The Importance of Branded Search in Building Brand Recognition and Trust
Branded search is what happens when someone types your business name into Google rather than a generic term. “LoudCrowd” instead of “SEO agency Sheffield”. “Joe’s Plumbing Hillsborough” instead of “plumber near me”.
It is easy to overlook because you already rank for your own name. But branded search volume is one of the clearest signs that your marketing is working, and one of the highest-converting sources of traffic you will ever have. This post covers why it matters, how to measure it, and how to grow and protect it.
What branded search tells you
When a person searches for you by name, they have already decided something. They have seen your van, had a recommendation, noticed an ad, or been to the site before and come back. The hard part of marketing (getting noticed and remembered) has already happened.
Branded traffic converts at several times the rate of generic traffic, because the person is not comparing options. They are looking for you. If branded searches are growing month on month, your brand is growing. If they are flat, whatever else you are spending on is not sticking in people’s heads.
It also tells Google something. Search engines treat a steady volume of people looking for a specific business as evidence that the business is real, known and trusted. That does not directly rank you higher for generic terms, but it makes the rest of your SEO easier.
How to measure it
Open Google Search Console, go to Performance, and filter queries containing your business name (and the common misspellings). That gives you branded clicks and impressions over time.
Two numbers worth tracking each month:
- Branded impressions. How many people searched for you. This is your awareness number.
- Branded share. Branded clicks divided by total clicks. If branded is 80% of your traffic, your generic SEO needs work. If it is 5%, your brand needs work.
Compare this with your Google Business Profile insights too, which split searches into direct (your name) and discovery (what you do). It is the same split, seen from the map side.
Why branded search builds trust
Consider what a person sees when they search your name and you have done the work:
- Your website at the top, with sitelinks to services, prices and contact
- Your Google Business Profile on the right, with photos, opening hours and a 4.9 rating from dozens of reviews
- Your social profiles and a couple of directory listings below
That page is your first impression for anyone who has been referred to you. Every element on it either builds confidence or takes it away. A profile with three reviews and a website that looks ten years old undoes the work the referral did.
Now consider what happens when you have not done the work: a competitor’s ad above your listing, a review site with a two-star complaint in position three, and an out-of-date phone number on the map. The person came looking for you and left with doubts.
How to grow branded search
Branded search grows when more people encounter your name and remember it. There is no trick to this. What works:
Be consistent everywhere
The name on your van, your invoices, your Google Business Profile, your social accounts and your website should be identical. “LoudCrowd”, “Loud Crowd” and “LoudCrowd Agency Ltd” are three different searches. Pick one and use it everywhere. If your visual identity is inconsistent too, our branding work fixes that at the source.
Make the name easy to remember and easy to type
If your business is called something generic, branded search is hard to separate from generic search, and hard for Google to attribute. If it is called something people cannot spell, you lose searches to typos. Neither is a reason to rebrand overnight, but it is worth knowing.
Collect reviews in volume
Reviews do double duty. They make the branded results page look trustworthy, and people who leave reviews and read them are more likely to search for you by name later. Aim for a steady stream rather than a burst.
Show up where your customers already are
Local press, sponsorship, supplier partnerships, van livery, Facebook groups, trade events. Anywhere your name gets seen by the right people feeds branded search later. Paid ads do this too, which is a benefit of PPC that rarely shows up in the campaign report.
Generic SEO feeds branded search
Someone finds you through “boiler repair Sheffield”, has a good experience, and searches your name next time. Well-run local SEO is a branded search engine in its own right, which is one reason we treat the two as one job.
How to protect it
Growing branded search is only half of it. Once people are searching for you, make sure they find the right things.
- Own your name on Google Ads. Branded keywords are cheap and stop competitors sitting above your organic result. Check whether anyone is bidding on your name.
- Keep your Google Business Profile accurate. Hours, phone, address, services. A wrong number here loses the customer at the last step.
- Respond to every review, particularly bad ones. People searching your name read the responses as much as the reviews.
- Claim your profiles on the main directories and social platforms, even if you do not use them. It stops them being filled by someone else and stops them showing outdated details.
- Check the results page yourself once a month, in an incognito window. Search your name and look at everything on page one as a new customer would.
Putting it into practice
If you only do three things after reading this:
- Set up a branded query filter in Search Console and note the monthly impressions.
- Search your own name in incognito and fix whatever is wrong on page one.
- Start asking every happy customer for a Google review.
Branded search is the closest thing to a scoreboard for your reputation. We track it for every client alongside generic rankings and leads, and it is often the number that moves first. If you would like help building it, get in touch and we will walk you through your current branded numbers.