What Is A Branded Keyword?

Date First Published: 4th December 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: SEO

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Medium

Difficulty Level: 5/10

CONTENTS

Are Misspellings Of Brand Names Considered Branded Keywords?

Learn more about what a branded keyword is in this article.

A branded keyword is a keyword that includes the name of a brand or variations of it. Branded keywords can also be related to the product or services of a brand. For example, for Huawei, branded keywords would be considered those that contain the word 'Huawei', 'P30 pro', 'P50 pro', and 'Gt 3 pro' because it is an exclusive product by the company.

Branded keywords indicate that the searcher already knows who a company is, is specifically looking for it, and wants to go to its website. This is the main reason why it is important that companies rank at the top of SERPs for branded searches. For searches that relate to the product or services of a brand, unless their website has thousands of backlinks, they won't rank at the top of SERPs.

A way that companies can rank at the top is by using an exclusive name that is not in use by another company as it is very likely that there will be a lot of other competitors using simple and obvious product names, such as 'Birthday cards'. If a company does not rank at the top for a search that contains its brand name, it could be for the following reasons:

Another company has a similar brand name.
The company's website is not indexed.
The company's website has not been properly optimised for SEO.
The company has not made its brand name clear on its website.
The company has only used an acronym for their brand name which is in use by another company.

Note:

Keywords that do not include any reference to a brand or its products or services are known as non-branded keywords. An example of a non-branded keyword would be 'Mobile phone companies' as that does not refer to a specific brand.

Are Misspellings Of Brand Names Considered Branded Keywords?

Misspellings of brand names are still considered branded keywords as they reference a brand. These misspellings or typos are worth tracking as part of keyword research to confirm the most common misspellings that people use to find a brand online and identify the possibilities. For example, 'Hiundai', a common misspelling of 'Hyundai' is still a branded keyword as it refers to that brand. If someone enters that keyword into Google, results for 'Hyundai' will show up instead of 'Hiundai' as Google knows that much more results will come up for 'Hyundai' than 'Hiundai'.