Branded Search Volume
Branded Search Volume is a measure of the volume of visits to your website from a branded keyword being used in a search engine. Tracking this figure as a trend can indicate the growth of your brand awareness but the question is whether branded search volume is also a factor in ranking itself.
Understanding what affects ranking is a key concept in delivering successful SEO. Experts are forever debating the importance of a variety of factors and everyone in digital marketing is looking to capitalise on those factors that have the greatest impact with Google.
It can be difficult to find data that provides adequate evidence for different strategies, and this is why the recent study by Tom Capper makes some interesting points. He looked at the correlation between links and brand on ranking.
Main Findings
Tom looked at different types of links as well as branded search volume and compared that to predicted performance. He warns that finding a correlation does not automatically suggest causation since results can be affected by other factors. However, it is a widely held belief by most SEOs that links do directly improve ranking.
So, what can we find out by analysing the results?
Page-Level Links
If you already know about SEO theory, then you will guess that page-level links are the most powerful predictor of ranking. Whilst Tom’s study backed up this theory there are some important things to remember. Good performance in ranking could also be down to the fact that many links are more likely to be with homepages. Since they are often the most relevant page on a site you would expect them to do well.
Quality vs Count
The study appears to have confirmed that the overall authority and quality of links to either a domain or page, outperforms link count alone. This may surprise those SEO agencies that rely on KPI link building based around link count as a strategy.
Branded Search Volume vs. Domain-level
We know that Google values link-level factors as they are autonomous with popularity. The study showed that branded search volume did correlate with ranking, particularly if you only take into account the top ten search results. This result is not surprising when you consider the competitive, data intensity of the first page of search results.
Is branded search volume important?
It isn’t totally clear whether Google uses branded search volume to determine ranking rather than just using links. While the study showed that there is indeed a correlation between branded search volume and results it is difficult to make a solid conclusion.
The issue here is that we might assume that Google is optimizing branded search volume in its algorithm without specifically using it as one of the input factors.
The key thing to remember is that it is always a good thing for people to be using your brand in their search terms as this indicates your brand is reaching potential customers. In terms of optimizing your ranking, this may also correlate to improved performance.
In conclusion. if you want to have the biggest impact on ranking you should concentrate on page-level performance and work on increasing demand for your brand.
