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Since we’re the SEO and branding duo, we get this question from our audience a lot! “Should I focus on SEO or branding first?” A lot of times, people want both services. We’ll discuss later if you can do both at the same time, but we understand some people need to prioritize.
It’s a great question, but it’s not always that simple. The answer is… it depends.
But we aren’t going to leave you hanging with that vague answer. We’ll dive into how to decide if you need SEO or branding first.
How to Decide Between SEO or Branding
These are some things to ask yourself when you’re deciding whether to hire SEO or branding services first.
Look at Your Brand Strategy
If your branding is super unclear and you have no strategy behind your brand, branding should probably come first. You can take this little branding quiz to check the strength of your brand!
When you have a strong brand strategy, that helps drive how we approach your keyword research. You already understand your audience and you’re confident in your business goals, so we can really dive into the strategy to help you reach the right people.
In our inquiry calls, we usually ask:
- Who is your audience?
- What makes you different?
- What are the pain points of your audience?
On the flip side, if your brand strategy is currently working but you want a rebrand, SEO might come first. This means you fully understand the who, what, why, and how of your brand. Now you just need help optimizing your website for your audience.
What are Your Goals?
It also depends on what your goals are. SEO takes time, meaning the longer we take to implement some strategies, the longer it will take to see results. You shouldn’t expect SEO results right away. If your busy season is 4-6 months away, then now is the time to invest in SEO.
Check Analytics
Check analytics and see how your website is currently performing. This can provide clarity on which one should come first. If traffic is tanking, ask yourself why.
- What’s the experience like when someone lands on that page?
- Are they finding your website but not inquiring?
- Are they not finding your website at all?
These questions can help you understand if you’re attracting the right people to your website.
Can you do both?
Absolutely! We dual path these all the time. It comes down to budget a lot of times, but by the end of our working together, you’ll have a strong brand and SEO strategy in place.
So Which One Comes First?
If you have a clear brand strategy, meaning clarity in your audience, your offerings, and your uniqueness… then SEO can be a really great marketing strategy to implement. You know who you want to attract, so we can create a strategy to get them to your website.
If you are feeling unclear about your brand strategy, then we always recommend starting there, EVEN if you like your visuals. Your colors, logo, and fonts are a small part of your overall brand.
We have redone our own strategy more than we have tweaked our visuals. Once the visuals are in place, you’re good to go until you want to rebrand your business. The strategy will need to be tweaked more often than your branding due to changing algorithms, offers, marketing channels, etc.
We hope this episode helped you decide if investing in SEO or branding should come first for you! Feel free to contact us to chat more about your unique situation!
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Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen are Minnesota-based marketing experts, educators, and co-founders of boutique marketing agency Duo Collective, which specializes in SEO, social media strategy, and branding for small business owners and creative entrepreneurs. To learn more about Duo Collective, or to inquire about working with our team, head over to www.duocollective.com.
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