The impact of SEO (search engine optimisation) on brand positioning and marketing has rapidly evolved. From being purely a technical issue of algorithm updates and keyword stuffing to becoming central to the positioning of any business. Striking the right balance between brand awareness and search engine optimization can be challenging but holds great promise to increase conversion. In this article, we explore this balancing act and how the two components can work together optimally. For those unfamiliar, SEO is a digital marketing strategy, involving a series of techniques and best practices designed to make a website more appealing to search engines like Google or Bing. Done correctly, it improves a website's visibility and ranking, increasing organic traffic and attracting more potential customers, readers, or users. As easy as it might sound, when it comes to implementing an SEO strategy, conflicts between brand identity and market positioning tend to be ever-present. One common challenge is when SEO specialists start changing content that alters the brand's tone of voice. Another is when the scramble for pieces of the budget pie pits the SEO specialist against the brand and marketing functions. So, how can you ensure SEO aligns with your brand and underpins engaging messaging towards your target audience? Let's explore this perspective and how the collaboration of SEO experts, copywriters, and brand strategists can address these, and other, issues. The initial step should be to align your SEO team, the marketing team, and the brand developers, including copywriters and brand strategists. This ensures a shared understanding of your brand's values and tone right from the outset—clarifying both what it represents and what it does not. This early alignment serves as the foundation for a unified approach, emphasizing the significance of each element within your brand. It's crucial to recognize that customers don't initiate searches in a vacuum; their actions are a direct result of their awareness of the brand, which, in turn, hinges on marketing efforts and brand positioning. Without this context, SEO efforts risk falling short of their potential. Secondly, collaborate closely as a joint team on everything. From writing meta tags (the text snippets shown on Google) to creating and aligning content with your brand's identity and target audience. Ensure that your SEO efforts resonate with your brand's voice by reviewing regularly and approving content together. This collaborative effort ensures that content consistently reflects your brand's values. Establish a feedback loop to resolve concerns and make sure meetings foster ongoing communication. Also, involve individual business units to make sure you capture their tactical needs. This ensures they don’t develop their own approaches to marketing and SEO. 
 When it comes to bridging the gap between SEO and brand, copywriters play a pivotal role. They can maintain brand integrity and enhance user experience by crafting content that not only ranks well but also resonates with the brand's tone and values. By working together with SEO specialists in addressing user queries, copywriters can maintain brand consistency while driving conversions through an improved user experience. Brand and marketing strategists can also help guide the SEO efforts to align with brand values and messaging, enhancing brand visibility while safeguarding identity. For successful SEO, strategies should focus on backlinking to the website, which is one of the most important features to improve page ranking. Simply map out different places, besides the own website, where the brand can be featured. For example, blogs, news, articles, email campaigns, and newsletters. Short checklist for SEO harmony: - Involve all relevant parties from the start, including SEO experts, marketing and brand specialists as well as Business Area representatives. - Conduct thorough market research to align every single piece of content with your brand's identity. By working together, you can identify everything from meta tags to subjects for articles and news that resonate with your audience and reflect your brand's identity. - Do regular, collaborative analysis to refine content and align SEO and marketing strategies. Also, by examining competitors as a team, you can identify opportunities and gaps, learning from both their successes and shortcomings. - Work strategically to have the brand featured outside the website in blogs, articles, news, email campaigns, and newsletters to maximise the generation of backlinks. - Ensure a seamless, user-friendly website experience. Fast-loading pages, mobile responsiveness, and intuitive navigation are critical for both SEO and maintaining user engagement. This requires coordination among the team to create a user-centric environment and will most likely need buy-in from IT as well. In conclusion, successful SEO is a true balancing act. If done well, you can simultaneously increase your company’s visibility, engage your audience, and drive organic traffic and conversions. As previously stated, the important key is collaboration, and if you seek a collaborative partner, we at Essen are ready to unlock your brand’s potential with the right SEO approach.