Are you looking to generate more organic traffic and improve your conversions?
Start paying attention to and optimizing for your branded keywords!
A branded keyword search query is the one that contains your own brand name.
This sounds easy but in reality it is huge.
Imagine the situation in which a person starts typing your brand name into the search box: What’s their reasoning behind that?
First and foremost: They know your brand.
And this is where it gets so fascinating: These people may have already done their niche research and something prompted them to choose you.
Or these are your branded ads target audience you invested your money into reaching on Facebook or elsewhere. Chances are, these people are willing and ready to buy from you. All they need is the final incentive.
The pressure is real: Will your branded keyword search results incentivise them to deal with you or scare them away (or distract them by suggesting your competitors).
And let’s not forget that many of those searches were supposed to be direct clicks. Not many marketers or business owners realize that major browsers today urge people to search when they are simply trying to type the domain name to get to a site.
Both Safari and Google Chrome serve Google’s search suggestions when you simply type a domain name/company name in their address bars:
[Google Chrome address bar urges you to perform branded search when you type a domain name]
No wonder branded search is such a big deal: Lots of people land on branded search results trying to get the site. Others feel like researching a product they saw in an ad or in an article before making a purchase.
In both cases: These are your hard-earned traffic that you already invested money and/orSEO efforts into attracting.
And now it all comes back to digital marketing search engine optimization( SEO) again: Whether that searcher becomes your actual customer or not depends on how positive and encouraging your branded SERPs look.
Your branded keyword search is your biggest asset, and there’s no 100% over that asset.
Now that we know how crucial branded search is, let’s prioritize:
What happens when anyone searches Google for your brand’s name? What do they see?
When it comes to generating brand-driven SERPs, Google blends different search engine results (images, videos, People Also Ask, etc.), adds knowledge panels and imports results from social media (Twitter).
As a result, no brand-driven search engine results page is identical to a different brand’s search result page.
So, your first step is searching for your name (but I am sure you’ve done it already).
From there comes your to-do list, for example:
Your next step is understanding what Google suggests people search when they are typing your brand’s name in the browser’s address bar or Google’s search box.
Obviously, Google’s branded suggestions are crucial on two levels:
Your branded keyword search suggestions may reflect:
Search for each of these keywords and create your plan of action for each one:
Now that the two most crucial steps are being handled, look at the broader searching habits of your customers.
What else are people searching when investigating your brand online?
At this point you can treat your brand’s name as just about any keyword you are researching: Put it into your favorite keyword research tool and let it expand it based on searchable keywords people are using.
SE Ranking has a powerful keyword suggestion tool allowing you to research any keyword, including branded keyword, for free.
The tool will help you group and cluster your keyword lists and come up with related keywords to include in your optimization seo strategy. The ideal goal here is to make sure your rank ranks #1 for every branded keyword you were able to find, and it is quite doable because Google or other search engines tends to give preference to official brands’ entities when ranking pages for brand-driven search queries.
Look for alarming searching trends here, i.e. keywords:
Let’s face it: The mere fact that enough people are typing your brand’s name into a search box for it to become a “keyword” is already good news for your brand. It is a great testament of your business growth: People know you and research your products online.
Branded search optimization is an ongoing process as search queries change and other pages pop up that start ranking for your branded keywords.
Create a separate filter in Google Search console monitoring your branded keywords search and revisit it on a regular basis. Search for your brand’s name and pay attention to Google’s search suggestions that pop up while you are typing. Re-run keyword research tools in search for new keywords. Use social media listening to catch alarming trends and concerns prior to them being indexed and appearing in your branded keywords search. Good luck!