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Branded Search vs. Non-Branded Search: What’s the Difference?

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Most SEO advice talks about optimizing for keywords that don’t mention your brand because that is how you can attract complete strangers to your business. But what about search queries that do mention your brand?

In other words, what about attracting people who are exactly searching for your business? Naturally, you can optimize your website for these kinds of queries too. In this guide, I’ll explain how to do that. We’ll cover the following:

Difference between branded search and non-branded search

The difference between branded and non-branded search is that a branded search contains your company, service, or product name, whereas a non-branded search doesn’t. This applies to both organic results and search ads.

Infographic on difference between branded and non-branded searches

Why optimize for non-branded search

Ranking for non-branded keywords allows you to attract people who are searching for products or services related to your business but may not necessarily know your brand. Hence, this is a great way to attract new customers.

Organic keywords report results for Ahrefs' article on SEO checklistOrganic keywords report results for Ahrefs' article on SEO checklist

Our blog article about our SEO checklist attracts searchers who don’t necessarily know our product. Data via Ahrefs’ Site Explorer.

We have an entire SEO course that focuses on optimizing for non-branded keywords. So in this article, we’re going to focus on SEO for branded search.

Why optimize for branded search

Ranking for branded keywords allows you to attract people who are specifically searching for information about your company.

They already know your brand but want to learn more about what you do. For example, they may be looking for reviews, comparisons with other brands, or specific information like technical data or media assets.

So with branded search, depending on the query’s intent, you’re targeting people who are:

  • Close to buying from you – People may be looking up your brand specifically or searching for comparisons between you and your competition. You can address any objections, answer questions, or reassure them you are the right choice.
  • Your current customers – Keeping your current customers informed is a straight path to keeping them happy.
  • The press – The aim here is to be the #1 source of information. 
  • Brand fans and other people simply interested in what you do 
Organic keywords report results for Ahrefs' "versus" pageOrganic keywords report results for Ahrefs' "versus" page

Our landing page comparing our product to the competition attracts searchers who Google queries containing our brand name and “vs.” Data via Ahrefs’ Site Explorer.

How to optimize for branded search

There are basically four steps in this process. For the purpose of this guide, I’m going to use fintech company Revolut as an example (but this can be any company).

1. Find keywords related to your brand, company, or product

You need to create two lists of keywords to have a complete overview of your branded search landscape:

  1. Find keywords you rank for 
  2. Find keywords you don’t rank for 

One thing to keep in mind here is that everything we’re going to do in this guide is country-specific. You will need to repeat the process for every country whose keywords you want to rank for.

Find keywords you rank for

When you have an SEO tool like Ahrefs, finding keywords you rank for is a piece of cake. All you need to do is plug in your domain, go to the Organic keywords report, and type in words/phrases denoting your brand or products in the filters.

Organic keywords report results (with filters applied) for Revolut's site Organic keywords report results (with filters applied) for Revolut's site

Tip: Don’t bother about misspellings of keywords. Google’s algorithms will likely take care of that with the correct spellings once you create content that ranks for those keywords.

Misspelling of "revolut" as "re volut"; Google autocorrects term and indicates it'll show results for the name with the correct spellingMisspelling of "revolut" as "re volut"; Google autocorrects term and indicates it'll show results for the name with the correct spelling

Export that list of keywords and import it into a spreadsheet editor. I’ll be using Google Sheets.

Google Sheet containing exported Organic keywords report resultsGoogle Sheet containing exported Organic keywords report results

And this concludes our first list. Now on to the next one.

Find keywords you don’t rank for

To create a list of keywords you don’t rank for, you need to combine and compare two lists: the list of branded keywords that you rank for (it’s what we just created) and a list of all branded keywords for your company. This is what we’ll do.

In your keyword tool—I’ll use Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer—plug in the same branded keywords you used for the first list, choose the same country as before, and hit “Enter.”

Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer toolAhrefs' Keywords Explorer tool

Then go to the Matching terms report. You will get a list of all branded keywords.

Matching terms report results for "revolut"Matching terms report results for "revolut"

Now we need to compare keywords you rank for with all keywords in order to get branded keywords you don’t rank for. So do the following:

  1. Export the list
  2. Import the list to a new sheet in the same spreadsheet as the first list
  3. Create an additional column in that newly imported list and name the column “Do we rank?”
  4. Insert this array formula into the first cell of that column: =ArrayFormula(COUNTIF(Ranking!A2:A, B2:B)=1)

Where “Ranking” is the name of the sheet with keywords you rank for and the cell ranges are the column with your keywords.

This formula will automatically populate the entire column with “true” if you already rank for a given keyword and “false” if you don’t. Chances are you won’t get too many “falses” here, but the thing is you never know until you check.

This way, we’ve created the two keyword lists we need for this process. Now let’s see how we can use them.

2. Pick keywords worth targeting

Here’s how we’re going to categorize branded keywords worth targeting:

  1. Underperforming keywords – Because if you improve their rankings, you can get more traffic from the SERPs (search engine results pages)
  2. Pages with mismatched intent – Because mismatched search intent doesn’t give people what they came for
  3. Valuable new keywords – Because you can get more traffic by targeting new keywords

Underperforming keywords

Underperforming branded keywords are basically keywords that don’t rank #1. How far from #1? It depends on the search query and the competition.

If you think there’s a reasonable chance of a keyword ranking higher than the current position, you should try it. Generally speaking, for some queries, ranking in the top three is a success. But for those with really fierce competition (like search queries used for comparisons), ranking in the top 10 is a success. 

And so open the first list, click on the “Current position” column, and sort from Z to A. Anything here that doesn’t rank #1 is your opportunity. Look at each keyword. If it’s something you can potentially create better content about, mark it.

Additionally, look at the “Volume” column to determine if that keyword gets any search demand in the country you’ve chosen.

Pages with mismatched intent

Now let’s choose keywords for the second category: mismatched intent. Since you’ve already gone through keywords that don’t rank #1, it’s time to take a closer look at those ranking #1. If you want to play on the safer side, you can extend your search to the top three or even the top 10.

Here’s an example of a page with mismatched search intent. People looking for Revolut’s logo probably want an official, high-quality image that’s downloadable. But Revolut doesn’t offer that on the pages that rank #1 for this query in the U.S.

Google SERP for "revolut logo"Google SERP for "revolut logo"

So this keyword can be highlighted as “mismatched intent.”

Cell in Google Sheet containing the category "mismatched intent"Cell in Google Sheet containing the category "mismatched intent"

Let’s move on to the last category: valuable new keywords.

New keywords

For this, we’re going to open the second sheet with all branded keywords. To show only those you don’t rank for in the chosen country, filter the “Do we rank?” column to only show “false” results:

Filter options in Google SheetFilter options in Google Sheet

Before we start to look at particular keywords, I suggest sorting them by search volume to get the most potentially valuable keywords first.

Now we can see if any of these keywords catch our eye. Here’s one: a comparison between Revolut and another fintech company:

Cell in Google Sheet showing "revolut vs n26"Cell in Google Sheet showing "revolut vs n26"

3. Optimize existing content or create something new 

Now we need to give search engines something they can rank. That means either optimizing content on existing pages or creating new content.

The list of keywords created in the previous step will tell us whether we need to do the first or the second. So:

  • Keywords marked as “underperforming” or “mismatched intent” will need optimized content. For this, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a detailed guide on how to optimize your content for search engines.
  • New keywords that you do not yet rank for will most likely need new content. I’m saying “likely” because you may need to reconsider that, sometimes, it’s better to include some topics on existing pages than have them be on separate pages. And here’s a complete guide on creating content designed to rank in search engines.

4. Add internal links

The last step in our process of optimizing for branded search is adding internal links.

Apart from helping users to navigate your website, internal links play an important role in SEO. First of all, search engines use them for discovering, (re)crawling, and indexing pages. Moreover, they help Google understand what your page is about. And last but not least, they pass link equity.

As this is quite a straightforward tip, I’ll keep it short. There are essentially three places on your website where you may want to add internal links to content targeting branded keywords: 

  1. Site navigation – That means the top navigation and/or footer.
  2. Important pages – If you want your content to be discovered easily and quickly, add links to it on pages that get the most traffic (like the homepage) or on the most relevant pages (like features).
  3. Pages where you mention the keywords – For example, if Revolut mentions “buying stocks with Revolut” somewhere on its website, it can link to a blog post or a landing page dedicated to that topic.

Regarding the last point, you can streamline that process using Ahrefs (you can also do this for free using Ahrefs Webmaster Tools).

Go to Ahrefs’ Site Audit and open the Link opportunities report. In the advanced filter section, set a new filter with conditions: keyword context contains [your keyword or phrase]. This way, you can find relevant link opportunities for pages that haven’t even been published yet.

Link opportunities report: advanced filter options above and report results at the bottomLink opportunities report: advanced filter options above and report results at the bottom

Recommended reading: Here’s Why You Should Prioritize Internal Linking in 2022 

Final thoughts 

The more a company grows, the more roads will lead to the company through branded search (81% of searches for SMBs vs. 58% for global brands).

But no matter the company size, SERPs seem to play the role of a company’s business card—people ask search engines all sorts of questions, and what they find becomes what they know. Thus, it’s good to own your branded queries.

Finally, if you decide to optimize your website for branded search, it’s important to know that the changes you make probably won’t take effect overnight. Remember, SEO takes time.

And if your SEO software comes with a rank tracker, use it to save yourself some time and effort—instead of manually checking your ranking progress, which can’t be done accurately anyway.

Next step: You can take optimizing for branded search even further by taking advantage of Google’s Knowledge Graph.

Got questions? Ping me on Twitter.

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GPT Store Set To Launch In 2024 After ‘Unexpected’ Delays

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GPT Store Set To Launch In 2024 After 'Unexpected' Delays

OpenAI shares its plans for the GPT Store, enhancements to GPT Builder tools, privacy improvements, and updates coming to ChatGPT.

  • OpenAI has scheduled the launch of the GPT Store for early next year, aligning with its ongoing commitment to developing advanced AI technologies.
  • The GPT Builder tools have received substantial updates, including a more intuitive configuration interface and improved file handling capabilities.
  • Anticipation builds for upcoming updates to ChatGPT, highlighting OpenAI’s responsiveness to community feedback and dedication to AI innovation.

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96.55% of Content Gets No Traffic From Google. Here’s How to Be in the Other 3.45% [New Research for 2023]

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96.55% of Content Gets No Traffic From Google. Here's How to Be in the Other 3.45% [New Research for 2023]

It’s no secret that the web is growing by millions, if not billions of pages per day.

Our Content Explorer tool discovers 10 million new pages every 24 hours while being very picky about the pages that qualify for inclusion. The “main” Ahrefs web crawler crawls that number of pages every two minutes. 

But how much of this content gets organic traffic from Google?

To find out, we took the entire database from our Content Explorer tool (around 14 billion pages) and studied how many pages get traffic from organic search and why.

How many web pages get organic search traffic?

96.55% of all pages in our index get zero traffic from Google, and 1.94% get between one and ten monthly visits.

Distribution of pages by traffic from Content Explorer

Before we move on to discussing why the vast majority of pages never get any search traffic from Google (and how to avoid being one of them), it’s important to address two discrepancies with the studied data:

  1. ~14 billion pages may seem like a huge number, but it’s not the most accurate representation of the entire web. Even compared to the size of Site Explorer’s index of 340.8 billion pages, our sample size for this study is quite small and somewhat biased towards the “quality side of the web.”
  2. Our search traffic numbers are estimates. Even though our database of ~651 million keywords in Site Explorer (where our estimates come from) is arguably the largest database of its kind, it doesn’t contain every possible thing people search for in Google. There’s a chance that some of these pages get search traffic from super long-tail keywords that are not popular enough to make it into our database.

That said, these two “inaccuracies” don’t change much in the grand scheme of things: the vast majority of published pages never rank in Google and never get any search traffic. 

But why is this, and how can you be a part of the minority that gets organic search traffic from Google?

Well, there are hundreds of SEO issues that may prevent your pages from ranking well in Google. But if we focus only on the most common scenarios, assuming the page is indexed, there are only three of them.

Reason 1: The topic has no search demand

If nobody is searching for your topic, you won’t get any search traffic—even if you rank #1.

For example, I recently Googled “pull sitemap into google sheets” and clicked the top-ranking page (which solved my problem in seconds, by the way). But if you plug that URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, you’ll see that it gets zero estimated organic search traffic:

The top-ranking page for this topic gets no traffic because there's no search demandThe top-ranking page for this topic gets no traffic because there's no search demand

This is because hardly anyone else is searching for this, as data from Keywords Explorer confirms:

Keyword data from Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer confirms that this topic has no search demandKeyword data from Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer confirms that this topic has no search demand

This is why it’s so important to do keyword research. You can’t just assume that people are searching for whatever you want to talk about. You need to check the data.

Our Traffic Potential (TP) metric in Keywords Explorer can help with this. It estimates how much organic search traffic the current top-ranking page for a keyword gets from all the queries it ranks for. This is a good indicator of the total search demand for a topic.

You’ll see this metric for every keyword in Keywords Explorer, and you can even filter for keywords that meet your minimum criteria (e.g., 500+ monthly traffic potential): 

Filtering for keywords with Traffic Potential (TP) in Ahrefs' Keywords ExplorerFiltering for keywords with Traffic Potential (TP) in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

Reason 2: The page has no backlinks

Backlinks are one of Google’s top three ranking factors, so it probably comes as no surprise that there’s a clear correlation between the number of websites linking to a page and its traffic.

Pages with more referring domains get more trafficPages with more referring domains get more traffic
Pages with more referring domains get more traffic

Same goes for the correlation between a page’s traffic and keyword rankings:

Pages with more referring domains rank for more keywordsPages with more referring domains rank for more keywords
Pages with more referring domains rank for more keywords

Does any of this data prove that backlinks help you rank higher in Google?

No, because correlation does not imply causation. However, most SEO professionals will tell you that it’s almost impossible to rank on the first page for competitive keywords without backlinks—an observation that aligns with the data above.

The key word there is “competitive.” Plenty of pages get organic traffic while having no backlinks…

Pages with more referring domains get more trafficPages with more referring domains get more traffic
How much traffic pages with no backlinks get

… but from what I can tell, almost all of them are about low-competition topics.

For example, this lyrics page for a Neil Young song gets an estimated 162 monthly visits with no backlinks: 

Example of a page with traffic but no backlinks, via Ahrefs' Content ExplorerExample of a page with traffic but no backlinks, via Ahrefs' Content Explorer

But if we check the keywords it ranks for, they almost all have Keyword Difficulty (KD) scores in the single figures:

Some of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks forSome of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks for

It’s the same story for this page selling upholstered headboards:

Some of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks forSome of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks for

You might have noticed two other things about these pages:

  • Neither of them get that much traffic. This is pretty typical. Our index contains ~20 million pages with no referring domains, yet only 2,997 of them get more than 1K search visits per month. That’s roughly 1 in every 6,671 pages with no backlinks.
  • Both of the sites they’re on have high Domain Rating (DR) scores. This metric shows the relative strength of a website’s backlink profile. Stronger sites like these have more PageRank that they can pass to pages with internal links to help them rank. 

Bottom line? If you want your pages to get search traffic, you really only have two options:

  1. Target uncompetitive topics that you can rank for with few or no backlinks.
  2. Target competitive topics and build backlinks to rank.

If you want to find uncompetitive topics, try this:

  1. Enter a topic into Keywords Explorer
  2. Go to the Matching terms report
  3. Set the Keyword Difficulty (KD) filter to max. 20
  4. Set the Lowest DR filter to your site’s DR (this will show you keywords with at least one of the same or lower DR ranking in the top 5)
Filtering for low-competition keywords in Ahrefs' Keywords ExplorerFiltering for low-competition keywords in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

(Remember to keep an eye on the TP column to make sure they have traffic potential.)

To rank for more competitive topics, you’ll need to earn or build high-quality backlinks to your page. If you’re not sure how to do that, start with the guides below. Keep in mind that it’ll be practically impossible to get links unless your content adds something to the conversation. 

Reason 3. The page doesn’t match search intent

Google wants to give users the most relevant results for a query. That’s why the top organic results for “best yoga mat” are blog posts with recommendations, not product pages. 

It's obviously what searchers want when they search for "best yoga mats"It's obviously what searchers want when they search for "best yoga mats"

Basically, Google knows that searchers are in research mode, not buying mode.

It’s also why this page selling yoga mats doesn’t show up, despite it having backlinks from more than six times more websites than any of the top-ranking pages:

Page selling yoga mats that has lots of backlinksPage selling yoga mats that has lots of backlinks
Number of linking websites to the top-ranking pages for "best yoga mats"Number of linking websites to the top-ranking pages for "best yoga mats"

Luckily, the page ranks for thousands of other more relevant keywords and gets tens of thousands of monthly organic visits. So it’s not such a big deal that it doesn’t rank for “best yoga mats.”

Number of keyword rankings for the page selling yoga matsNumber of keyword rankings for the page selling yoga mats

However, if you have pages with lots of backlinks but no organic traffic—and they already target a keyword with traffic potential—another quick SEO win is to re-optimize them for search intent.

We did this in 2018 with our free backlink checker.

It was originally nothing but a boring landing page explaining the benefits of our product and offering a 7-day trial: 

Original landing page for our free backlink checkerOriginal landing page for our free backlink checker

After analyzing search intent, we soon realized the issue:

People weren’t looking for a landing page, but rather a free tool they could use right away. 

So, in September 2018, we created a free tool and published it under the same URL. It ranked #1 pretty much overnight, and has remained there ever since. 

Our rankings over time for the keyword "backlink checker." You can see when we changed the pageOur rankings over time for the keyword "backlink checker." You can see when we changed the page

Organic traffic went through the roof, too. From ~14K monthly organic visits pre-optimization to almost ~200K today. 

Estimated search traffic over time to our free backlink checkerEstimated search traffic over time to our free backlink checker

TLDR

96.55% of pages get no organic traffic. 

Keep your pages in the other 3.45% by building backlinks, choosing topics with organic traffic potential, and matching search intent.

Ping me on Twitter if you have any questions. 🙂



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Firefox URL Tracking Removal – Is This A Trend To Watch?

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Firefox URL Tracking Removal - Is This A Trend To Watch?

Firefox recently announced that they are offering users a choice on whether or not to include tracking information from copied URLs, which comes on the on the heels of iOS 17 blocking user tracking via URLs. The momentum of removing tracking information from URLs appears to be gaining speed. Where is this all going and should marketers be concerned?

Is it possible that blocking URL tracking parameters in the name of privacy will become a trend industrywide?

Firefox Announcement

Firefox recently announced that beginning in the Firefox Browser version 120.0, users will be able to select whether or not they want URLs that they copied to contain tracking parameters.

When users select a link to copy and click to raise the contextual menu for it, Firefox is now giving users a choice as to whether to copy the URL with or without the URL tracking parameters that might be attached to the URL.

Screenshot Of Firefox 120 Contextual Menu

Screenshot of Firefox functionality

According to the Firefox 120 announcement:

“Firefox supports a new “Copy Link Without Site Tracking” feature in the context menu which ensures that copied links no longer contain tracking information.”

Browser Trends For Privacy

All browsers, including Google’s Chrome and Chrome variants, are adding new features that make it harder for websites to track users online through referrer information embedded in a URL when a user clicks from one site and leaves through that click to visit another site.

This trend for privacy has been ongoing for many years but it became more noticeable in 2020 when Chrome made changes to how referrer information was sent when users click links to visit other sites. Firefox and Safari followed with similar referrer behavior.

Whether the current Firefox implementation would be disruptive or if the impact is overblown is kind of besides the point.

What is the point is whether or not what Firefox and Apple did to protect privacy is a trend and if that trend will extend to more blocking of URL parameters that are stronger than what Firefox recently implemented.

I asked Kenny Hyder, CEO of online marketing agency Pixel Main, what his thoughts are about the potential disruptive aspect of what Firefox is doing and whether it’s a trend.

Kenny answered:

“It’s not disruptive from Firefox alone, which only has a 3% market share. If other popular browsers follow suit it could begin to be disruptive to a limited degree, but easily solved from a marketers prospective.

If it became more intrusive and they blocked UTM tags, it would take awhile for them all to catch on if you were to circumvent UTM tags by simply tagging things in a series of sub-directories.. ie. site.com/landing/<tag1>/<tag2> etc.

Also, most savvy marketers are already integrating future proof workarounds for these exact scenarios.

A lot can be done with pixel based integrations rather than cookie based or UTM tracking. When set up properly they can actually provide better and more accurate tracking and attribution. Hence the name of my agency, Pixel Main.”

I think most marketers are aware that privacy is the trend. The good ones have already taken steps to keep it from becoming a problem while still respecting user privacy.”

Some URL Parameters Are Already Affected

For those who are on the periphery of what’s going on with browsers and privacy, it may come as a surprise that some tracking parameters are already affected by actions meant to protect user privacy.

Jonathan Cairo, Lead Solutions Engineer at Elevar shared that there is already a limited amount of tracking related information stripped from URLs.

But he also explained that there are limits to how much information can be stripped from URLs because the resulting negative effects would cause important web browsing functionality to fail.

Jonathan explained:

“So far, we’re seeing a selective trend where some URL parameters, like ‘fbclid’ in Safari’s private browsing, are disappearing, while others, such as TikTok’s ‘ttclid’, remain.

UTM parameters are expected to stay since they focus on user segmentation rather than individual tracking, provided they are used as intended.

The idea of completely removing all URL parameters seems improbable, as it would disrupt key functionalities on numerous websites, including banking services and search capabilities.

Such a drastic move could lead users to switch to alternative browsers.

On the other hand, if only some parameters are eliminated, there’s the possibility of marketers exploiting the remaining ones for tracking purposes.

This raises the question of whether companies like Apple will take it upon themselves to prevent such use.

Regardless, even in a scenario where all parameters are lost, there are still alternative ways to convey click IDs and UTM information to websites.”

Brad Redding of Elevar agreed about the disruptive effect from going too far with removing URL tracking information:

“There is still too much basic internet functionality that relies on query parameters, such as logging in, password resets, etc, which are effectively the same as URL parameters in a full URL path.

So we believe the privacy crackdown is going to continue on known trackers by blocking their tracking scripts, cookies generated from them, and their ability to monitor user’s activity through the browser.

As this grows, the reliance on brands to own their first party data collection and bring consent preferences down to a user-level (vs session based) will be critical so they can backfill gaps in conversion data to their advertising partners outside of the browser or device.”

The Future Of Tracking, Privacy And What Marketers Should Expect

Elevar raises good points about how far browsers can go in terms of how much blocking they can do. Their response that it’s down to brands to own their first party data collection and other strategies to accomplish analytics without compromising user privacy.

Given all the laws governing privacy and Internet tracking that have been enacted around the world it looks like privacy will continue to be a trend.

However, at this point it time, the advice is to keep monitoring how far browsers are going but there is no expectation that things will get out of hand.

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