Your logo is not your brand; it is a badge, a symbol used to identify you. Its intrinsic meaning is whatever perception your customers have of your operation. That perception is the brand.

So, by understanding that your brand is owned by your customers you can seek to nurture and develop your customers, and by consequence, rather than direction, manage your brand. It is this pragmatic thought process that frees the marketer from meaningless metrics and self-serving activities.

When a customer decides to pick you they make a decision that your offering (and by extension, you) are worth bothering with. When a customer picks you it is likely that they have searched broadly for one thing, and if you have read them correctly and created the right environment they will find you- you can't dictate what they seek, merely tailor your web messaging to fit with they might be looking for.

Search engine optimisation is therefore a way to guide searchers to you. SEO is an environment that you should constantly manage to assist customers in finding you, rather than your competitors.

The customer owns their choice, and by not choosing you they have an impact on your future. The customer also owns your brand, and by not supporting it they have yet more impact on your future. If you understand that creating the right SEO environment involves really understanding your customers' search criteria and general web habits then the chances are that your brand will have a higher value than your competitors.

If a marketer is deluded enough to see customers as empty vessels waiting to be filled with their thoughts then even the best SEO and search engine marketing activity is likely to fail. Irrelevant search results irritate customers, and if your brand is associated with inappropriate search results its value will diminish.

However, by comprehending that your customer is your brand, and that your SEO activity is a route by which you extend the reach and value of your brand then you have a great platform from which to outperform your competition.