Customers Prefer Buying Brands They Know: SEO as a Tool for Creating Purchase Intent

SEM and all paid advertising campaigns act like an active salesperson, directing messages straight at the customer:

• “buy now,”
• “check the offer,”
• “add to cart.”

This is sales here and now. Effective, but requires ongoing per-click payments. Additionally, in 2026, this cost may rise even further. (Learn more: Will Google Ads be more expensive in 2026? Cost analysis and how to secure your budget)

SEO works differently, more like building brand recognition in the customer’s eyes:

• you appear where the customer is looking for answers,
• you educate them within your category,
• you demonstrate your presence,
• you embed the brand in context,
• you build mental availability.

Over time, the customer starts thinking about your brand not because you advertise it, but because they know it and consider it an authority in the industry.

This is the difference between:

• “we must acquire a customer”

and

• “the customer comes to us on their own.”

Most purchases start with a search engine, even if the final transaction takes place offline, initial research, browsing offers, and selecting a few companies happen online.

And this means that Google has become the most essential medium for building brand awareness, more critical than outdoor, display, and, in some cases, even social media.

Why?

Because on Google, the customer:

• searches for a category (“best coffee machines”),
• searches for a problem (“what to buy for allergies”),
• searches for comparisons (“air conditioner rankings”),
• searches for answers (“which mattress to choose”),
• searches for opinions.

If your brand appears in these places, two key brand metrics grow:

Without SEO, these two metrics grow more slowly, at a much higher cost, and more chaotically; in the case of ineffective marketing strategies in other fields, they don’t grow at all.

When a customer types into Google:

• “is product X good?”
• “best Y companies”
• “ranking Z”
• “opinions about brand A”

and your brand does not appear in the search engine answers…

…then you do not influence their purchasing preferences.

SEO gives you a tool to manage opinion and image, where the customer:

• reads about the category,
• compares companies,
• learns about the market,
• benchmarks brands against each other.

This is the key moment of building preference – and the key moment of building purchase intent.

This is a psychological law, not a marketing one: the mere exposure effect.

The more often we see a brand, the more we:

• like it,
• trust it,
• do not question it,
• choose it.

SEO is an effective way to deliver repeatable exposure:

• not as an ad,
• not as a sales message,
• but as the natural presence of the brand in places where the customer wants to see answers, not ads.

Some brands invest millions in:

• image campaigns,
• outdoor,
• sponsorships,
• teleshopping,
• PR,
• display.

At the same time, they are not visible at the point where the customer’s purchasing journey begins: Google.

The result?

The customer sees the brand on a billboard, but when they search for the category on a search engine, they find competitors. You invest in building brand awareness, but you hand over the demand to someone else.

If a brand wants to:

• increase awareness,
• build preference,
• influence brand perception in the eyes of customers,
• strengthen opinions in digital,
• be part of the natural purchasing path,

then it needs SEO.

SEO is a tool that:

• builds mental availability of the brand,
• creates purchase intent,
• strengthens spontaneous and aided awareness,
• delivers repeatable exposure,
• influences the customer’s opinion of the brand.

SEM delivers sales, but SEO makes it much easier. These disciplines work best in a complementary duo.

We will show you:

• how your domain looks in terms of readiness to handle Google Ads campaigns,
• which phrases you are visible for, and which ones your brand should be,
• what actions will yield results fastest and most effectively,
• how to lower the cost of Google Ads campaigns.

Write to us – we will prepare an analysis and a concrete action plan for you!