Brand awareness is the new focus in SEO. Google Penguin has taken away the ability of a search engine Optimizer’s ability to target specific keywords in the ways that they used to do link to their own properties. Google now has aligned itself with brand awareness. This move towards brand awareness means that every business needs to get as much PR and linking to their own particular filename on the Internet to have any chance at getting their content ranked on the search engines.The truth about brand awareness is that it makes it harder for a small business to do business in the same space as a large business. Search engine optimization used to be an activities where a company could compete with a large company very easily. However, recent changes in the algorithms that the search engines use to rank websites have made this very difficult for a small company to compete with the large company. These changes have made it so that the business with the most amount of money will usually win the war because they have the most amounts of resources to direct at getting ranked on the search engines.Therefore, where a small business could focus on keyword selection and developing anchor text links to specific sales gateways on their web pages, they now need to direct fair attention on linking towards their own brand name. They also need to be continually developing their brand in the Internet marketing space as well as the off-line world. Therefore, a business should think about their overall business image as well as care about their online reputation.The only good that can come from the search engines new focus on brand management is that a business is forced to look at their online reputation management as closely as possible. This means that their reputation online will be better managed and they are far less likely to receive negative comments on their social media profiles, as well as their map listings.Even though this is a good thing for most businesses, it still remains to be seen how much this will affect their business in general. The truth of the matter is that brand awareness or marketing for brands is a major activity that large and small company must engage in now and in the future. However, a large company will be more likely to succeed at this endeavor because they have the money and resources to generate a successful campaign online.In conclusion, this does not mean that a small business should not try to develop their brand. Small companies turn into the biggest of companies. We are only seeing the small companies as they exist today. Even big companies fall. Therefore. a small business should always keep their hopes up and do whatever they can to provide their business with the marketing it needs to grow. It is important to note that the job is much more difficult than it ever has been before because of the search engines new focus on branding instead of anchor text linking to particular keywords. Even though the job is much tougher it does not mean that a small business should give up, A small business just needs to be smart about how they develop their branding and look outside of normal linking methods to gain a multitude of links that are diversified and help the overall image of a business.

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