but they're going to look for a dip, for a coupon code, and if you do use coupon codes, they're going to find them from somewhere. Better for them to find it from you, so you don't have to share that sale with an affiliate. Carl also gives some really other sort of compelling reasons of why you want to actually control your branded coupon code.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Search experience. Um, and I'll just run through them now for you. So one is brand image and positioning. So to manage how discount codes appear, it helps maintain your brand's image and perception within search results. Customer service experience and engagement. So if you control codes, ensures only valid content promotions are available, which improves how users experience it, because there's nothing worse than going to a site with a code that doesn't work. Financial impact, like I've said, you know, protect your profit margins. Why give away, you know margin to affiliates when you could easily get around doing that.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Data collection collection and consumer insight. So control your voucher distribution. Aids in tracking consumer behavior and optimizing marketing efforts. So you can remarket and email capture these people. You can increase app downloads. So if you are trying to encourage people to download an app, you can use a discount code carrot to help push app downloads, if that's what you're trying to get through to help push app downloads, if that's what you're trying to get through. And it prevents misuse. If you manage codes, it helps prevent unauthorized sharing and potential fraud.

Speaker 1: 6:03

So just because you've got a code out there it might be an old code or an incorrect code now, but because you've let an affiliate display that code and then still click through, they'll get that last click, even if people don't. If they subsequently purchase anyway without the discount code, then that affiliate that's used an out of date or incorrect or a completely false code is going to still get that last click conversion on sale, which you don't want, you know. You don't want to be rewarding affiliates for using incorrect discount codes because they're just you know it's against, should be against your terms of service with affiliates. And if it's not, you know it's really. You know it's quite a low trick to play by an affiliate discount codes and coupon codes against your brand name.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Then maybe think again, because I've just thought well, a keywords people use we don't do big coupon code deals and things like that and very, very rare if we do something like that. I mean I'm not saying we won't ever do it, but it's not like a core part of our marketing. So I thought I'd just search for keywords people use coupon code and there are people out there who have got branded pages about keywords, people promoting coupon code, which is interesting being that we have no live coupon codes at the moment, and I found a few where they're just listing our prices and saying click here to get the coupon code, and when you click it it just says says hey, you don't need a coupon code, you just could that you can get that price just by following this link and it's an affiliate link to our site with um, you know which pops the affiliates, you know id on the end and that person will get rewarded if that person subsequently signed up. So you know, fair, fair play to these idiots for doing it. At least they're doing their thing with promotions. It's not what I'd really want to see, but obviously I can see now that this is where we need to go and create a page on QSPool Use about coupon codes, about discount codes, even if it just says we don't really do this about coupon codes, about discount codes.

Speaker 1: 8:16

Even who just says we don't really do this because if it's coming from us discount codes, from being on our own branded website, we are the brand google notices of the brand. We should quite easily, you know, dominate the top of the serps for our own um branded terms around that. And this is again, it's a thing where you know people are doing it to us and we are okay, we're, we're fair size, we're reasonably popular, but we're niche within the seo industry. You know, we're like a big, well-known, huge brand. So if you, if you've got any kind of brand recognition in any kind of area, it's likely that people were doing this to you. So I just say, put in your brand and coupon code, discount code, voucher codes and see if people are already doing this to you and whether you should be getting on there and doing it. And even if there is no one doing it, there is going to be a likelihood that people are still going to search against your brand for this, and you might as well be there at the top of the SERPs, at least with a message.

Speaker 1: 9:05

Even if you say we don't do coupon codes or voucher codes because we just give everyone the best price, at least have a page that does it. Now, if you want to have a really good idea of what kind of page to create, then carl's post on linkedin um, I do suggest that you go and look at it, because he's got a full wireframe on there, um, on the kind of things that you need to have on there and where to link to it from your site and the kind of content you need to put on it. So, rather than me trying to explain that, I just say just go and look. Uh, look up carl on carl hendy on linkedin and find his find his post on this. The date he posted it was the 8th of january 2020. So thanks again to carl for providing inspiration for this podcast and proving that, no matter how long anyone's been in SEO, there's always something to learn. You know, I've learned something today. I've just come up and seen how there's a page I should have on my site to you know where I'm missing a trick, basically, and you know Carl's post just brought that out for me. So, yeah, thanks, carl. Go follow him on LinkedIn. Go look at his website auditscom Great domain, by the way. Yeah, and that's it from me for today, so I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. It means a lot to me.

Speaker 1: 10:23

This is where I get to remind you where you can connect with me and my SEO tools and services. You can find links to all the links I mention here in the show notes. Just remember, with all these places where I use my name, that ed is spelled with two d's. You can find me on linkedin and blue sky. Just search for ed dawson on both.

Speaker 1: 10:38

You can record a voice question to get answered on the podcast. The link is in the show notes. You can try our seo intelligence platform keywords people use at keywords people usecom, where we can help you discover the questions and keywords people are asking online. Post those questions and keywords into related groups so you know what content you need to build topical authority. And finally, connect your Google Search Console account for your sites so we can crawl and understand your actual content, find what keywords you rank for and then help you optimize and continually refine your content and targeted, personalized advice to keep your traffic growing. If you're interested in learning more about me personally or looking for dedicated consulting advice, then visit wwweddawsoncom. Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO is Not that Hard.