Branded keywords
What are branded keywords?
Branded keywords are search terms that contain a specific brand, company or product name, such as "airbnb", "notion pricing" or "nike air max sale". Searches for your own brand show existing awareness; searches for other brands can show research or buying intent. Non-branded keywords, like "running shoes", contain no brand name.
Branded searches are often navigational ("slack login") but can be commercial ("slack vs teams") or transactional ("slack pro price"). In Google Search Console, separating branded from non-branded queries is one of the most useful ways to read your data.
Why branded keywords matter for SEO
Branded traffic mostly reflects how well known you are, not how good your SEO is. Separating it from non-branded traffic tells you whether SEO is actually winning new audiences. A site where almost all organic clicks are branded is relying on people who already know it.
Growth in branded search is still a good sign. It usually follows PR, advertising, word of mouth and good content, and it is one of the things that can make AI assistants and Google treat a brand as a recognised entity.
How to track branded keywords
- List your brand name, product names, common misspellings and your domain.
- Filter Search Console queries containing those terms to separate branded and non-branded performance.
- Make sure you rank first for your own brand terms, with sitelinks to key pages.
- Watch for competitors, resellers or review sites outranking you for "brand + pricing", "brand + reviews" or "brand + alternatives".
Branded keywords example
A meal kit company called Greenbox sees 12,000 clicks a month. Filtering Search Console for "greenbox" shows 9,000 are branded. The real non-branded figure, 3,000, is the number to grow with content.
Branded keywords FAQ
Should I bid on my own branded keywords?
That is an advertising decision. Organically, you should rank first for your own brand anyway; paid brand ads mainly protect against competitors bidding on your name.
Can I target a competitor’s branded keywords?
You can publish fair comparison and alternatives pages. Avoid misleading claims or implying you are the competitor, and be careful with trademarked names in ads.
Related SEO terms
Navigational intent is when a searcher wants to reach a specific website or page, such as "gmail login" or "ikea returns".
Brand mentions are references to your brand name on other websites or in AI answers, with or without a link to your site.
Google Search Console is Google’s free tool that shows how your site performs in Google Search and flags indexing, security and spam problems.
Sitelinks are extra links to other pages of a site that Google shows under a search result, usually for brand searches.
An entity is a distinct, identifiable thing, such as a person, place, organisation or product, that search engines and AI models recognise.