Building a strong online presence: how to create SEO-friendly brand tone of voice

Building a strong online presence is more important than ever before. With the rise of digital media and connected customers, companies must ensure their content effectively reaches its intended audience. This article from Kevin Dam, CEO and Founder of Aemorph, will provide practical strategies to build a strong online presence for your brand. By creating an SEO-friendly brand tone of voice, you can ensure that your content reaches the right audience and effectively engages and resonates with them.

What is a brand voice?

Brand voice is the distinct personality a business creates to communicate with its target audience across various mediums. It includes a unified approach to tone, style, and messaging to build brand recognition and nurture a connection with the audience. A brand’s tone of voice should be unique to the company and reflect its values, helping it stand out from the competition. It makes the company identifiable and recognizable, leading to higher brand loyalty and conversion rates.

The difference between voice and tone

Voice and tone are two essential elements of branding that help shape a brand’s identity and communication style. While they are interconnected, there is a distinct difference between the two:

1. Brand Voice represents the personality and character of a brand, expressed through its words and messages. It is the unique way a brand presents itself to the world and remains consistent over time. A brand’s voice should reflect its values, goals, and overall identity. Below you can see an example of a humorous brand voice:

2. Brand Tone is the mood and emotion of a brand, also expressed through its words and messages. Unlike voice, tone can be adjusted depending on the context and the channel that’s been chosen. It is how a brand adapts its voice to different situations, contexts, and audiences. Some examples of brand tone variations are formal, casual, empathetic, excited, or serious.

Why is the brand tone of voice important?

The main point of having a brand voice is to create a distinct personality that communicates with the target audience across different mediums and establishes brand identity, trust and credibility, customer relationships and revenue growth.

The unique, recognizable brand identity you represent with your tone of voice creates a memorable connection between the brand and its customers. A good brand voice targeted to the right audience can speak directly to them in a way relevant to their lifestyle, which can help strengthen customer relationships. 

Also, shaping the end user’s experience and how the company is remembered influences a person’s decisions, increasing revenue. 

68% of businesses confirmed that consistency contributed to their revenue growth of 10% or more. When customers experience consistency with your brand, it builds trust and credibility with customers.    

The interplay between brand voice and SEO

Brand voice is essential in social media, marketing blogs, websites, and SEO. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is increasing the visibility of your website in the search engines, intending to attract quality traffic and appear at the top of search engine results pages. 

For content, you are not just trying to write for Google; it is clever these days by analyzing and ranking content based on how helpful they are to humans. Suppose your brand voice is entertaining, engaging and informative. In that case, users will likely be engaged, which impacts other ranking factors like sessions and dwell time that contribute to SEO efforts. Google values quality and consistent content, a product of using brand tone of voice.

Practical strategies — creating an SEO-friendly brand voice

When it comes to shaping an SEO-friendly brand voice, there are several practical strategies to consider. It involves a careful blend of crafting engaging, brand-relevant content whilst ensuring it is optimized for search engine algorithms. It’s about balancing keyword usage with authentic communication and maintaining consistency across all digital platforms. 

1. Define your brand identity

Brand identity combines your company’s values, personality, and visual elements that differentiate you from your competitors. It is like your digital signature and significantly enhances your company’s online visibility and resonance with your target audience.

A clear brand identity forms the foundation for the tone of voice and helps establish a consistent and recognizable brand voice.

2. Define and understand your target audience

These are people who are most likely interested in your products or services. Conducting market research helps identify target audiences’ demographics, interests, and behaviours. Another way is through customer feedback. Both ways help you tailor your brand voice by using language, tone, and messaging that appeals to your audience’s preferences.

3. Identify attributes they seek

Authenticity, reliability, relevance, consistency, and empathy are attributes the target audience seeks in a brand. Aligning brand voice with these attributes creates a sense of connection and understanding with target audiences. It creates a positive perception of customers, which becomes familiarity that makes audiences recognize and differentiate your brand from competitors. 

4. Create a brand persona

The brand persona is a fictional character representing your brand’s character and personality. It is a way to humanize your brand and make it more relatable to your target audience.

To develop a brand persona resonating with your audience, you should start by defining your brand’s personality traits and characteristics, if it is a person. Once you define these, your brand voice should be how your brand’s personality comes across to others. 

5. Research relevant keywords

Optimizing your brand voice for search engines helps you understand how your target audience describes and looks for your products or services. 

List relevant topics and terms related to your product and offerings. You can utilize keyword research tools to discover relevant keywords and their search volumes. Incorporating keywords that they are searching for and creating content that matches their intents helps search engines understand what your webpage is about, making it likely to rank higher.

6. Execute competitor analysis

Competitor analysis helps you identify gaps and opportunities in the market regarding brand voice and helps you adapt your brand voice to maintain a competitive edge and attract more customers. 

Start by identifying your competitors and analyze their brand voice. Examine their website, social media profiles, and other marketing materials. Consider their language, tone, and messaging and what makes their brand voice unique. Also, you can examine their content strategy to see how it connects with their target audience. These can give you valuable insights into what works and doesn’t in your industry.

7. Develop a brand style guide.

A brand style guide provides clear visual and verbal communication guidelines, ensuring that all brand materials align with the brand’s essence and values. It encompasses logo and derivatives, typography, colour palette, imagery, tone, vocabulary, grammar and messaging guidelines.

The role of a brand style guide in maintaining consistency across channels is to provide a set of rules and examples that help all individuals involved in creating content to accurately reflect the brand’s identity, values, and visual aesthetics. This consistency in brand elements fosters trust, strengthens brand perception, and establishes a memorable presence in the market.

8. Create a distinct tone of voice

Consider your brand identity, target audience, and personality to create a distinct tone of voice. These elements should reflect your brand’s unique character and resonate with your target audience. Consider the language you use, the level of formality or informality, and the emotions you want to evoke in your audience. Be consistent in using your tone of voice across different channels and content types. Below, are some examples of consistent tone of voice across different channels and content types.

1. A brand that uses humour as its main tone can incorporate it in all its channels and content types, such as social media posts, website copy, and even customer emails.
2. A brand that focuses on professionalism and expertise can consistently use industry-related terms and language in all its materials, whether a blog post or a marketing brochure.
3. A brand that wants to evoke emotions like warmth and trust could include personal stories or testimonials in its various content types, from social media captions to website copy.

9. Incorporate SEO elements

Optimizing your brand’s content for search engines involves using relevant keywords throughout your website, including meta tags, headers, and URLs. These elements help search engines understand your webpage context, making it more likely to appear in relevant searches.

Incorporating SEO best practices not only improves search engine visibility but also enhances user experience as it provides clear and organized information for your audience.

10. Craft compelling and engaging content

Once you have established your brand voice and incorporated SEO elements, it’s time to create content that truly resonates with your target audience. Your content should provide valuable information, address their pain points, and showcase your brand’s unique personality. It should also be shareable and easily digestible for the audience.

Here are some tips for creating compelling and engaging content:

• know your target audience and understand their preferences, interests, and needs;
• use storytelling techniques to make a personal connection with your audience;
• incorporate visuals like images or videos to break up text and add visual interest;
• keep your content informative but concise — avoid long paragraphs or technical jargon;
• use a conversational tone in your writing to make it more relatable and engaging.
• include a call to action at the end of your content to encourage your audience to take further action.

11. Monitor and analyze performance

Tracking and analyzing key metrics is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of your brand voice and content strategy. Some important metrics to track include engagement rates, website traffic and conversion rates. Review these metrics regularly and make adjustments to improve your brand voice and resonate with your target audience.

12. Stay up-to-date with SEO trends and algorithm changes.

Search engine algorithms constantly evolve, and keeping informed about the latest trends and updates is important. You can adapt your SEO strategy accordingly and maintain your brand’s online visibility by staying up-to-date. Use reputable sources such as industry blogs, search engine news websites, and social media groups to stay informed.

SEO brand voice examples

Starbucks uses a functional yet expensive tone of brand voice to simplify the message, telling a story and preparing customers to enjoy what’s coming simultaneously. Their brand voice helps strengthen customer connection with the product by avoiding confusion and making it simple for customers to purchase.

Another example is Nike, using the following phrases on their brand: “Just do it”, “Run the day. Don’t let it run you”. Their brand voice is confident and assertive, which encourages the generation of aspiring athletes to put on their shoes and work on their dreams.

To conclude

Building an SEO-friendly brand voice is essential for creating a strong, recognizable brand identity. By following these guidelines and incorporating SEO best practices, you can establish an effective brand voice that improves your online visibility. Remember to regularly review and adapt your strategy to stay relevant and effectively connect with your audience. 

Start implementing these tips today to enhance your brand’s image and drive success in the market.