What Is A Branded Keyword?

Adam Steele
Oct 20, 2021

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Well, have you recently Googled your company? Most likely not.

When you do, you’re looking for a “branded keyphrase.”

Marketers in their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) typically disregard these phrases. Why? Because they believe they are the best and have nothing to lose. Or they simply never look up what branded phrases their target audience uses.

Let’s be honest. It would be insane to disregard the people who are looking for you.

Branded keywords are the world’s quickest SEO victory. They’re also a valuable resource for content strategists. The keywords that people use when searching reveals a lot about their search intent. These keywords provide useful information. You can simply do the following in seconds:

This is a topic that is frequently addressed in the context of PPC campaigns, but both branded and non-branded keywords should be included in your company’s entire digital marketing strategy.

This article will give you more insight into what a branded keyword is, why branded keywords are important, how to find branded keywords for SEO, and what exactly is branded traffic in SEO.

What Is a Branded Keyword?

Branded keywords also referred to as brand keywords are phrases or queries that are directly related to your brand, a variation of a brand name, products, and services.

These types of keywords may consist solely of the brand name or of the brand name combined with a product type, product name, or another descriptive search phrase.

These keywords can be found on social media and in search engines. For instance, branded keywords for Loganix.com will include queries like:

Non-branded keywords are those that do not include a brand name or any part of it (including misspellings).

Here’s an example of a search engine results page (SERPs) sitelink for the branded keyword “iPhone,” which is also a branded keyword for apple.com:

Why Are Branded Keywords Important?

Branded keywords come in handy to help with:

Understanding the primary needs of your target audience
To provide a positive user experience, it is critical to understand your target audience’s needs. Branded keywords, because they are more specific search terms, they allow you to direct your efforts to increase traffic to your web pages so that your audience is satisfied and more likely to convert. According to industry data from Advanced Web Ranking, clicks have dropped between the No. 1 and No. 2 positions and are continuing to fall. In web traffic, moving up one spot can make a big difference.

Keeping track of competitor performance
It is also necessary to keep an eye on your competition in order to develop more effective campaigns and strategies.

Nothing beats getting to the point and searching for branded keywords related to your competitors—either to understand what the company’s most relevant products and services are to your audience or to track what the most desired traits these companies are. A long-tail keyword strategy may be your best bet if you have to compete at the top level.

Gaining access to new opportunities
As a result, your marketing team will be able to identify new business opportunities. For example, if you notice an increase in demand from your audience for searches with branded keywords, you can create a new performance segment.

The possibilities are the most diverse, allowing you to explore paths that you had not previously considered.  According to Backlinko, the first result has a 31.7 % average click-through rate and is 10 times more likely to receive a click than the 10th position.

Improving conversions
Proper targeting is essential for an effective content marketing strategy or even paid media. Use paid ads to direct searchers to your highest-converting landing pages. The more targeted your content, the more likely it is to have an impact on your persona. Your message becomes more refined and in line with your audience’s expectations, increasing the likelihood of conversion.

Finding flaws in products and/or services
Another intriguing option based on branded keywords is to look for customer feedback and evaluations about your specific products and services. The goal is to determine which issues are most influenced by criticism and complaints.

Branded Keyword FAQ

What are non-branded keywords?

Non-branded keywords are those that relate to your products or services but do not include your company name. Using our own website as an example, “Link Building Services” and “Monthly SEO Packages” are both relevant non-branded keywords. They are phrases used by people who are interested in what we have to offer but do not directly refer to our own brand.

Because the keywords your audience uses to research you are nearly limitless, your content strategy will have far more non-branded keyword options than branded keywords.

How do I find branded keywords for SEO?

Here are a few different sources for branded keywords:

Keyword research tool

In addition to organic search methods for branded keywords, specific tools can be used to find them. SEMrush and Google Search Console, are tools, that make it simple to find brand-related keywords and data such as rankings and search volume.

If you run paid ad programs such as Google Search Ads, look into the search queries people use (not just the words you feed into your campaigns). A campaign that only uses branded keywords, for example, will typically have more impressions, a lower CPC, and a higher conversion rate than a campaign that only uses non-branded keywords.

If you’ve linked Google Analytics and Google Search Console, you’ll see a lot of keyword data in your Google Analytics.

Related searches

The “Searches related to” queries at the bottom of the search results page are another source of branded keyphrases. If you search for the brand, this will look very similar to the suggested phrases you’ve already discovered. However, if you search for one of the suggested phrases, you will find more information.

Google Suggest and Autocomplete

Google your company’s name. Simply conduct a branded search for your company name without entering anything and you’ll get a list of suggestions from Google.

After that, type a, b, c, and so on after your company name. More phrases will be suggested by Google. They are suggested because people have previously searched for them.

SEOchat’s Bulk Google Suggest tool, which generates auto-suggest results from Google, YouTube, and Amazon, is another frequently used tool.

What is branded traffic in SEO?

Branded traffic is any website traffic that originates from visitors who enter keywords that include any reference to your company’s brand, such as your name. The significance of this traffic is that it represents visitors who learned about your company from a source other than keyword search, despite the fact that keyword search is frequently credited.

In other words, it is at least a customer’s “second” exposure to you. Branded traffic is frequently the highest performing and most profitable traffic to your website, but this is primarily due to the fact that most web analytics tools are set up to recognize the ‘last-click as the source of any subsequent sale or conversion. Usually resulting in higher conversion rates

How do brands use SEO?

In general, a well-designed SEO strategy can already increase brand awareness. So, the main point here is to adhere to good SEO practices. You will engage readers and demonstrate to them that your brand is an authority by providing relevant content. With On-Page SEO, you will strengthen the pages for your niche keywords and provide the best site experience. Off-Page SEO will demonstrate to Google that other sites recommend your content and that the brand is a leader.

Don’t forget: check out the other definitions (over 200) in our growing SEO glossary.

Grow Your Organic Traffic with Branded Keywords

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of branded keywords.

Your digital footprint is crucial to your company’s success. That is why it is critical to consider key strategies for helping your company’s brand grow online.

If someone were to search your branded keyword, something related to your brand should pop up, including your website, e-commerce site, products, and social media accounts. on the other hand, making use of non-branded keywords will reveal keywords that are related to your brand but don’t have your brand’s name in them.

While non-branded keywords do not directly mention your brand, they can still drive organic traffic to your website if used correctly.

At Loganix, we are experienced in helping our clients with their SEO strategies, and at the core of our services, is to help in optimizing branded and non-branded keywords. Reach us today and turn around your SEO KPIs for your website.

Hand off the toughest tasks in SEO, PPC, and content without compromising quality

Explore Services

Written by Adam Steele on October 20, 2021

COO and Product Director at Loganix. Recovering SEO, now focused on the understanding how Loganix can make the work-lives of SEO and agency folks more enjoyable, and profitable. Writing from beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia.