The Most Typical Problems With Ranking for Branded Queries

Branded queries are all queries with the name of the company, name or nickname of an expert, blogger, musician or other famous people: “brand”, “brand + reviews”, “where to buy + brand”, “brand + official website”, “founder + brand”, “whether to buy + brand” and others.

A company that is known by its name usually gets a lot of clicks on branded queries. And it’s not only about world-famous corporations, such as 22Bet or Netflix, but also some small local brands that are still popular among those who live nearby or visit this place regularly. This traffic can come in handy if the site loses ground on commercial queries as a result of search engine upgrades or because of competitors suddenly breaking into the top.

Here’re the most common problems associated with branded keywords.

The Site Is Poorly Ranked for a Branded Query

Or not ranking at all. A company’s official website is the most relevant result for a query consisting of a brand name. Therefore, it should be the top 1 in the output. In fact, it happens that the official site is far from the first place. It is overtaken by a competitor or third-party directories, marketplaces, and other sites.

The first reason is the authority of the resources at the top compared to the official website. If the site is not filled with content, has few links, is rarely updated, and you sell primarily through the marketplace, do not wait for high positions. It will obviously be inferior to the developed authoritative site.

Another reason is the brand name. If it sounds like a common word or phrase, Google may not recognize it as a brand. They will pick up results for a common query.

You can fight bad rankings for your own brand only by developing your own site:

• To optimize the main page for branded keywords – write them in the Title tag, add them to the content of the page, and use branded anchors for internal relinking.
• Build backlinks to the site mentioning the name of the company or brand. And it’s better not to do it with cheap links from SEO exchanges. Place ads, news, press releases, and articles on well-visited sites, and, where possible, include the brand name in the anchor.
• You may have to think about changing the name, but then all the work to promote the new brand will have to be done again.

A Sudden Spike or Drop in Branded Traffic Is Visible

If you’re systematically working on your company’s reputation, conversions for branded queries show up smoothly on the web analytics system’s graph.

Sudden spikes in traffic for branded queries, on the other hand, can be both a good and a bad sign – it all depends on the infotainment that caused the spike.

For example, after revelations, trials, scandals and negative reviews, the citation and recognition of the brand will rise, and traffic to the site may also increase, but since the reputation is damaged, it means that sales will suffer.

After a spike in visits due to negative info promotion, brand traffic can plummet because of consumers who have turned away from the company. In this case, you need to involve PR specialists and work carefully with the reputation of the brand. But first and foremost – to improve the product and service.

Search Prompts With Product Flaws

When entering a query in the search bar, tooltips appear for clarification so that the user can choose from the suggested options rather than typing the query further. Something in the prompts may be of interest – for example, information that the product has problems or the company is considered a fraud. This may not be true, but if the query appears in the prompts, it means that a lot of people enter it.

The data in the tooltips are updated at least once a day, so you’ll see an up-to-date picture and understand what queries your brand is used in conjunction with.

Negative search terms are a signal to the company that it needs to work on its mistakes. It could be:

• Real problems with products, blamed on shoddy packaging, a change in supplier, problems with delivery people or the website. You need to collect the claims, check them, fix what everyone is complaining about, and tell users about it.
• PR problems – ordered reviews, an info-field scandal, a negative review from a blogger, an ill-conceived ad or an insulting statement from a famous company employee. You’ll have to involve the PR department and deal with the negativity, issue a retraction or apology, and build up positive mentions.

Also: Explain the SEO basics for beginners

Search Engine Corrects Branded Queries

Search engines correct typos in user queries, but sometimes they offer to correct the query that the user wanted to enter.

Corrections can also apply to brand names: the user enters a company name, but the search engine reads the name as another word with an error. This happens most often in three cases:

• The company isn’t well-known and is rarely searched by name.
• The company name/brand is consonant with a popular brand or site name.
• The name sounds like a commonly misspelt word.

This isn’t a critical problem. Since the user is purposefully looking for you, he will clarify the query to get the desired output from the search engine. But these are unnecessary actions that may cut off some customers.

The second option is to connect third-party performers who will enter the query into the search bar in the form you want. If users often enter a query in a way that the system thinks is wrong, the search engine will have to reconsider its approach.

The brand needs to work on increasing awareness among its audience to increase interest and increase the number of queries with the name.

Monitor your site’s ranking for branded queries, identify problems and address them so you don’t miss out on targeted traffic: develop your site, work to increase visibility, and deal with brand reputation. As a result, you will get fantastic results for your brand.