Have you recently googled yourself or your company? Where did you find yourself? We all wish our keywords or brand name to appear on the first page, but how often does it happen. Unless and until you have a branded search optimization strategy, you can’t achieve desired results.
Brand search is much more important than those URLs containing your brand name that rank on Goggle SERP. Branded search is an ongoing process that yields higher conversions and creates predictable buying journeys.
Why Must Businesses Have a Brand-Driven Search Optimization Strategy?
We all know branding, whether offline or online, is important for increasing brand value. So, how does brand search optimization help brands? If you do not include the brand in your search engine optimization, you miss out on a big opportunity to make your product or services popular.
So, What is Branded Search?
A branded search query is one that contains your brand or product name. It includes search queries including personal, brand-driven words like your CEO or writer’s name. For all brands, the branded search must be the top marketing priority. Why? Because all great SEO starts with your brand, so branded SEO search must be the company’s top priority. Despite this fact, many brands completely ignore search queries, so don’t be among them!
Why is Branded Search Important?
Brand-driven search is of high intent. When customers type your brand name in the search box, they want to either go straight to your site or research the company before purchasing the product.
The issues your customers are facing while using your site or product are shown in the branded search query.
Helps in analyzing online sentiments around your brand.
Also, branded SERPS may influence buying decisions, including customers in your sales funnel.
But being said that, like your branded hashtag, your branded SERPs don’t belong to you. Brands can’t control what people see, but you can influence rankings by spending more time and effort optimizing your branded search.
Effective Ways to Optimize and Improve Brand Search Volume
Include Brand Name in your Meta Tiles
When writing Meta titles, do you include the brand name? If not, you are doing it all wrong. Brand name strengthens your website’s relevance, and your website is unlikely to be mistaken for another entity. This way, every brand search query will lead users to the right domain. Including brand name in titles help in increasing brand awareness.
Keep a Check on the Branded Keywords
In branded queries, commercial intent is high; that’s the main reason they are so valuable to brands. Did you know some companies even bid on the competitor’s branded search terms via PPC? To identify relevant brand search terms, make use of keyword research tools. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or Answer the Public for your keyword research. After you find the branded keywords that consumers use to find your products/services, use the information to address them.
Answer Questions or Clear Doubts of your Consumers
Through the branded-term keyword research, you will identify questions consumers have about your brand. Such customers are the ones who are interested in buying your product or have already purchased one. In both the situations, you must be able to answer all your questions before the competitor does.
Pro Tip: Answer each question with dedicated content pages on the website, or you can combine related questions
Publish Content on High Traffic Websites
The best way to build brand awareness and increase your company’s reach is by posting content on high-traffic websites. Contribute content that showcases your expertise. A well-written, inspiring article will drive readers to search for your brand name on search engines to know more about your products or services.
Make use of Tools Unique to Your Brand
Why are some applications like online classes, calculators, and calendars popular amongst customers? For the only reason that they make life easy and better. Useful online tools increase branded term searches, naturally improving how your website performs on the SERPs. People love tools with a company’s name instead of typing your name in the web address. Such tools can become consumers’ touchpoints that aid in generating leads and traffic.
Use Local Map Packs
To appear at the top of the map packs, optimize your business locally. By doing so, when people search using location-specific branded terms, your brand name will appear. The map pack is a box with your brand name, address, and phone number. Add your business and website address on Bing Places or Google My Business to further strengthen your brand’s online presence.
Group Branded Search Query by Intent and Further Action
Group branded keywords by a common modifier or close semantic meaning. By doing so, you only have to work with not more than 20 branded keywords. When grouping your keywords focus on:
-Search intent
-A further action that depends on where my site is currently ranked for each keyword
The possible action for each identified branded keyword group will be:
-Optimize existing page
-Create a new page
-Publish a blog post
-Add a separate page to your FAQ page
-Include it in your knowledge base
Branding provides a whole lot of benefits like higher conversion and revenue. But, comes with a challenge many brands are not aware of. To enjoy the stated benefits, develop a plan of action, and clearly define and implement it.
