For many years now, links have been the authority in which search engines such as Google rated the authority of a website.
Duane Forrester, formerly Sr. Product Manager at Bing, mentioned that search engines today have got a lot smarter. They have evolved so much that that search engines (and we presume this includes the good people at Google) can easily identify mentions, and use those as a signal in determining a website’s quality and authority.
Gaining backlinks pointed to your website continues to be super important, but in terms of achieving a balanced SEO strategy, you absolutely need to gain linkless brand mentions.
And the good news is, brand mentions are far easier to achieve than dofollow links!
Here are some things you can do to build your brand mentions online:
Encourage your customers to review you online, and if you do happen to receive a negative comment, make sure you respond to it!
Use the powers of social media to build some awareness, and get customers talking.
Track the online brand mentions of your competitors; you’ll be able to see what they’re doing to get so much traction.
Track the keywords in your industry, that way, you can engage better with your audience. Knowledge is power!