Diet Coke. Big Mac. Samsung Galaxy. Xbox. iPhone. Toyota Prius.
We’ve all heard of them. They’re available worldwide and carry a unique brand identity. Here’s the interesting thing: while each of these products has an identity of its own, they’re sub-brands. They’re a brand within a brand, with their own personalities and customer expectations that are different from their parent brands.
A sub-brand is created when an existing brand (aka the parent brand) forms one or more new individual product categories. For instance, McDonald’s is an established brand in Australia. Big Mac is a part of McDonald’s extensive menu, but the product has its own brand identity. It stands out from the other items on the menu and has a certain uniqueness to it, even if it is essentially a double-decker hamburger.
Sub-brands are great marketing tools. They allow marketers to differentiate products, explore niche markets, and create new product expectations. While they’re related to the parent company, they’re established as separate brands.
This is why it’s imperative you customise your sub-brand’s keyword strategy. Using the same keywords that you use for your parent brand will not work. You need to optimise your sub-brand’s keyword strategy and include it in your search engine optimisation marketing campaign. Here’s how to go about this.
Differentiate Your Audiences
The first thing you need to do is analyse your parent brand’s and sub-brand’s audiences. Start with the former. What does your main audience demand, and how can you fulfil their needs with your sub-brand? Once you know your audience’s search intent, you can then conduct keyword research to formulate a keyword marketing strategy for your sub-brand.
Remember, your branding needs to establish your sub-brand’s uniqueness while reiterating its relationship with the main brand. This will help promote brand loyalty and ensure your sub-brand’s SEO strategies help you achieve your desired outcome.
For example, Samsung Galaxy is a sub-brand of Samsung. The parent company caters to a vast audience, dealing with all sorts of electronics. The SEO keyword strategy for Samsung should be very different from Samsung Galaxy’s. You can determine the search intent by establishing your audience and customising keywords accordingly.
Using “smartphones” as a keyword alone wouldn’t help your sub-brand’s visibility. You need to choose more fitting keywords that accurately convey what you’re marketing. For instance, your keyword strategy can include “best smartphones under $200” or “smartphones with the best camera” to make an impact.
Keep an eye on your content performance metrics. Focus on high-performing keywords and adjust your strategy as required.
Avoid Keyword Cannibalisation
Keyword cannibalisation occurs when you use the same keywords for multiple products or services. As a result, more than one of your pages may appear when you type in a search query. Contrary to popular belief that this shows your web pages are ranking high for a particular keyword, it’s detrimental to your SEO marketing strategy. This is because by using the same keywords for multiple pages, you’re compromising on their performance. The pages compete with each other, instead of competing with other websites.
Many times, certain keywords are relevant for multiple pages. This can also lead to keyword cannibalisation. You can address this issue by adopting various approaches. For instance, consider re-optimising your pages by performing regular content audits. This will help you eliminate broken links and keywords you don’t need any more while allowing you to optimise your page with new or more relevant keywords.
You can also merge page topics. If there are multiple pages with similar keywords and topics, they’re likely to compete with each other. Consider merging the two to prevent this from happening or reworking the page content to ensure each page is unique. Fixing keyword cannibalisation is integral for your sub-brand’s keyword strategy as it helps attract the relevant audience and further establish your brand authority.
Keep the Brand Architecture in Focus
While your sub-brand has its own identity, it is still a part of the parent company. Your branding and keyword optimisation strategies need to align with the parent brand, or your efforts may end up hurting your overall brand image and credibility. Instead of building your keyword and SEO marketing strategy in isolation, keep the parent company in mind at all times.
Think of the brand as a house and the sub-brand as a room within the house. The sub-brand strategy needs to be integrated within the existing strategy for it to align with your main brand. A well-defined keyword strategy allows you to do this by making it clear where the distinction between the two lies while emphasising the connection.
You need to incorporate keywords that aren’t contradictory to your main strategy. For instance, if your main brand uses its affordability as a selling point and emphasises this in its keyword strategy, you can’t include keywords like “luxury” or “premium” for your sub-brand as they contradict your company’s main USP.
Revamp Your Keyword Optimisation Strategy with our Digital Marketing Experts in Canberra
Building an effective sub-brand marketing and keyword optimisation takes patience. There’s trial and error involved to ensure you get things right. However, search engine marketing experts specialising in keyword research and strategy can help you start off on the right note.
Our team at TocToc comprises digital marketing experts who offer search engine optimisation marketing, content marketing, website design and development, graphic design, social media marketing, and other online marketing services. Whether you need help selecting the right keywords for your sub-brand and optimising web pages or require a more thorough SEO strategy for your brand, we’ve got you covered.
