What are Branded Keywords?
Branded keywords are those keywords in which you can find the name of the brand. These keywords are used in SEO and SEM.
Here, the goal is simple: to target people who are already familiar with your brand or want your products.
Let’s take an example. Suppose you own a shoe company that is named Footwear Inc. Now some of the possible branded keywords could be:
Footwear Inc. sneakers
Footwear Inc. women shoes
Where to buy Footwear Inc. shoes
Footwear Inc. customer support
Now you must be thinking about how that will benefit you. Well, it’s simple. When you use these keywords in your marketing campaigns, they help you increase visibility. Not only this, but it also helps you drive more traffic.
Non-branded keywords, on the other hand, do not include the name of a specific brand. These refer to products, topics, categories, or customer needs in general.
For example, users searching for ‘wholesale confectionery’ do not refer to a specific brand. They are interested in buying confectionery items from reliable retailers. Therefore, this keyword is outright non-branded.
Importance of Branded Keywords
Most popular and renowned brands do not usually care about the optimization of branded keywords. It is because they know that their brand is so familiar that they do not have to do much about it.
They come to know about the importance of it only when their competitors outrank them.
Certain points that the new marketers and the established ones must keep in mind regarding the importance of branded keywords are:
Increase in Conversion Rate
Conversion rate defines the percentage of visitors who complete a goal on your website by accomplishing the task of the call to action.
If your branded keywords are communicative and your content satisfies visitors’ desires, you can have higher conversion rates.
Your effort in optimizing for branded keywords can make this happen.
Attracting a Targeted Audience
The audience wants to have what your brand offers, but there may be others who provide the same service as you do. For this, your optimized branded keywords make the targeted audience attracted to your content.
Keeping a Check on the Quality
If you can keep track of your branded keywords, you can analyze the quality that you deliver to the audience. It is a way to make suitable changes in the quality of service or product that you give.
For example, if you receive critical feedback on a product or service, you can improve it for the betterment of your brand and visitors.
Effective Campaigning Against Competitors
Your competitors can take advantage of your brand’s popularity. In SERPs, you may find a lot of other pages that are not your brand; they are your competitors.
They might be using brand bidding - they are bidding on your branded keywords to make their ads more visible.
In this situation, you can utilize the popularity of your brand and bid on it to make your brand outrank the competitors.
Discoverability for Potential Customers
Your potential customers search for your brand to specifically access your products and services. Working on the optimization of branded keywords can increase discoverability for your visitors.
Branded vs Non-Branded Keywords
Both differ not only in their formation but also in their impact. They can be impactful, but in their own ways.
The Most Important One
We cannot say that one is bad and the other one is too good. Both serve different objectives and are considered very important for success. They both play an important role in different stages of lead nurturing.
First, let's talk about non-branded keywords. They can be used at the beginning of the lead nurturing process. They help in attracting readers. This ultimately helps in increasing website rankings.
Now come branded keywords. They play an important role in the advanced stages of lead nurturing. This is the stage where customers are already aware of brands.
Here, you can make use of branded keywords to provide definitive answers to user queries. This may prove to be a good incentive for selling.
So, we can clearly say that both types of keywords play a visible role. You cannot deny the importance of either one. It is good to use a mix of both. That will ultimately benefit you.
When to Use Branded Keywords?
There are several scenarios where you can make use of branded keywords. This will help your business in many ways. Just have a look at them.
When you Want to Increase Conversions while Spending Less
Bidding on branded keywords can be cost-effective because they have a lower cost-per-click (CPC) than non-branded terms.
Since branded keywords target users who are already searching for your products, they are more likely to convert.
This is because these users are already familiar with your brand and are more likely to make a purchase.
When you Want to Protect your Online Reputation
Your competitors may use your branded keyword terms in their ads to attract customers who are searching for your company by name.
This is especially common in highly competitive industries or when you offer similar products or services.
To prevent competitors from stealing market share, you can play their bidding game, increase branded ad spend, improve your Quality Score, and optimize your landing pages.
When you Want to Improve your Quality Score
Google's Quality Score measures the relevance of your ads and keywords to your brand.
By running branded campaigns, you can enhance your Google Ads and social media accounts' Quality Score.
This can lead to lower CPCs, higher click-through rates (CTR), and higher conversion rates.
When you Want to Guide Prospects Through each Stage of the Buyer Journey
AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. It is a model that represents the purchasing funnel with a sequence of steps through which a buyer goes while browsing the web.
Awareness occupies the top tier, while action is the last part of it.
When it comes to branded keywords, AIDA can be useful for capturing the attention of customers who are already familiar with your brand.
You can create content and spend on ads to showcase the unique side of your brand. This way, you can increase the interest of your customers and entice them to take action.
When to Use Non-Branded Keywords?
Non-branded keywords can be an essential part of a robust marketing strategy.
Here are the situations where non-branded keywords can be useful:
When you Want to Raise Brand Awareness and Bring in More Traffic
If people are not aware of your brand, it's less likely that they will search for your brand name or specific keywords related to your brand.
Therefore, to attract more visitors to your website, you can use more general keywords that are related to your business or industry.
These generic keywords have a higher search volume, meaning that more people are searching for them on search engines like Google.
For example, if you sell fitness equipment and your brand name is not well-known, people may not be searching for your brand specifically.
However, they may be searching for terms like "best exercise equipment," "fitness gear," or "workout equipment."
By optimizing your website for these generic keywords, you can attract more non-branded traffic to your website and increase your brand awareness.
When you Want to Attract New Customers
If you want to grow your business, you need to bring in new customers. Non-branded keywords can help you attract potential customers who are still unfamiliar with your business but are looking for similar products or services.
By continuing to target non-branded keywords in your PPC campaigns, your brand can get in front of potential customers, and you have a much bigger chance of converting them into actual paying customers.
When you Want to Capture Mid-to-Bottom Funnel Customers
To capture mid-to-bottom funnel customers, you need to understand their search intent.
Using non-branded phrases matching that intent allows targeting ads to guide them down the sales funnel.
For example, a shopper searching for "best running shoes for women" probably compares brands' options before buying.
Ads with your women's running shoe features, benefits, and reviews move that consideration stage toward picking your product.
So non-branded keywords help tailor messaging around a buyer's exact intent to influence a choice favoring your brand.
Using terms tied to their thought process and questions can address concerns that are slowing down their decision-making.
Can they Create a Combined Effect?
Yes, branded and non-branded search terms together can improve marketing.
Branded keywords build loyalty among existing brand followers. However, non-branded terms attract unfamiliar people for a wider reach.
Combining both draws customers at every step - from catching their initial interest to converting sales and nurturing loyalty.
For example, generic phrases bring new visitors to a website. Then, branded names keep them engaged to become ongoing shoppers.
Using both also expands visibility to more types of searches. This also enhances the ability to compete more effectively against rival businesses.
How to Track Branded Keywords?
Tracking branded keywords is important to understand how your brand is perceived online, monitor brand reputation, and measure the effectiveness of your branding strategies.
Here are some ways to track branded keywords:
Use Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a free tool that can help you find branded keywords by monitoring the web for mentions of your brand name, products, or services.
To use Google Alerts, go to the Google Alerts page, enter your brand name or other keywords related to your brand, and select the type of content you want to monitor, such as news articles, blog posts, or social media mentions.
You can also choose how often you want to receive alerts, such as daily or weekly.
Google Alerts can provide you with valuable insights into how your brand is being perceived online, who is talking about your brand, and what types of content are being shared.
By monitoring your branded keywords with Google Alerts, you can identify potential brand advocates, track your competitors, and respond to negative feedback on time.
Explore Social Media
Social media is a good place to find branded keywords, too. You can use Twitter's advanced search to see when people mention your company name, products, or services.
To try it, go to Twitter's advanced search and enter your brand name in the "Words" section. You can also add extra filters like location or language to focus the search more.
Social listening tools like Hootsuite or Mention also track branded keyword uses across different sites - Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. They monitor multiple platforms at once for your branded terms.
So explore special social media searches using your actual brand name.
Use Specific Tools
In addition to Google Alerts and social media monitoring, there are several specific tools you can use to find branded keywords.
One of them is Sprout Social, which offers a feature called "Brand Keywords" that helps you track mentions of your brand and related terms across social media platforms.
Another option is SEMRush, which is a keyword research tool that allows you to identify which keywords your competitors are ranking for.
Likewise, Ahrefs is another paid tool that offers brand monitoring features to track mentions of your brand, monitor backlinks, and analyze your competitors' strategies.
You may also want to use Brand24, which is a social media listening tool that tracks your brand's mentions, sentiment analysis, and influencer identification across social media platforms.
How to Optimize your Web Pages for Branded Keywords?
Optimizing for branded keywords is an important aspect of any digital marketing strategy, as it helps you to increase your brand's visibility and drive more targeted traffic to your website.
Here are some tips on how to optimize for branded keywords:
Choose the Right Keyword
Choosing the right keywords to target is crucial for optimizing your brand's visibility and traffic. You should start by identifying any underperforming keywords that are currently not ranking really well and see if you can create content to help optimize for them.
Additionally, you may have keywords that rank on the second page but don’t give the user what they're looking for or, in other words, have missing search intent issues.
In this case, adjust your content to make sure the page covers the right search intent so it can rank well on SERPs.
It's also important to identify valuable new keywords that have high search volume and can help drive traffic to your website.
Also, prioritize your efforts on targeting the keywords that will have the greatest impact on your brand's visibility and traffic, and ensure that your content is aligned with your brand messaging and uses your branded keywords in a natural and informative way for your audience.
Consider Relevance
When optimizing for branded keywords, it is important to consider relevance. This means that your branded keywords should be relevant to the products and services you offer on your website, as well as the content you create.
For example, if you are a clothing retailer, your branded keywords should be related to clothing, such as they may include the words "fashionable clothes" or "stylish apparel".
Additionally, your content should not be stuffed with branded keywords in an attempt to rank higher on search engines but should rather provide value to your audience by being informative, engaging, and relevant to their needs.
Include Branded Keywords in Your Website Content
Make sure that your website's content includes branded keywords in a natural way, such as in the meta title, meta description, page titles, and throughout the body copy.
Optimize your Website's Architecture
Ensure that your website's architecture is optimized for branded keywords by creating a dedicated page for your brand or products and including branded keywords in the page URL, header tags, and image alt tags.
Build Quality Backlinks
High-quality backlinks from reputable sources can boost your website's authority and help it rank higher for branded keywords.
You can achieve this by creating valuable content that other websites will want to link to, and by reaching out to industry influencers or bloggers to feature your brand on their websites with branded anchor text.
Leverage Social Media
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can help you to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website.
Make sure to include branded keywords in your social media profiles and posts, and use social media to engage with your audience and build brand loyalty.
Monitor your Brand Mentions
Keep track of how your brand is being talked about online, and respond to any negative feedback or comments in a timely and professional manner. By doing so, you can maintain a positive brand image and improve your online reputation.
Add Internal Links
Internal linking refers to adding links within your website that connect different pages of your site to each other.
This helps search engines understand the structure of your site and how pages relate to each other.
When it comes to optimizing for branded keywords, adding internal links that use your branded keywords as anchor text can help reinforce their importance to search engines.
By linking from one page on your site to another using branded keywords as anchor text, you are signalling to search engines that those keywords are important and relevant to the content on those pages.
This can help increase the authority and relevance of those pages in search results for those keywords.
Keep Monitoring
Monitoring is a crucial aspect of branded keyword optimization to ensure that the use of these keywords continues to have a positive impact on your business.
By regularly monitoring your branded keyword performance, you can identify areas for improvement and prevent competitors from taking advantage of any weaknesses.
Takeaway
Branded keywords have significant value for established brands beyond just increasing visibility and website traffic. They can lead to higher conversion rates by targeting audiences already familiar with and actively searching for the brand.
Branded terms also facilitate quality checks by aggregating customer feedback and enable the creation of competitive advertising campaigns catered specifically to the brand's followers.
Furthermore, branded keyword optimization attracts new potential customers organically, discovering the brand during related searches.