How big an impact can visual identity have upon your organic visibility?

What’s visual identity?

A visual brand is a set of elements that distinguish a brand.

A logo, small element of a symbol, or a font can all be used to make a brand identifiable.

Big brands used to have a strong visual identity. Digital channels such as video and social media have made it possible to create a visual identity for any brand. A visual identity is an essential part of any brand’s marketing strategy. It helps you to be recognized by your customers and encourages them to become repeat customers.

Cross-channel marketing requires a consistent visual identity. When people travel from one channel to the next, they will start to recognize your brand and this recognition will lead them to trust you more.

What is the visual identity of organic search?

Google has always loved brands because they are easy for users to understand and map together (hence, the Knowledge Graph is based upon entities, i.e. brands).

Google began to feature brands visually in search results pages a few years back. Now, brands can build recognition through organic search results.

Let’s take a look at one example.

Let’s start by searching for a brand name: Look at the number of images that appear in various search sections across SERPs.

• 
  The knowledge panel
  
• 
  Twitter carousel
  
• 
  Image thumbnails
  
• 
  Image carousels
  
• 
  Video thumbnails and
  

Visual elements can be found all over brand search results.

Searching for informational terms like “room soundproofing” brings up a detailed guide from Hubspot. The best part about the search snippet is that it includes a brand-named image:

This is when a searcher recognizes the brand’s results immediately and clicks through because it looks familiar.

How to create a consistent visual identity

Being active and consistent online is the key to creating a visual identity.

This does not mean that you should be living on social media. This means that you use social media to communicate well-branded messages to your target audience.

According Namify , it takes between five and seven impressions for people remember your brand.

You need to serve your visual message at least five times before it becomes familiar.

How does this work?

Use the same image on multiple channels

Photoleap makes it easy to create visual assets that you can share across many social media platforms. It can be used to add advanced effects to existing images or to make minor adjustments to them. You can also use the built-in text to image AI engine to describe any visual you wish to see and then edit it from there.

Get inspiration from the brand’s Instagram account , which is full of creative images that you can create with the app:

After you have created your concept, you can easily adapt it to multiple social media channels and even animated it. This expands your options and allows you to use it for Reels, shorts and even stories.

You can curate your own images (or those of your customers).

Monitoring customer reviews is a great way of controlling brand sentiment and promoting your visual brand identity through user-generated content.

There are many approaches to this, and you don’t need to choose one. Before you create your UGC-driven visual identity strategy, try several.

• Use a hashtag to encourage customers to share their feedback (then re-share the updates and stories to your account).
• 
  Highlights are used to make brand-driven stories permanent
  
• Embed 20 second videos on landing pages for more conversions
• 
  Create a contest to recognize customers for their weekly/monthly submissions of photos
  
• Transform text reviews (from Google and Yelp) into visual quotations
• Create multiple images from one source and convert them into a video presentation to publish on Youtube or Facebook
• To better understand the feedback your peers (or competitors) leave , and to see how they package and market it to get better results,

See all that has to offer

To build brand recognition, you need brand assets to rank for many brand-driven and generic queries. You can also post visual content to Twitter (which has a carousel section within SERPs) or Facebook (which is often granted visually rich span>

Stick to your brand-driven colors for all assets you create (see orange SERP example), use your logo elements and add watermarks in your videos.

Here are some ideas to help you get started.

• Create original images for each article you publish (and then share those images via social media)
• Image optimization techniques can be used to rank your images in organic search results. This step is made easier by SEO plugins.
• Embed videos to generate video-rich Snippets in Organic SERPs
• Make infographics to show how-to guides and make the steps more comprehensible. This is possible with a variety of data visualization plugins.
• Use Illustrations Brand illustration system A collection of images that convey a brand’s promise.

Retarget

Retargeting can be a great way for people to get to know you and your visual identity. They will also respond more positively to your ads. Google displays dynamic remarketing ads. Facebook is another great platform for retargeting. It allows you to reach past visitors from your site and allow them to continue their shopping journey right where they left off.

Conclusion

It takes effort and time to build a visual identity that is easily identifiable. However, it is worth the effort because a well-known brand leads to higher conversions and sales. When planning your content and visual marketing strategies, keep your visual identity in your mind. You’ll be halfway there. You only need consistency and time. Good luck!

Ann Smarty, the founder of Viral Content Bee and brand manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas, is Ann Smarty. You can find her on Twitter @seosmarty

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