A brand signal, simply put is any sort of signals that shows Google that you’re not a spam artist. So, if you act like a real business online, then you will be treated and rewarded with trust, rankings, and a whole lot of Google love. It is also a way for you to dramatically increase the trust and authority for your business website, and inadvertently increases the rankings.

Building strong brand signals is the first part of your ranking process on the Google SERP because it builds a strong layer of trust around the target site.

Brand Signal #1 : Secure Your Brand

Securing your brand name across all the top tier social platforms is the first step. We focus on securing the brand name on the most highly-trafficked sites according to Alexa, and these include any of the following: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Google+, WordPress, Slideshare, LiveJournal, Quora and so on.

Brand Signal #2 : Niche Profiles

Next up, you’ll also want to go out and find niche relevant platforms. So if you’re a digital marketer, you should be able to find similar digital marketing related platforms to hook up with. A simple search function like “keyword + sign up” can usually give you some relevant platforms.

Brand Signal #3 : Account Population

Now that you’ve secured your properties, you have to start populating them. Start with the most important profiles, and move on from there.

At the bare minimum you should:

• Write a keyword-rich description
• Insert your link (branded anchor)
• Share blog posts or important pages on your site
• If you’re a local business, to include NAP (Name, Address, Phone) and ensure they are consistent across all channels — you’ll most likely enjoy a huge boost in the local search results after that

Brand Signal #4 : Social Link Wheel

Believe it or not, the easiest way to flow massive brand (link) juice is through your social accounts. Nothing tricky, just link out to your other social accounts. Anything between 3-5 quality profile links would usually be good enough.

Over time, this small strategy will increase the Page Authority (PA) of your social accounts. Just avoid using keyword rich anchor text and you’ll be good to go.

Brand Signal #5 : Internal Authority

All of the social platforms you’ve signed up for have one thing in common: a ton of authority. One of the quickest ways to build the authority of any social profile is to leverage the internal authority.

Don’t over-complicate this. All you have to do is increase your activity on the social platform — start with articles, postings, images, etc. be part of the social landscape and connect with your target audience. Here’s one great article on crafting the perfect social media marketing plan.

Since most of these websites use the “DoFollow” attribute on internal links, all you need to do is increase the amount of internal pages linking back to your profile.

Brand Signal #6 : Branded Content

Some of the branded accounts that you’ve created will actually allow you to publish articles. This is the process of creating high-value content on your branded properties, and within each new piece of branded content, you should link to previous articles or resources you’ve published. The point of doing this is to send authority to each of your branded profiles, which will obviously send trust and authority to your money site.

Take extra caution though not to use any exact match anchor text going to your website. The reason why you should not use keyword-rich anchors in content that is published under your brand is because you don’t want your business to be associated with link manipulation by Google.

Brand Signal #7 : Citations

Every online business is operating out of somewhere. Google places a lot of emphasis on citations where local SEO is concerned. For the uninitiated, a citation is an online reference to your business’s name, address and phone number (NAP). Like links to your website, Google uses them when evaluating the online authority of your business. Be sure to include this as part of your SEO strategy, even if you’re working remotely at the local Starbucks store on certain days. Citations are a great way to keep that social link wheel strong … and churning.