What Is Branded SEO?
Branded SEO is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technique that focuses on keeping your brand at the top of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) whenever its name, products, or services are mentioned online.
For example, if your brand’s name is Harnix, you want to rank at the top when a potential customer searches for terms like “Harnix,” “Harnix Pricing,” “Harnix Products,” and “Harnix Location.”
That’s when branded SEO comes into play.
Let’s look at the goal of branded SEO and why it is important.
The Goal of Branded SEO
The main aim of branded SEO is to keep you in total control of what people see when they search for terms that contain your brand’s name, services, location, etc.
To do this, you need to optimize your on-page SEO, off-page SEO, Google My Business Profile, location page, and create blog content that answers brand questions and contains the right information about your brand.
Why Branded SEO is Important
• Controlled Perception
Do you know that over 44% of searches on Google are about branded terms? Recent research by SparkToro proves that.
This means that close to half of the searches made on Google are by people who already know the name of the brand and are trying to learn more about that brand.
So, as a brand, you need to be in full control of what searchers see about your brand online and how they perceive it.
You can’t allow people who search keywords that contain your brand to find wrong or outdated information.
There could be third-party sites and outdated listings that might have wrong or old information about your brand. Plus, there might be some negative reviews online about your brand.
Hence, you can’t allow that kind of content to be the first information that your searchers find when they look up your brand’s name online.
To prevent this, you need to ensure that all the information about your brand online is published by you, true, current, relevant, and optimized to be at the top of SERPs.
And you can achieve this through branded SEO.
• Higher Click-Through and Conversion Rate
People who do branded search already know your brand name and are just looking for more information to decide if they should patronize you or not.
They are already high up the sales funnel, and if they love what they see during their branded search, they will most likely waste no time in patronizing you.
So, the click-through and conversion rates are higher than for non-branded search.
Also, branded keywords are seen as high-value keywords because people who search them already show that they intend to engage with your brand, convert to customers, and learn more about your brand.
With branded SEO, you can give them exactly what they are looking for, keep them in your sales funnel, and eventually turn them into customers.
• Enhanced Reputation
When most people search for your brand online, they are looking for opinions, reviews, and ratings that will help them decide whether to patronize you or not.
You can use branded SEO to ensure that the best reviews about your brand are what occupy the top of SERPs.
So, when searchers see these favourable reviews about your brand, they will trust your brand more.
• Google Search Suggestions and Recommendations
When people repeatedly search for your brand in relation to a particular product or service, Google starts to include your brand name in “search suggestions” and “related searches” sections whenever someone searches for that particular keyword.
This could help your brand become the trusted source or provider of the service or products you offer and could boost your reputation and awareness.
• Little to No Competition
Unlike non-branded SEO where the keywords are usually highly competitive, there is little to no competition in branded SEO.
It’s very unlikely for a lot of brands to answer the same name as yours. At best, there could be one or two brands like that.
However, in most cases, your brand is the only one with that name, and you don’t need to compete with any other brand for top spots on SERPs.
You just need to optimize your SEO and content to tell your story without worrying about external competition.
• Improved User Experience
With the help of branded SEO, you can discover all the questions that people are asking about your brand online and provide reliable and accurate answers to them.
When you publish content on your website that answers the questions of your searchers exactly how they want it, their experience on your website is a fulfilling one, and they tend to engage more with your content.
• SERP Takeover
Through branded SEO, you can completely dominate SERPs for queries containing your brand and use it as an opportunity to put your various sitelinks, positive results, and 5-star reviews and ratings on display.
This will help build the trust that searchers have in your brand and can prompt them to convert into clients/customers.
• Improved ROI
When branded SEO is done the right way, it can help boost the results of your other digital marketing strategies, including social media, email, PPC, and content marketing campaigns.
This is because before a lot of people patronize online goods and services, they go to search engines and verify the authenticity and reputation of the brand.
Branded SEO can also help you drive more traffic to your website.
Final Thoughts
Do not assume that because your brand has web presence, its name will automatically rank by default whenever it is mentioned in a search query.
Branded SEO is something you must do intentionally to ensure that your brand name sits on top of search results whenever it is mentioned in a query. Not something you leave to chance.
So, if you optimize your branded and non-branded SEO, contact us today and let us grow your online presence.