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This article has nothing to do with the so-called “Vince Update” at Google, which many people speculate caused a shift in ranking algorithms to favor “brand” Web sites. Google may very well have drawn up a list of signals they can use to identify a “brand-value Web site” but I’m not ready to attempt reverse-engineering such a list. In fact, given the significant decline in quality of Google’s search results this year, I would say that if they really are favoring “brand” sites in their algorithm now, they have given searchers a powerful incentive to look at other search engines.

What I want to focus on is what you can do with any search engine to build brand value (or brand equity as some people put it) in your site.

A brand is an intangible asset but it is generally assumed to have powerful, distinctive qualities. Here is a litmus test to show you whether you’re working with a brand or something less valuable. You can apply it to a Web site, a product, or a service.

1. The brand is distinct from the field. You have Nike and Bass and you have shoes. You have Roto Rooter and you have plumbers.
2. The right segment of consumers recognize the brand. Most men probably have no idea of what the difference is between a Coach purse and a Louis Vitton purse. Women who buy expensive purses know the difference.
3. The brand is mentioned by third-parties in a variety of contexts. A powerful brand creates many new anecdotes and metaphors and is the butt of many jokes. No one cares about what happens to the guy in no name sneakers.
4. A brand can introduce or validate change. We inherit brand trust from Grandma and Grandpa. We know a trend has arrived when the brands adopt it or a new brand is born.

There are many book selling Web sites but how many book selling brand sites can you think of? Everyone will mention Amazon first. Behind them you may get general consensus on Barnes and Noble, but I think people would start diverging on who comes third in the U.S. book selling market. There are more than two brands (BooksAMillion, Alibris, eCampus, and maybe a few others round out the top of the field) but most Americans would probably only be able to name those first two companies consistently.

Hence, we can say there are Strong Brands and Weak Brands. Of course, given a choice between having a weak brand and no brand, I think most of us would take the weak brand over the no brand.

If you want your site to build brand value then you have to treat it like it has brand value. That means you have to give your site everything a brand site has. That includes a distinctive name (and I ain’t talking about your mama’s domain name), a consumer vision, and a tagline or catch phrase. But it doesn’t end there.

If you’re selling shoes, what distinguishes your shoes from the rest of the field? If you’re selling SEO, what distinguishes your SEO from the field? If you run a Web directory, what distinguishes your Web directory from the rest of the field? You need a message that is sincere, memorable, and attractive. You have to show people that when they hear BAJING! they think of you.

It’s a Pavlovian principle: you want to be the bell that makes your potential customers salivate.

But you don’t have to achieve world-wide recognition. For example, to the best of my knowledge no newspaper or magazine has ever cited SEO Theory but a lot of people in the SEO industry know about the blog. Some movers and shakers insist on not mentioning SEO Theory by name but you can tell by the articles they write that they would not be addressing certain topics if I had not shaken those topics’ trees on SEO Theory. The average person on the street has never heard of and doesn’t care about SEO Theory, but it has reached a LOT of people in the SEO industry.

In fact, whereas three years ago hardly anyone was talking about “seo theory”, today a growing number of SEO bloggers are working to position themselves in the “seo theory” name space. You can find blogs that use “seo theory” in their titles, blogs that include “seo theory” categories, and blogs that sprinkle the term “seo theory” throughout their copy. I’ve even found people linking to their blogs with the anchor text “seo theory”. I wasn’t the first person to use the expression “seo theory” — I was only the guy who focused on it and showed there was value in the topic.

Hybrid cars have been around for years but hardly anyone was buying them in the United States up until the price of gasoline hit $4 per gallon. All of a sudden, the demand of hybrid cars caught the attention of the Big Three automakers in Detroit. I think it’s safe to say they will eventually convert their automobile technologies to use hybrid or other gasoline technologies over the next ten years — they see the wave of change and they are determined to ride it. The Big Three brands did not introduce the change, but they are going to validate it. They’ve already gone through this once before, in the early 1980s, when fuel-efficient engines replaced gas guzzlers in nearly all low-end models.

Your Web site has to create a value that is relevant to what some segment of consumers want but which is different from what they are already getting.

Your Web site has to target a specific customer base. It’s great if more people know about you, but when you’re just starting out to build a brand you cannot go after a large market unless you have a lot of resources.

Your Web site has to be mentioned by other people on other sites: in forums, in blog posts, in link lists, in bookmarks and favorites lists, in contests — everything and everywhere. I don’t hang with the people who give out SEO awards but even SEO Theory has received a few nominations for awards (and I think I won “Most Likely To Win An Argument Even If He Is Wrong” somewhere in my own name). Web Site awards and nominations don’t establish brand value, but they do help validate it. The best nominations are the ones you don’t make or ask your friends to make.

Your Web site does not have to introduce or validate change, but you’ll know you have a brand site if/when you do use it to introduce or validate change. You don’t have to be the only brand validating a change but it’s good when you’re one of the brands people look to as bellwethers when they want to know if the change is for real. And it’s fantastic if you’re the brand that introduces change.

So in terms of creating a great Web site, the formula is pretty simple: Build content people like enough to talk about; build content that provides value to a group of regular “consumers”; and build content that challenges other people to follow your example.

Whether a search engine ranking algorithm cares about all that doesn’t matter. With enough brand value you don’t need search engines to get your traffic.