Out of every car that is currently in production, none are arguably more recognizable than the venerable Porsche 911. While it’s a given that other historical automotive nameplates out there have undergone an identity crisis or two throughout their lifetime, the Porsche 911 is fundamentally the same car it has been since 1964. Designed by the late Ferdinand Porsche using the classic Beetle as a basis, the Porsche 911 remains the gold standard even with its inherent design flaw.

You see, unlike most modern sports car, the Porsche 911 has its engine on the back instead of in the middle, which are very prone to oversteer. And yet, despite Porsche selling the entry-level Cayman using the mid-engine layout, the 911 still uses the same rear-engine layout for 50 years and counting. The reason simply is because of the identity of the 911 itself, the branding of the nameplate in a manner of speaking, something that SEO services and marketers alike have been grappling with regards to their business.

The irrational power of branding

It is thanks to Porsche’s engineering capabilities that despite the 911’s inherent imbalance that the car practically remains the gold standard when it comes to sports car. When Honda/Acura decided to revive the NSX nameplate that’s been dormant for more than a decade in 2016, they used the 911 in GT3 trim as a benchmark. Ask any non-obsessive Porsche fan you know and they’d readily admit that a rear-engine layout isn’t ideal but if Porsche ever decided to buck this tradition, you could bet a riot would ensue.

Even when people know something is objectively inferior, they’re more than willing to defend that something to the bitter end. It’s not wrong to say that people are irrational but it doesn’t tell the whole story, what’s more appropriate is to say that people are emotional and the goal of branding is to tap into this emotional core and try to make your company, services and/or products more attractive to customers.

The connection between SEO and branding

The average folk consider that the goal of SEO is for your company to rank higher on search engines. Again, this isn’t wrong but it doesn’t tell the whole story. SEO can also be used to push a certain narrative for your company, a characteristic that you want your company to be associated with. For example, Porsche has gone a long way from their humble beginnings with the petite Porsche 356 and in addition to their sports car lineup of the 911 and the Cayman/Boxster, Porsche has two SUVs and one luxurious executive car.

Keeping true to their identity however, the two SUVs, the mid-size Cayenne and the compact Macan, and the executive Panamera all stay true to their sporty heritage, having a dynamic characteristic that are somewhat uncommon in their field. No matter which Porsche you choose, you are still guaranteed a semblance of a good time. Porsche have a reputation to uphold but what about small and/or new brands that doesn’t have a reputation to begin with? That’s where the idea of SEO comes into play.

By making use of SEO and as of now, social media marketing, as early as possible, you could begin with a clean slate and the absolute freedom to decide how you want your brand to be portrayed. You know back when you were still going to school that you’re given the chance to adopt a new identity during the gap between primary school and secondary school and then also in the gap between secondary school and college? That’s exactly what you could do if you decided to start with your SEO branding process as early as possible.

Brand awareness, identity and the practice of SEO

Branding as a process is essentially divided into two segments, the issue of brand awareness and the issue of brand identity. SEO is normally used to help with the former, making sure that your company gets more airtime, figuratively speaking, on the internet but it is not often that SEO is used to help the latter. The goal isn’t just to get your company mentioned online; it’s to get them mentioned in the right way, which is essentially what building a brand identity is all about.

To sum up, branding and SEO shouldn’t be a separate, disjointed process. These two concepts fall under the same general umbrella of marketing for a reason, they’re connected to each other. With the use of content for example, you could reinforce a certain idea about your company that is consistently represented through all of your contents, the way Porsche aims to inject a level of sportiness through their products. By making sure that your SEO and branding efforts are in sync with one another, you could achieve greater results than if the two were working together separately.