A Content Marketing strategy seeks consistent results and leads that are aligned with the business differentials, right? Therefore, the correct choice of branded keywords will make all the difference in more advanced stages of your sales funnel.
After all, there’s nothing better than learning what the terms most related to your brand are, right?
This is because those who use them already recognize the brand, make an association with their product or service and will only be looking for some additional information, or even a quicker way to make a purchase online.
Therefore, it is necessary to be careful when choosing branded keywords, to the information they will bring in the results and even where they will direct the user.
Is it worth sponsoring your SERPs, or even the competition? If you want to know the answer to that question as well as the concept and importance of these keywords for the brand strategy and your Content Marketing campaigns, this article brings you the most relevant and necessary information.
Check it out below!
- What are branded keywords?
- How important are branded keywords?
- What are the differences between branded keywords and keywords unrelated to the brand?
- How to find branded keywords?
- How to use them when building a Content Marketing strategy?
- What tips can enhance the use of branded keywords?
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What are branded keywords?
Branded keywords are keywords or phrases used by potential customers of a business to seek more specific information about a brand’s products or services.
In other words, they already know that the item can be found in a company’s mix of offerings, but they need additional information to make a decision, make a comparison, recommend it to third parties, and others.
As you can see, they are searches carried out close to the moment of a conversion or that enhance a sales opportunity. Therefore, they have high strategic value for the company and must be correctly worked and balanced with the other keywords and phases of the marketing funnel.
They can include the brand name and its product, such as: “Joe’s Ice Cream Parlor”, “Joe Ice Cream Parlor” or “JoeIceCream”. In the case of long-tail branded keywords, we have: “Joe’s Ice Cream Parlor locations”, “Lactose-free ice cream”, “Joe Ice Cream”, “Joe Ice Cream takeout”.
In these cases, the leads are not looking for the properties of ice cream, like making parties with lactose-free ice cream or similar needs, which would point to content topics at the beginning of the marketing funnel, right?
Such searches are already directed to the establishment and information that will encourage or clarify a possible purchase. For example, the offer of special products or the delivery services offered.
In addition to increasing traffic and audience for a web address, keywords that are more specific and bottom-funnel are more actively used to target searches.
How important are branded keywords?
In practice, what is the importance of this concept for your strategic planning? The benefits are plentiful and can contribute to the improvement of your pages and adopted strategies. So that you have no doubts about how important branded keywords are, we have listed the most relevant reasons. Check them out!
Targeting improvement
Proper targeting is essential for an efficient Content Marketing strategy or even paid media. The more targeted your material, the more likely it is to make a relevant impact on your persona. Your message becomes more refined and in line with your audience’s expectations, increasing the potential for conversion.
After all, the trend is for communication with your audience to become more accurate. Instead of focusing on interactions that add little to the challenge of loyalty, for example, the contact becomes more natural and relevant to your audience.
Understanding of your audience’s primary needs
To be able to offer a positive experience to users, it is important to understand what the needs of your audience are. As these are more specific terms, branded keywords allow you to direct your efforts to increase traffic to your pages so that your audience is satisfied and more likely to be converted.
Access to new opportunities
Consequently, your marketing team can identify new business opportunities. For example, when perceiving an increasing demand from your audience for searches with branded keywords, a new segment of performance can be created.
The possibilities are the most diverse and allow you to explore paths that were not even considered during your planning.
Identification of flaws in products and/or services
Another very interesting possibility based on branded keywords is the search for feedbacks and evaluations from customers in relation to your products and services. The goal is to identify which issues are most affected by criticism and complaints, for example.
When you notice that a specific product suffers a lot from negative feedback, you can make the necessary changes. You can always keep an eye on what is being said about your brand on the internet.
For those looking to improve their digital presence—and doing it efficiently—it is important to understand which terms are most related to their products and services.
Monitoring competitor performance
Keeping an eye on your competition is also essential to create more effective campaigns and strategies.
Nothing beats going straight to the point and searching for branded keywords related to your competitors—either to understand what the company’s most relevant products and services are to your audience or to follow what the most desired traits these companies are.
In addition, it can be very useful for your paid media strategy, helping you understand what the most searched terms in relation to your competitors are, and investment in campaigns in that sense.
Such market monitoring ensures that you are always up to date and in search of ways to not lose space within your segment.
What are the differences between branded keywords and keywords unrelated to the brand?
This is a very simple difference. After all, for SEO strategies, you need to consider how the algorithms analyze and process the search keywords, right? Therefore, the crucial difference is whether or not the brand, product or company is mentioned in the keyword.
The other keywords, therefore, will address product differentials, the needs they serve, the pains that customers experience before using them, what their benefits are, trends and other information that will help the potential customer to make their decision.
But, thinking from a strategic point of view, it also has another important difference: it communicates with a lead who is already well informed about the product or service on offer.
This means that, in addition to the objectivity of the keywords, the pages that will receive your referrals must also have clear and essential information for the consumer’s final conversion.
Which are more important?
From the point of view of strategy, both branded keywords and more comprehensive keywords are essential for the success of Content Marketing, precisely because they meet different objectives in their respective stages.
The keywords used in the start of lead nurturing, that is, attracting customers, aims to win multiple readers and visitors to the blogs. This will increase your ranking in search results, for example.
Branded keywords, on the other hand, will be crucial in the most advanced stages of lead nurturing, that is, when the consumers already understands possible companies and brands could solve their problems.
Considering that they have other solutions to resort to, ensuring a quick and definitive answer in your search results can be a great incentive for selling, right? So, in this case, it is the branded keyword that will lead to success.
Is it worth it to sponsor search results?
The most correct answer to this question is: it depends on the strategy, the results obtained and objectives. Some experts believe that in a search result where the keyword is already contextualized with the company name, it won’t need ads, right?
But it is necessary to consider that the competition can use this resource to attract customers in an opportunistic way, since in the search experience, users always end up clicking on the first results.
That is, your competitors may be highlighted in SERPs with the specific name of your brand.
On the other hand, investing in keywords not associated with the brand can generate more sales opportunities to be filtered in the rest of the process. If the budget is limited, such considerations will also need to be made, okay?
How to find branded keywords?
We have already shown you that monitoring branded keywords is very important for your planning. But how to find them? Check out our tips below!
Use Google Alerts
When it comes to keywords and relevance to your brand in SERPs, Google is always a reference, isn’t it? The good news is that Google Alerts can help you get those answers.
Instead of looking for terms related to your business, this free tool will send notifications whenever your brand is mentioned on the internet, generating valuable insights.
Explore social media
Social media can also be an important source for those looking for branded keywords. One of the most relevant tools for doing these searches is Twitter.
The Advanced Search feature allows you and your team to find exactly what you’re looking for. You can customize your search, such as finding an exact phrase, words in the same phrase, or just a specific term.
Use specific tools
In addition to the organic search methods for branded keywords, you can still find them using specific tools. One of the options is SproutSocial, which has a feature to show the terms related to your business. In addition, tools like SEMRush can also be useful to enrich your searches.
How to use them when building a Content Marketing strategy?
Both kinds of keywords have the same formats. At the end of the day, their goal is to contribute to the search for leads and make them find the content that will advance them in the buyer’s journey.
So, how does one use them in Content Marketing strategies in conjunction with the other keywords and stages?
Include your strategy when planning your project keywords
As expected, they must be chosen with the other keywords of the project and follow their quality prerogatives, such as:
- keyword relevance to the product or service offered, considering the inclusion of the brand, product lines or services offered;
- search volume on major search engines like Google. This step can be done with Google Ads and other tools, such as SEMRush;
- test your effectiveness for lead searches;
- consider its long-tail variations.
Ensure the segmentation of content created by the company
If a company offers different products or services, it needs to ensure that its different combinations of keywords, page URL and brand are considered in the strategy and direct visitors adequately.
Therefore, making a complete list of all items and working with a combination of words is essential, as well as testing how much they are searched for in sites like Google.
Increase the visibility of the company’s website or blog
It is also possible to develop specific content for branded keywords. You can do this by creating a FAQ about the main questions that may arise in a lead’s decision-making process, such as purchase locations, payment methods, exchange policies, refunds, shipping methods and others.
In addition to increasing the chances of conversion, monitoring the performance of such keywords also allows the company to identify the main doubts and unanswered questions in the rest of its content strategy.
This information can help to calibrate what was published in the previous stages and create new content focused on the conversion steps.
This will give more visibility to the business, make your content stronger and offer prominence in search engines, not only for bringing your answers but also for favoring possible interactions and sales conversions, in the case of internal links that direct to that goal.
Outperform the competition in content ranking in search engines
We cite the considerations that need to be made about whether or not to sponsor such surveys, but in addition to the investments paid, it is also necessary to consider the quality of the information on the pages.
Thus, organic traffic will be guaranteed. Using the right keywords in the pages’ meta description can also contribute to the strategy’s success. This is because, in the SERP, the summarized information can help direct the lead to what they are really looking for, that is, information about your brand.
What tips can enhance the use of branded keywords?
In addition to all these alternatives, what can be done to enhance the use of branded keywords? Check out some of our tips!
Optimize your pages
The first step is a common one regarding Content Marketing, but very relevant: optimize your pages. Using the right terms when setting up your strategy is just one example of this, but you should also invest in your site’s user experience.
Do the right searches
It is also essential to set an objective for your branded keywords strategy to be able to direct your efforts during searches. The goal is not to waste time on irrelevant terms. To do this, rely on the tools we recommended above to optimize this step.
Create content with branded keywords
Branded keywords can also be used as references for the production of relevant content. Did you notice that many users have doubts about products or services? Why not create a FAQ that clarifies these matters and is able to make the term perform correctly?
Don’t forget about social media
Social media sites can also be very useful for branded keywords to become more effective in your Digital Marketing strategies. Using the most relevant terms in your profile descriptions is just one example of how these keywords should be employed to bring you more results.
Never stop monitoring
Monitoring is also another important tip so that the use of branded keywords is, in fact, positive for your business. As good as the results are so far, it is always possible to improve them, in addition to not letting your competitors get close and take advantage of your flaws.
The strategic value of a branded keyword reinforces the importance of brand management and branding. In fact, not only that.
In the digital context, it supports the great challenges experienced by organizations, such as the strengthening of social networks, SEO strategies and automation technologies for customer relations.
Want to know how to align your digital content strategies to the rise of interactivity? Check out our complete guide on interactive content!
