Just like any other aspect of SEO, keyword research is also a huge ocean. There are a ton of keyword types including;
Informative keywords (how to articles, case studies and so on) Buyer keywords (buy now, discount, coupon posts etc)
There are also keyword types which include;
Branded keywords Non branded keywords
In this article, we’ll talk about the major difference between branded vs non branded keywords along with their benefits so you’ll know when to use which type of keywords to increase your website traffic and sales in 2023. Are you ready? Let’s get started without further ado.
Branded vs Non Branded Keywords: Which One Should You Use for More Sales
What are branded keywords?
Branded keywords are “navigational keywords” that include the brand name. They are navigational simply because the searchers are exclusively looking for your brand name. It simply means that they already know that your brand exists and they are typing various keywords that are relevant to your brand to find your website or products in search results. Branded keywords can contain a variety of keyword terms including;
Your company name Your startup name Your products Your website name Your agency name and so on
Branded keywords examples along with their benefits
As we already discussed above a brand keyword is the keyword that is used primarily to search for a brand or company name. For instance, a recognisable branded keyword example is “Nike”. Now, Nike doesn’t have to only bid for “Nike” keyword as it can also add qualifier keywords which are also known as “branded plus” keyword terms such as;
Nike running shoe Nike coupon Nike shoe discount Nike men running shoe size 12 And the list goes on
More examples of branded keywords include;
Apple iPhone (a smartphone from Apple brand) Samsung galaxy (a smartphone from Samsung brand) Ford Ecosport (a compact SUV from Ford brand) And so on
Are you getting it? Branded keywords are those keywords that people use in search engines to find a particular product or service of a particular brand (in the above example, it is “Nike” and it’s a HUGE brand). Read: Google Search Ranking SEO Case Study: How Long Does It Take to Rank for A Keyword
What are the benefits of branded keywords?
If you’re wondering about the benefits of using branded keywords, here are few of them. Targeted people and hot leads: People who are looking for your branded keywords clearly show some interest in your brand or company. In most of the cases, they already are familiar with your products, services or brand. That means, targeted people (who already know your brand or company name) are looking for you in search results. So there’s a huge advantage of converting them as they can be considered as hot leads as converting them into sales will be much easier (when compared to those who don’t know your brand). Branded keywords generate more clicks: Did you know that branded keywords generate more clicks? Yes, that’s true. A study conducted by Bing revealed that running ads on branded terms results in 31% more clicks for retail advertisers and 27% more clicks for travel advertisers. So clearly, if you’re targeting branded keywords either organically or by bidding PPC ads, you will get better ROI. Thousands of studies have shown that branded keywords are 5 times more likely to convert visitors into leads, and paid conversion rates can be upwards of 4 times higher than organic conversion rates. That’s insane, right? That’s why you should target branded keywords. They get you better conversions, hot leads, more clicks and what not?
How to easily find branded keywords?
There are multiple ways to find branded keywords. So let’s discuss some of the best and easiest ways to find branded keywords to increase your website sales and conversions. Using Google Autosuggest Google Autosuggest is a saviour. It’s free, easy to use and fast. Just start typing on Google about a brand or company. Search for a brand by typing the business or product name without hitting enter and you’ll see a ton of suggestions from Google. Here’s how it looks like; As you can see above, when entered an example branded keyword “Semrush” (which is also the #1 SEO tool), Google autosuggest is giving us a ton of keyword terms and suggestions that include the branded term “Semrush”. You can again start performing keyword research for the suggestions given by Google autosuggest to take your keyword research to the next level. Using Semrush Google Autosuggest is great but it doesn’t give you full keyword metrics. Here’s where a comprehensive SEO tool like Semrush comes into play. Semrush is an all in one SEO toolkit that helps you with almost every SEO related task including keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink audit, site audits, domain vs domain comparison and the list goes on. Click this link to get a 30 day free Semrush Pro account (worth $119.95) If you’re wondering about how to use Semrush to find branded keywords, here’s a simple tutorial for you. Step 1: Go to Semrush dashboard, click on “Organic Research” section which you can find under Competitive Research tool from Semrush. Now, simply enter any of your competitors URL in the organic research section. Here’s how it looks like; As you can see above, immediately after entering a domain name, Semrush organic research tool gives us a ton of data including;
Keywords (a list of all the keywords the domain is ranking for) Estimated organic traffic Traffic cost Position changes Competitors Top pages and so on
Step 2: To find “branded keywords”, you need to use filters in Semrush organic research tool. Here’s how it looks like: Here’s how you can do it.
Go to “Positions” tab in organic research Click on “Advanced Filters” Choose the filter “Include” and select “Keyword type” And pick Branded column
That’s it, you’re done. Step 3: Now, once you’ve applied the above filters, Semrush organic research tool shows you a list of all the branded keywords your entered domain or website is ranking for. Here’s the data. As you can see above, you can see that our example domain “Neil Patel” currently is ranking for 13 branded keywords. Along with those keywords, Semrush also shows you the data including;
Keyword positions Traffic percentage Search volume Keyword difficulty CPC URL SERP result for the keyword
The above keyword data is enough for you to easily determine the value and competition of any keyword. That’s how you can easily find highly potential branded keywords using Semrush. Read: Serpstat Review: Is it the Best SEO Tool?
What are non-branded keywords?
Non branded keywords are those keywords which are highly relevant to your brand, company or products but don’t include your brand’s name. For example, let’s say you’re running an SEO related blog with the website name “Bloggers Passion”. Bloggers Passion is your brand name whereas keywords like “SEO”, “digital marketing”, “keyword research services” etc are non-branded keywords which DO NOT include your brand name directly but are highly relevant to your website.
Non-branded keywords examples along with their benefits
Non branded keywords don’t include a branded term and mostly include highly relevant terms. It simply means, these keywords do not include a brand or company name or any part of it. Let’s take an example of a non branded keyword. As you can see above, when you enter a keyword term like “photo editing software” on Google, Google instantly shows you featured snippets including top editing software tools like;
Adobe Photoshop GIMP Polarr CorelDRAW And so on
You can see that, we’ve NOT included any branded keyword in that example. That’s the beauty of targeting non branded keywords as you’ll be getting more exposure for other highly relevant terms (even though your brand or company is not included in them).
What are the benefits of non branded keywords?
You can still get benefits by ranking for non branded keywords although these keywords don’t directly include your brand or company’s name. More opportunities: The #1 benefit of using non branded keywords in your SEO or PPC strategy is that you can expand your reach because you’ve literally unlimited options to rank for relevant keywords (without actually including a brand or company’s name). Non branded keywords give you more options when compared to branded keywords because the keywords your target audience uses to discover your website or products are almost unlimited. They help you build awareness: Honestly, non branded keywords help you build awareness about your products, website, services, company and so on. Since people are not searching for your brand related terms, they’ll be mostly typing that’s similar to your brand. It allows you to focus on finding highly relevant terms to increase the awareness of your products or services. Enough said about non branded keywords. Let’s now talk about how you can find them.
How to easily find non branded keywords?
Curious to know how to find non branded keywords? Let’s now talk about how you can quickly find non branded keywords to increase your traffic and sales. Using Semrush As we already discussed above the importance of using Semrush. It can be also used to find non branded keywords and the keyword research is almost similar to that of finding branded keywords (which we covered above). Here’s how to use Semrush to find non branded keywords easily. Step 1: Go to Semrush dashboard, click on “Organic Research” section which you can find under Competitive Research tool from Semrush. Enter any of your competitors URL in the organic research section. Semrush organic research tool gives you all the data you need including;
A list of all the keywords the domain is ranking for Estimated organic traffic Traffic cost Position changes Competitors Top pages
Step 2: To find “non branded keywords”, you need to use filters in Semrush organic research tool. Here’s how it looks like; Here’s how to apply filters to find non branded keywords.
Go to “Positions” tab in organic research Click on “Advanced Filters” Choose the filter “Include” and select “Keyword type” And pick Not branded column
That’s it! Step 3: Once you’ve applied the above filters, you can find a list of all the not branded keywords for the specific domain you entered. Here’s the data on it. As you can see above, you can see that our example domain “Neil Patel” is ranking for nearly 290K non branded keywords. You can again apply more filters with low search volume (less than 1000 searches) to easily find low search volume non branded keywords. Read: Keyword Cannibalization: What Is It And How to Fix It to Improve Your Website’s SEO
Few More Things About Branded vs Non Branded Keywords
Here are few important things to keep in mind while using branded or non branded keywords to increase your overall website sales and conversions in 2023 and beyond. Smartly use branded keywords Did you know that you can bid for your competitors branded keywords? Yes, you can do that. For example, let’s have a look at “air zoom womens nike” in Google search. As you can see above, resellers are bidding on PPC results for the branded term (air zoom is one of the best sellers from Nike). You can also see that there are no particular ads from the brand Nike. By smartly bidding such kind of branded keywords on Google PPC, you get more clicks from search engines with higher conversion rates. Get more keyword data While choosing both branded vs non branded keywords, it’s essential for you to gather as much keyword data as possible. Keyword data including;
Competition SERP Keyword search volume CPC Keyword difficulty
The above metrics are extremely important to determine great keywords to increase your sales and conversions. So how can you find that keyword data? Start using the RIGHT tools. Yes, if you’ve access to the right SEO tools like Semrush (Semrush is the only tool we’ve been using for more than 3 years to find highly potential keywords) is the key. The good thing about using Semrush is that, you can easily find a list of branded vs non branded keywords with filters. Whether you know it or not, you can filter by 3 types of keywords in Semrush.
Branded keywords: It will display you all branded keywords for the queried domain Non branded keywords: It will show keywords that are not branded for your queried domain Branded for other domains: It will show keywords that include another domain’s brand name that the queried domain is ranking for in Google’s top 100
All in all, Semrush is the PERFECT tool for finding branded and non branded keywords easily. So what are you still waiting for? Use the below link to get started with Semrush today. Click here to try Semrush Pro free for 30 days Here are few interesting questions you should know about branded and non branded keywords in 2023 and beyond.
Final Thoughts
It doesn’t matter whether you’re bidding PPC terms or trying to rank organically, you need to target both branded and non branded keywords. They both help you with increase conversions, expanded reach, bringing more leads organically and so on. → Generic terms: As the name suggests, these are general keywords that describe your product or service (i.e. fitness apps)→ Related terms: These are the keywords that don’t directly relate to your website or business that your audience may be searching for (i.e. fitness)→ Brand terms: As we discussed above, these are the keywords that contain your brand, website or company name (i.e. Nike running shoe)→ Non-brand terms: These are the keywords which don’t include your brand name but are highly relevant to your products or brand (i.e “best writing apps” for the brand Grammarly)→ Competitor terms: These are the keywords that including PPC and organic keywords of your competitors
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It depends on your brand, website or company when to go for these keywords for higher conversions and website sales. So what are your thoughts? Do you’ve any more questions around branded vs non branded keywords? Let us know in the comments.
