Google’s Autocomplete is Shaping Your Brand— Take Control

Are you looking to generate more traffic and improve your conversions?

Start paying attention to and optimizing for your branded keywords!

What is Branded Search and Why Care?

A branded search query is one that contains your 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.

These are the advertising audiences 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 search results incentivize 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 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/or effort into attracting.

And now it all comes back to SEO again: Whether that searcher becomes your actual customer or not depends on how positive and encouraging your branded SERPs look.

Your branded search is your biggest asset, and there’s no 100% over that asset.

How to Optimize for Your Own Branded Search?

Now that we know how crucial branded search is, let’s prioritize:

• Your brand name is your #1 priority
• Your branded Google suggestions are your core keywords to monitor closer.
• Everything else should be tackled when the above two are handled.

Your brand name as a keyword

What happens when anyone searches Google for your brand name? What do they see?

When it comes to generating brand-driven SERPs, Google blends different search results (images, videos, People Also Ask, etc.), adds knowledge panels and imports results from social media (Twitter).

As a result, no brand-driven search result 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:

• Claim your knowledge panel
• Answer questions from “People Also Ask” boxes on your site
• Link your site to your official social media accounts for Google to be able to find them
• Work on your brand-driven pages (mainly “About” page)
• Add Organization schema
• Link to your brand-driven pages sitewide (e.g. Include a link to your reviews from the main nav)

Your branded Google suggestions

Your next step is understanding what Google suggests people search when they are typing your brand name in the browser’s address bar or Google’s search box.

Obviously, Google’s branded suggestions are crucial on two levels:

• Most importantly, it can impact your buyers’ journey (your customers getting curious and going on a searching journey instead of going directly to your site)
• They signal your most popular branded search trends

Your branded search suggestions may reflect:

• Navigational issues
• New customers willing to convert
• ROPO queries: People willing to research before buying

Search for each of these keywords and create your plan of action for each one:

• Create a page on your site that targets each of those keywords
• Include a FAQ section and a FAQPage schema on those pages for those search snippets to stand out
• Create images and videos to optimize for blended search results (image and video carousels). In fact, you can easily convert your images into videos and optimize for both. It is also a good idea to create brand-driven lead magnets (e.g. a company story in an infographic format) as those rank well and attract links and press inquiries.
• Set up and customize your Youtube channel. Youtube videos rank incredibly well, so it can become your branded search optimization goldmine.
• Pay close attention to web pages that get featured for your branded keywords. You need to make sure you are featured for your branded search queries. Here’s a solid guide on how to get featured snippets for you to follow.
• Promote articles that speak of your brand and products in a positive manner. You want those to show up for your branded search. Promoting your own assets that you can control is generally the best approach but you cannot have the whole top 5/10 positions owned by you, so adding other pages is a necessity.
• In some cases, you may have to create satellite mini-sites to control even more brand-driven results. These can be community-driven sites for your customers to talk to each other, sites featuring your customers’ feedback (in diverse formats), etc. You can create a separate website to curate your press mentions and connect to journalists. You can even register a .press domain for that using Namify.

Your branded keywords

Now that the two most crucial steps are being handled, look at the broader search habits of your customers.

What else are people searching for when investigating your brand online?

At this point you can treat your brand 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.

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 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:

• Containing words like “reviews” (Are these SERPs dominated by negative reviews?)
• Comparing your brand to your competitors’ brands (e.g. keywords like “Your Brand vs Competitor’s Brand”)

Conclusion

Let’s face it: The mere fact that enough people are typing your brand 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 search and revisit it on a regular basis. Search for your brand 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 (especially new Reddit mentions) and concerns prior to them being indexed and appearing in your branded search. Good luck!