Branded search

Branded queries carry intent to find you. Examples: "acme crm", "yourproduct.com", "acme pricing". These clicks reflect awareness from PR, word of mouth, ads, partnerships or your product itself.

Non-branded queries do not name you, like "small business crm". These are where SEO work usually earns discovery. Keep the two lines apart or you will misread results.

A rise in branded clicks usually means your marketing or product is working. A rise in non-branded clicks points to content, links, or technical SEO gains.

1. 1

   Open Performance

   Open Search Console, Performance. Use Search type Web to keep the set clean.

2. 2

   Add a query filter with regex

   Filter, Queries, Custom (regex). Enter your brand variants. Example: acme|acme crm|acmecrm|yourproduct\.com. Include common misspellings.

3. 3

   Save a branded view

   Apply and review Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position. Save as a comparison by adding a date range, like last 28 days vs previous period.

4. 4

   Create a non-branded view

   Duplicate the report, invert the filter by Excluding the same regex. Now you have non-branded numbers to compare side by side.

Track four lines over time for each bucket: clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position. Use 28-day windows to smooth noise on small sites.

• Homepage or /pricing ranks first for "acme", "acme crm", and "acme pricing".
• CTR is very high for exact brand queries. The snippet reads clean and matches the intent.
• Branded impressions and clicks grow with launches, press, and customer growth.
• Non-branded also grows, but on a different curve. You read SEO progress there.

If branded impressions climb while non-branded is flat, your marketing is ahead of your SEO. If the reverse, your SEO is pulling its weight even if brand is quiet.

• Make sure the right page ranks for each brand intent. "acme" to the homepage, "acme pricing" to /pricing, "acme login" to /login.
• Match titles to intent. Example: "/pricing" title: "Acme CRM pricing and plans" within about 60 characters.
• Write a clear meta description for branded intents. State product, audience, and primary action.
• Fix cannibalisation. If a blog post ranks for "acme pricing", add internal links to /pricing and tighten the post’s title.
• Own branded SERP features you can control: favicon, clear site name, and clean URLs. Keep consistency across pages.

A fixed page for "acme pricing" has the /pricing URL ranking first, a concise title, a description that mentions plans, and sitelinks pointing to checkout or FAQs.

• Counting branded clicks as SEO success. Brand is demand capture, not discovery.
• Letting the wrong page outrank the homepage for "acme". Use internal links and titles to reinforce the homepage.
• Over-broad regex. Do not match generic words that inflate branded numbers.
• Ignoring misspellings and product-line variants. Add them to the regex and recheck quarterly.
• Reading CTR in isolation. Branded CTR is naturally high. Judge non-branded CTR to assess snippets and intent match.