Firstly, let's consider what brand equity is. Wikipedia describes brand equity as the value that customers and prospects perceive in a brand. It is all about trust, i.e. how much trust customers perceive in the brand. A high level of trust leads to customer loyalty which has long term benefits for your company. It is also what comes to a customers mind when they think about your brand. The more positive the image in the customers mind, the higher the value.

So how does this value manifest itself; where's the benefit to your company? Well, if customers trust a brand they will be willing to pay a higher price than for competitive brands. In this case it is customers who perceive value in your brand, products and services beyond what they could buy at a lower price.

The value accrues in other ways too. Have you ever wondered why companies are often valued more highly in the stock market than their book value? This typically occurs when shareholders perceive value in the business beyond today; i.e. they perceive some future value that is worth paying a higher price for today. We know that it takes time to build brand equity or trust so a strong brand has lasting value.

Why is it important? Fundamentally it is about competitive advantage. It is very difficult to outperform a competitor with a strong brand that has equity. As mentioned before, people pay premiums for strong brands.

OK, enough of the theory. How does this relate to search engine optimisation? Let me explain.

Increasingly consumers are shopping online. They value the convenience, efficiency and anonymity of researching product and service needs online. Recently iProspect conducted research into the attitudes of online shoppers and discovered that businesses that rank highly in the search engines have strong brand equity. Thirty nine percent of search engine users believe that the highest ranked companies are the leaders in their field. So, apart from the obvious benefits of ranking highly in search engines, i.e. the higher number of visitors to your web site, there is also a level of trust being created. Isn't that interesting? Just by placing highly in the search engines, your business could be building trust and long term loyalty with consumers.

Search engine optimisation is critical to success of any online business. Strong positioning in search engines builds brand equity and strong brands create sources of competitive advantage.

At Webwings Internet Marketing, we help business to succeed online and search engine optimisation is critical to that success.