Matt: Welcome back to Growth Unleashed, the podcast for pet brands that want to grow smarter, without relying on paid ads. I’m Matt, the founder of Bubblegum Search.
Louis: And I’m Louis, the SEO manager here at Bubblegum. Today we wanted to dive into what we think is one of the most underrated and underappreciated KPIs in organic search right now – branded search.
To set the stage, this is essentially when someone Googles your brand name. It sends signals of trust, curiosity and intent. They’re not discovering you by accident, they’ve gone out to look for you directly. That’s a game changer for every other channel you’re visible on.
So, Matt, let’s kick it off. What does branded search actually tell a pet brand?
Matt: At the very basic level, it shows how many people are searching for your brand in Google. But also, just as importantly, it shows the number of branded searches – the different keyword variations.
People could search your brand name plus “review,” or your brand name plus a particular keyword. There’ll be combinations of those branded searches. That’s just as important as the volume of search behind each keyword.
Those two pieces of data are unique and really insightful.
Louis: And equally important – with non-branded keywords, there’s a big potential for vanity traffic. You could rank some blogs for keywords that don’t matter to your brand. They’re not associated with your brand and they’re probably not commercially viable.
So branded search is the most genuine kind of click you can get to your site. It’s not just about demand, it also sends strong trust signals to Google when people are searching your brand in high volumes.
Matt: Yeah, the trust part means if someone’s doing a branded search, they’ve heard of you. They trust you enough from wherever they saw you to go directly to you. You’re not just relying on non-branded keywords, you’re being sought out.
When Google sees rising branded search volume, it’s a kind of secondary signal. We’re not saying it’s a direct ranking factor. It’s more indirect. Branded search is usually higher quality – people already know and trust you. When they search for you, the click-through rates increase, which we know is a ranking factor in itself.
And then again, when they actually land on the pages themselves, the engagement is of a higher rate. Typically, branded search will visit more pages. They’ll stay on your site longer.
Louis: Complete a few events maybe…
Matt: Yeah, exactly. And typically they’ll do less pogo sticking. Pogo sticking, for anyone that’s not aware, is a situation where a user isn’t satisfied for whatever reason. They click back to the search results and click a different result.
So when you eliminate those things, ultimately you’re providing Google with all the good trust signals it uses in its ranking system.
Louis: And all of those factors that tap into branded search have knock-on benefits for your non-branded keywords too, because the overall click-through rate and engagement rate for your site is increased.
Matt: That’s a really good point. These are secondary effects of just getting brand building right in the first place.
If a good chunk of your traffic is coming from branded search and the quality is good, the engagement is good, then Google will think, hang on a second, you’re associated with this topic and this authority. You probably deserve to be higher up for these non-branded keywords as well.
So although not direct, we’ve seen strong correlations between good branded search and higher non-branded keyword rankings. That’s a really important point.
Cool. So with that said, what makes branded search volume go up, and how can pet brands influence it?
Louis: It’s important to make the distinction that branded search increasing is a result. It’s not a tactic you can go after by itself. Doing really good SEO, digital PR, and content is what leads to increased branded search.
Digital PR-wise, we’re always talking about earning links and mentions. The more places you are mentioned online, the more likely the audience is to go and search you. And then we know the result of that.
Equally, influencers create discovery. We’ve talked about being on product roundups, forums, all of that good stuff. The more visible you are online, the more likely it is to increase your branded search. And I’d also throw in that good old content marketing is still good for this. Some of those informational blogs – people still click on them.
And yeah, paid ads are still effective for driving brand awareness. You just need to be careful you don’t end up in a paid ads trap where your visibility is purely reliant on running the ads. The most effective tactic would be to supplement your organic brand visibility with running ads as well.
Matt: Yeah, definitely. Every media mention – whether it’s a review or even a podcast feature – creates another reason for people to be Googling you and increasing branded search. It’s really brand building over time. It’s not something that just happens overnight.
Louis: We go on about it a lot, but organic visibility is a compounding snowball effect. The more people search for you, the more you show up. The more you show up, the more engagement you’re getting. The more engagement you’re getting, the bigger your brand gets. And the bigger your brand gets, the more searches your brand gets. It all rolls into one big effect. That’s really powerful.
Matt: The only real downside is just that leap of faith. It takes time. There’s no way around that. Of course, higher budgets can speed up the process. But it’s rare that anyone goes on this organic path – earned media, starting a podcast or YouTube channel, no paid ads or social – and then suddenly the brand skyrockets in a few weeks.
It takes time for people to discover you, to like you, to know you, to trust you. But then you get this hockey curve growth effect after nine months, a year, two years, three years. It just keeps going up.
That’s the beauty of it. But the time and investment required to get there can be a sticking point. That’s what we encourage – having the faith and seeing it as an investment for the future.
Louis: Ultimately, it is a leap of faith, but it’s also future-proofing. We don’t know that it’s directly a ranking factor, but a lot of the talk in SEO now is about how to appear in AI search modes – ChatGPT, Perplexity. One of the strongest correlations we’ve seen is how much your brand is searched for.
Your brand visibility looks like it’s correlated to how often those LLMs are going to recommend you. So yes, it’s a leap of faith, but the more this evolves in SEO, the less it will feel like that and the more necessary it will become.
Matt: Yeah, definitely.
And to your point about branded search versus brand mentions, we know from studies that brand mentions and being cited in the right places is how large language models discover and train their data sets. If you’re being mentioned in the right places, people are going to go search for you anyway. So even if it’s not a direct ranking factor, it’s extremely correlated with the other right signals.
Louis: That snowball effect again… So, what happens to your brand when the search volume starts rising?
Matt: That’s when you’re in the good stage. Everything gets easier, or at least it should.
Your brand is now known, liked and trusted. That’s highly correlated with better conversion rates on paid ads. You’re not having to educate in the first instance – you’re past that point. SEO click-through rates improve. Even email open rates go up because they know you, they like you, they trust you, and they want to hear from you.
At that point, your job is to double down. Keep doing the right things. Expand your brand further. If branded search volume is increasing, then all those good metrics have come good, and it’s time to do more of what’s working.
Louis: And for the bottom line of your business, your cost of acquiring a customer drops. The biggest click-through factor is recognition. Someone sees your name and thinks, oh yeah, I know them – I’ll click.
So again, while the ROI might not be as immediate or visible as a big paid ads campaign, long term it does huge things for your conversion rates and trust.
Matt:
Yeah. Ultimately, if no one is searching for your brand, you don’t really have a brand – you just have a product. And if you just have a product, you’re seen as a commodity. And a commodity is a race to the bottom.
That’s not what we want.
Louis: As a final takeaway, I’d say branded search is the heartbeat of a healthy brand. If it’s growing, your visibility is growing, the trust in your website is growing, and the demand for your service is growing. Your cost per customer drops too.
Matt: Yeah, perfect. The only thing I’d add is if your branded search is low, you’ve got some brand-building work to do. That’s true regardless of how good your website is, how well it functions, how pretty it looks, or how well your ads are performing.
Louis:
Cool. So if you want to know where your brand visibility sits right now, or how to improve it, get in touch and we can help you out with some free PR ideas.
Matt:
Yeah, definitely. Book a call and request your free PR ideas. And if this episode helped or made you think differently about how demand generation works, subscribe and share it with anyone else who might find it useful. I think that’s it for now.
Louis:
Yep – we’ll see you next time.