Brand Mentions and SEO

Off-Page SEO: What Are Brand Mentions and How Do They Affect Search Rankings?

Off-page search engine optimization (SEO) involves more than just building backlinks; it includes brand mentions. Cultivating brand mentions can boost your website’s organic search engine rankings. Brand mentions will complement your website’s backlinks, resulting in a more comprehensive off-page SEO strategy. What are brand mentions precisely, and how do they affect search rankings?

The Basics of Brand Mentions

A brand mention is an online reference to a brand. Your website is a brand. When someone talks about your website online, your site will earn a brand mention.

Brand mentions can be linked or unlinked. A linked brand mention is a backlink. It’s a backlink type that uses a brand name as the clickable anchor text. An unlinked brand mention is a text section containing a brand name.

Contextual Backlinks

Linked brand mentions are typically contextual backlinks, making them incredibly useful for SEO. However, they aren’t published by themselves. Instead, linked brand mentions are published in larger pieces of content.

You can find linked brand mentions in blog posts, articles, customer reviews, social media posts, and news stories. Because they are published in larger pieces of content, they are classified as contextual backlinks. Search engines place more weight on contextual backlinks than standalone backlinks. Therefore, your website will earn more contextual backlinks by cultivating more linked brand mentions.

Direct Traffic

Even unlinked brand mentions are helpful for SEO. There’s a correlation between unlinked brand mentions and direct traffic. The more unlinked brand mentions your website has, the more natural traffic it will generate. All of this direct traffic will increase engagement on your website. More users will interact with your website, and search engines may give your site higher rankings.

Direct traffic consists of users who visit your website by typing its URL in a web browser. Referral traffic consists of users who click a link to your website. It involves clicks from external websites, whereas direct traffic involves URL type-ins.

Users may learn about your website from unlinked brand mentions. First, they’ll see your website’s name, which may cause them to visit it directly. Next, users may type your website’s URL in their web browser. Alternatively, some users may search Google for the mentioned brand name, after which they may click a link to your website. Regardless, unlinked brand mentions will increase traffic and, thus, engagement on your website.

Brand Mentions and Authority

Brand mentions increase authority. Linked brand mentions pass quantifiable authority. Search engines can calculate the value of a linked brand mention with their algorithms, which they’ll use to rank your website. While unlinked brand mentions are processed differently by search engines, they also pass authority.

Several years ago, Google filed a patent for a new ranking methodology. Known as the Panda patent, it focused on implied links. Implied links are essentially unlinked brand mentions. They reference a website or online resource by mentioning it. Based on the Panda patent, Google may use brand mentions to calculate search rankings.

Local Search Rankings

Cultivating more brand mentions may help your website rank for local searches. If you own or operate a local business, you should optimize your business’s website for local SEO. Brand mentions are a local SEO factor. Search engines use them to calculate rankings for local searches.

A report published by BrightLocal found that customer reviews are one of the top local SEO factors for both the Local Pack and Google’s standard search results. This is because customer reviews are brand mentions. Each customer who publishes a review about your business online will create a brand mention. As Google discovers these customer reviews, it may give your website higher local rankings.

Positive sentiment in brand mention

Another way brand mentions affect search rankings is by projecting positive sentiment. The sentiment is how users feel about your website. It can be positive, or it can be damaging. For example, if users enjoy your website and perceive it as being valuable or helpful, they may talk about your site in a positive manner.

Users often share their thoughts about websites on message boards, forums, and social media networks. You can build positive sentiment for your website by focusing on users’ experiences. As long as users have a positive experience, they should praise your website. Users may comment on message boards, forums, or social media networks praising your website.

Search engines will notice users’ positive sentiment toward your website. According to Awario, sentiment is a ranking factor. Positive sentiment is a sign that users enjoy your website. Search engines want to provide their own users with a positive experience so that they may use a positive sentiment as a ranking factor.

Identify Backlink Opportunities

Brand mentions offer opportunities to build backlinks. Some brand mentions may already link to your website. You can leave these linked brand mentions alone. Instead, look for unlinked brand mentions.

You may be able to convert some of your website’s unlinked brand mentions into linked brand mentions. For instance, if you encounter an unlinked brand mentioned in a blog post, contact the blogger to request a backlink. Most bloggers will oblige to continue to cite your website in their blog posts.

Before you can convert unlinked brand mentions into linked brand mentions, you’ll need to find them. Unfortunately, unlinked backlinks aren’t always easy to find. You can use a backlink-checking tool to find linked brand mentions, but you’ll have to use a different solution to find unlinked brand mentions.

You can find unlinked brand mentions manually by searching for your website’s brand name and variations of it on Google. A more straightforward solution, however, is to use a brand monitoring service. Brand monitoring services are designed to scan the internet for mentions of your website’s brand. So, for example, you can use a brand monitoring service to track the number of linked and unlinked brand mentions your website has, and you can use it to find the URLs where those brand mentions are published.

There are two sides to SEO: on-page and off-page. Only performing on-page SEO is a recipe for failure. It would be best if you covered both sides of the SEO coin. Off-page SEO includes brand mentions. Brand mentions affect search rankings through contextual backlinks, direct traffic, authority, local SEO, positive sentiment, and backlink opportunities.