Unlock Better Rankings with YBYS: Your Brand, Your SEO
▼ Summary
– Businesses must build their brand rather than rely on keyword and link tactics, as those offer no long-term value.
– Google still rewards usefulness, as shown by Monday Mandala driving more traffic for coloring searches than the well-known brand Crayola.
– Brand memory is crucial because user answers now come from many platforms, not just Google, and recognition survives when users don’t click.
– Your brand is your SEO, as tactics like rankings and algorithms are temporary, while brand presence and trust provide lasting visibility.
– A strong brand requires existing outside your website through newsletters, LinkedIn, PR, and other channels to signal authority to users and AI systems.
Every business has two recurring questions that come up in meetings daily.
“How do we get our Google clicks back?” “How do we show up in all the LLMs?”
The answer is one few want to hear. Brace yourself.
Build your brand. The days of “add more keywords” and “how many links would it take to…” are over.
Does that mean search-and-answer bots can’t be manipulated? Absolutely not. But the long-term, consistent value from those tactics? Zero.
Two sites, two brands, two value adds
Ever heard of Crayola? Probably. It’s a roughly $1 billion company, the default answer when someone says crayons.
How about Monday Mandala? It’s owned by retired school teacher Inez Stanaway, focusing on coloring pages and printable activities.
Here’s the fun question: which drives more traffic for coloring-related searches?
If you guessed Monday Mandala, you’re right. 🤯
Google still rewards usefulness, and honestly, that’s good. Nobody goes bankrupt downloading coloring pages from the “wrong” website.
But here’s where things shift.
Ask 10 people to name a crayon company. How many say “Crayola”? Now ask those same 10 to name a coloring-page website. How many say Monday Mandala?
Monday Mandala won clicks. Crayola won memory.
In a world of AI results, recommendations, and answer engines, recognition matters again. Traffic gets clicks, but branding compounds and extends beyond any SERP change or algorithm update.
Search fragmented. Brand didn’t.
Search used to be simple. Someone had a question, opened Google, clicked a result, and landed on your site. Success was measured by clicks, traffic, and on-site actions.
Many business owners think they’re entitled to “free clicks.” Wake up: Google doesn’t owe you anything.
Building a business off search traffic still works (look at Monday Mandala), but it’s no longer the only game. It’s also a bigger risk now than ever before.
Answers happen everywhere today: Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Reddit threads, Slack and Teams conversations, LinkedIn posts, YouTube videos. Users no longer search only within Google’s ecosystem. Traditional search is just one piece of a much larger answer ecosystem.
So what survives when users never click?
Brand memory.
People remember names they’ve seen before. They remember positive experiences, friends’ recommendations, repeated exposure, and trusted companies.
Nobody remembers your title tag. (Ouch, that hurt me too.)
This is why brand suddenly feels like the answer to every executive question about SEO, AI, video, and more. When users search for answers across platforms, what travels with them is not your website.
It’s your reputation.
Not domain authority. Not inbound links. Not keyword density. Not a note from your mom. Not your Reddit karma score.
YBYS = Your brand = Your SEO
Let’s be clear: tactics still work. I’ve shared specific tactics that helped drive 1 million-plus organic sessions. You can rank pages, gain traffic, and ride algorithm shifts to capture massive visibility spikes. Some businesses will grow primarily through search traffic for years.
But many of those wins will be temporary.
Rankings move. Algorithms change. Search platforms evolve. (Sound familiar?)
Brands stay in the conversation.
YBYS is not anti-SEO. It’s the evolution of SEO.
Visibility still matters because people need to find you. Recognition matters because they need to remember you after they leave. Trust matters because recommendations and reputation increasingly influence buying decisions. Proof matters because people want validation beyond your own marketing claims.
Finally, there’s brand presence.
Do you exist outside your website? Newsletters, LinkedIn, PR, podcasts, communities, reviews, mentions, and brand searches are no longer “nice to haves to appease the bots.” These are signals that users, search engines, and AI systems use to understand who deserves attention.
Your homepage is no longer your brand. It’s just one piece of evidence supporting it.
The uncomfortable truth
After posting about a tool I like on LinkedIn, someone reached out, surprised I supported it. The company was getting blowback over programmatic SEO, with rumors that some larger brands using it tactically had been penalized by Google.
My response was simple: People kill people with Teslas too.
Some of it will even work. For a while. But every year, the shelf life of these tactics gets shorter.
Google demands trust and authority. AI asks for memory. Consumers ask for proof.
The companies that win long-term are not the ones finding the next loophole. They are the ones people remember.
YBYS. Your brand = Your SEO.
Anyone can rank. Not everyone gets remembered.
(Source: Search Engine Land)
