Voices of Search Podcast: The Importance of Impactful Brand Signals for SEO

Episode Title: The Importance Of Impactful Brand Signals For SEO
Host: Jordan Cooney
Guest: Ruth Burr Reedy, Senior SEO Manager at Houzz
Release Date: March 11, 2025

Introduction

In this episode of Voices of Search, host Jordan Cooney engages in an insightful conversation with Ruth Burr Reedy, the Senior SEO Manager at Houzz. The discussion centers around the critical role of brand signals in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how these signals influence online visibility and brand perception in an evolving digital landscape dominated by artificial intelligence (AI).

Understanding Brand Signals in SEO

Ruth Burr Reedy begins by addressing a long-standing question in the SEO community: "Is brand a ranking factor?" (03:53). She clarifies that brand itself isn't a single ranking signal but rather a collection of numerous machine-readable signals that collectively influence a brand's online impact. Ruth elaborates:

"Brand impact online and your business impact online is made up of countless different signals, all of which are machine readable, all of which can be weighed against each other." (03:53)

She emphasizes that clarity in what a business does and its unique value propositions are crucial. For businesses with diversified offerings, presenting a unified topical picture to search engines like Google becomes more challenging compared to smaller or more focused businesses.

The Changing Landscape: AI and User Trust

As AI technologies reshape content creation and information discovery, Ruth highlights a decline in user trust regarding online information quality (08:46). She notes a shift in user behavior towards forums, private groups, and more trusted sources for information gathering. This change underscores the need for SEOs to take a more active role in managing and driving branded search, moving beyond traditional SEO responsibilities.

"SEOs should take responsibility for driving not just branded search traffic, but the precursor to branded search traffic, which is branded search volume." (08:46)

Influencing Brand Demand in Search

Addressing the challenge of increasing brand search demand, Ruth advocates for a multi-channel marketing strategy (11:18). She suggests that SEOs collaborate across various marketing channels—such as social media, email, and in-person engagements—to enhance brand visibility and association.

"It's a multi-channel strategy. And I think that more than ever, SEOs really do need to be multichannel marketers or be partnering with other marketers in order to build multichannel strategies." (11:18)

Ruth recommends analyzing branded search data to identify commonly searched terms alongside the brand. This analysis can guide product strategy and SEO efforts to align with user interests and enhance brand positioning.

Reputation Management and Addressing Negative Brand Signals

When faced with negative brand signals, Ruth emphasizes the importance of proactive reputation management. Instead of merely suppressing negative content, she advocates for owning mistakes and demonstrating tangible improvements.

"Owning your mistakes as a brand and demonstrating improvement around them... can be a great way to change people's minds." (16:33)

She also highlights the value of building trust through partnerships with reputable brands, which can help reshape public perception and mitigate negative associations.

Brand Discovery in the Age of AI Platforms

Discussing the impact of AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity on brand discovery, Ruth believes that current SEO strategies largely remain applicable. She points out that AI models are trained on data sets similar to those used by search engines, meaning optimization for AI overviews parallels optimizing for rich snippets.

"If you are optimizing for appearance in AI overviews, it's not that different... Many of the tactics are really similar to what you might have been doing before to appear in rich results in rich snippets." (18:41)

Ruth advises continuing to focus on consistent on-page and off-page SEO practices, ensuring that brand associations are well-established and widely recognized across the web.

Integrating Brand Conversations into Business Strategies

Ruth provides actionable advice for SEOs and content marketers looking to incorporate brand management into their strategies. She suggests starting by reporting on branded search metrics using tools like Google Search Console and Semrush.

"What gets measured gets improved. Starting out, I think a good thing is to start reporting on it, just start talking about it..." (21:23)

By correlating branded search volume with traffic and rankings, SEOs can demonstrate the tangible impact of brand management on overall business performance. This approach not only underscores the importance of brand signals but also aligns SEO efforts with broader business objectives.

Conclusion

In wrapping up the discussion, Jordan Cooney and Ruth Burr Reedy underscore the evolving significance of brand signals in SEO. As AI continues to influence how consumers discover and interact with content, maintaining a strong, consistent brand presence across multiple channels remains indispensable for achieving sustained organic growth.

Notable Quotes

• Ruth Burr Reedy (03:53):
  "Brand impact online and your business impact online is made up of countless different signals, all of which are machine readable, all of which can be weighed against each other."

• Ruth Burr Reedy (08:46):
  "SEOs should take responsibility for driving not just branded search traffic, but the precursor to branded search traffic, which is branded search volume."

• Ruth Burr Reedy (11:18):
  "It's a multi-channel strategy. And I think that more than ever, SEOs really do need to be multichannel marketers or be partnering with other marketers in order to build multichannel strategies."

• Ruth Burr Reedy (16:33):
  "Owning your mistakes as a brand and demonstrating improvement around them... can be a great way to change people's minds."

• Ruth Burr Reedy (18:41):
  "If you are optimizing for appearance in AI overviews, it's not that different... Many of the tactics are really similar to what you might have been doing before to appear in rich results in rich snippets."

• Ruth Burr Reedy (21:23):
  "What gets measured gets improved. Starting out, I think a good thing is to start reporting on it, just start talking about it..."

For further insights and detailed episode summaries, visit voicesofsearch.com. Subscribe to the podcast for daily SEO and content marketing wisdom delivered straight to your feed.