Breaking the Boundaries of Branding: Harness Non-Branded Traffic for Sustainable Growth

Branding is at the core of every business, and good branding goes a long way to ensuring the success of a business. However, many businesses don’t realize that branded traffic will only get you so far, especially if you want to become the authority in a particular industry.

In the world of search, simply repeating your brand name across the internet won’t cut it. It alienates users who may want exactly what your business offers but have no idea you exist because you don’t appear for anything other than branded keywords.

This guide will teach you how to attract and nurture non-branded traffic to guide your users through the marketing funnel, converting them into loyal customers for sustained growth.

What is branded traffic?

Branded traffic refers to users who arrive at your website via keywords that contain your company, product, or service name. For example, if someone searches for ‘Levi’s jeans,’ it’s highly likely they want to buy jeans specifically from the Levi’s brand rather than browse for options from multiple competitors.

Why is branded traffic important for businesses?

Ranking for branded keywords allows you to target users who know your brand and are looking for more information. Users in this category tend to be:

• Returning customers who are familiar with the brand

• New customers who have come across your brand via other means, like a feature in the press or social media

• Fans of the brand who are looking for more information about you, possibly even comparing you with your competitors

Generally, branded traffic tends to encompass users who are in the middle or at the bottom of the marketing funnel and are, therefore, more likely to make a purchase in a shorter period of time. This traffic is incredibly lucrative and valuable to a business and should always be nurtured, as these are typically followers of your brand and, if you’re actively generating reviews, can be brand advocates who will spread the word about how good you are.

Branded traffic is also a good representation of how visible your brand is for different topics, especially if one of your goals is to increase brand awareness. It’s important to have a healthy amount of branded traffic to measure brand awareness and show that you’re a key voice within your niche.

The limitations of relying solely on branded traffic

While optimizing for branded keywords and attracting branded traffic is vital to maintaining brand awareness and is arguably easier to convert depending on the search query, many businesses believe that it’s a fully sustainable way to grow online. These businesses also overlook the wealth of opportunity laid before them.

It is true that once a business reaches a certain level of notoriety (think Apple, Gymshark, Nike), the branded traffic does a lot of the hard work for them through word-of-mouth, reviews, product roundups, social media, etc. However, there will always be someone who doesn’t know who you are, and therein lies the opportunity for growth. Relying on branded traffic assumes that everyone who wants your products knows who you are and that you sell them, but this simply isn’t true.

It’s the digital equivalent of approaching people in the street and asking if they’ve heard of your business, except the digital version is easier because you already know that the person you’re speaking to is actually looking for what you have to offer.

How? Because they entered a query that describes exactly what you provide.

Enter… non-branded keywords.

Non-branded traffic refers to users who arrive at your website via keywords that do not contain your company, product, or service name. These keywords typically describe your product or service. For example, a user might search for ‘straight-leg jeans’ when they want to browse products and don’t have a preference for a brand.

Non-branded traffic generally represents users who are at the top of the marketing funnel. They have a need they want to fulfill or a problem they need to resolve but don’t know where to go to find the solution. To continue with the previous analogy, these are the people you approached in the street and said “no” when you asked if they knew who you were.

In this scenario, would you turn around and say, “Oh ok, never mind then, have a good day”? Absolutely not, because you’d miss out on a potential sale.

You’re far more likely to explain what your business offers, and when you pique their interest, you’d demonstrate your expertise, give them a few samples or a demonstration of your product, and hopefully make a sale.

This is the opportunity that non-branded traffic has to offer, and by not harnessing that, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table.

Why is non-branded traffic essential for sustainable growth?

It’s essential to spread awareness of your brand, no matter how big it is. There’s a reason even the biggest brands continue to market themselves, and it’s because new customers are the lifeblood of every successful business.

By broadening your scope to include non-branded terms, you’ll be able to focus on acquiring new customers for all stages of the marketing funnel, which is a great way to demonstrate your expertise and Brand Authority™ in a given topic area.

A common issue that businesses face when it comes to customer acquisition is bringing customers into their ecosystem at an earlier stage of the funnel, which makes sense because it’s much easier to foster a relationship with a customer who already knows and trusts your brand before they even reach the stage of wanting to buy.

It’s easy to think that branded keywords resolve this issue, but they actually don’t, not if you want to expand your pool of opportunity in a sustainable way anyway.

Non-branded traffic comes from users who don’t know who you are, so this includes users who:

• Have a problem or need but don’t know how to fulfill it

• Know what product they want but don’t know where to find it

• Want to better understand a specific product

• Are researching a particular topic

All of these users have a shared goal: They are looking for information and want to find a website that gives them what they want.

This is why search engines exist and why you, as a company, want to rank at the top of these search engines to prove to users that you’re their best choice so you can hopefully make a sale.

Google’s mission statement encapsulates this:

“Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Search engines have no interest in selling your products; instead, they want to help their users by providing them with the information they’re searching for. If you happen to provide that information in a way that makes sense for the user, then it’s likely you’ll come out on top.

In other words, you need to deserve to rank.

Informational searches: Why your website needs to become an information resource

Your website needs to be more than a shop window to successfully appeal to users who are not aware of your brand and what you have to offer. You need to earn their trust and prove to them that you’re the best choice for them.

It’s estimated that around 80% of search queries are informational, so these users aren’t even at the buying stage of the marketing funnel yet. These are users who are looking for guidance, so your offer needs to match that user intent. These users are also far more likely to trust you if you’re the business that provides them with that guidance.

This is the easiest way to bring users into your ecosystem at an earlier stage so they can get to know your brand while they’re at the top of the funnel and conducting their research. Then, as they develop their understanding, their relationship with you strengthens as they move down the funnel so that by the time they do come to buy, it’s a no-brainer for them to pick you as their first choice.

Studies have shown that over 40% of consumers are willing to pay more for brands they trust. By turning your website into an information resource with good content that fulfills a user’s need regardless of where they are in the marketing funnel, you’re demonstrating your expertise in a way that adds value to the user and that, in turn, builds trust.

Put simply, this is how you turn non-branded traffic into branded traffic and reap the benefits of both.

Commercial searches: utilizing non-branded searches on commercial pages

It’s tempting to think that non-branded keywords have no place on commercial pages because they’re selling a product or service that is particular to your brand, but this is where some of the most lucrative traffic can be found.

Commercial pages speak to the users who know what they want but don’t necessarily know where to find it. These users are likely to search for short-tail keywords that can be branded but aren’t always, and this is where the real opportunity lies.

Let’s take the keyword ‘womens jeans.’

According to Moz’s Keyword Explorer, this term gets between 2,000 and 4,000 searches per month, which is huge.

A quick search in Google and all of the top ranking pages are product category pages.

This trumps the assumption that commercial pages need only rank for branded keywords. The great thing is that once you’re at this stage, you know the user wants what you have; now, you just need to convince them that you’re the right choice.

By not optimizing for non-branded commercial terms, you’re not capitalizing on this opportunity, and you run the risk of alienating users who want to be convinced. You end up leaving a gap that your competitors will jump into, given the chance.

To add value through non-branded keywords, you need to understand what the user is actually looking for. This should be done from a completely objective perspective; otherwise, you’ll start focusing on your brand rather than what you actually provide.

Non-branded keyword research

Non-branded keywords can be split into two categories:

• Commercial terms

• Informational terms

Both categories should be treated equally as they come with their own set of opportunities that can transform a business’ brand authority.

Commercial terms

The easiest way to find non-branded commercial terms is to simply think about what you sell. For example, if you’re a denim brand that only sells jeans, then you’ll want to start with that as your seed keyword.

Without thinking about the brands of jeans you sell, instead, think about the types of jeans you sell. Very quickly, you’ll end up with a list of non-branded keywords that describe exactly what you sell. For example:

• Skinny jeans

• Slim jeans

• Boyfriend jeans

• Ripped jeans

These will be your commercial terms, and you can confirm this with a simple Google search. If all the top-ranking pages are product category pages, then you can be pretty confident that these are commercially focused keywords.

These are the keywords you should optimize your product category pages and product pages for.

Content planning for commercial, non-branded terms

When it comes to creating content for commercial, non-branded terms, think about content that fulfills the user intent. Remember, users searching for commercial terms typically know what they want, but they don’t know where to get it from, so your content needs to help them make that decision.

For these users, you’ll want to create:

• Buyer’s guides

• Comparison guides

• Product highlights

• Review pieces

This content tends to be shorter and more to the point than informational content, but as long as it’s relevant and provides useful information, your users will appreciate it.

Informational terms

The best way to find non-branded informational terms is to think about the questions a user might ask when researching your product. For example, using the denim brand example, users might want to know how different jeans types fit. They will likely start their query with who, what, and how:

• What are boyfriend jeans?

• How do boyfriend jeans fit?

• Who are boyfriend jeans for?

There are lots of tools out there that can show you the questions people are asking about a particular topic, such as Moz’s Keyword Explorer. However, one of the easiest and often overlooked ways is to put your keyword in Google and preface it with who, what, and how and see what Google suggests.

You can also use Google’s People Also Ask feature to find more specific questions to add to the mix.

This will give you a good insight into what users are searching for within your niche and will provide you with the questions that you need to answer with informational content.

Content Planning For Informational, Non-Branded Terms

Once you have the questions that you know your target users are searching, you’ll need to create content that answers those questions in a way that is valuable, useful, and, most importantly, not sales-y.

For these users, you’ll want to create:

• Topic clusters

• Pillar guides

• How to guides

• Tutorials

Remember: These users are looking for information; they’re not looking for you to sell them your product. If you use this content to sell your product, your users will leave.

Informational content is typically evergreen content that covers a topic more broadly than commercial content, matching the user intent. The purpose of this content is to educate so you can demonstrate your expertise as a brand and nurture their interest as they move down the marketing funnel.

Tracking the success of a non-brand-focused SEO strategy is as simple as tracking your non-branded keywords. Many brands think they’re the market leader online for their key products, but take away their brand terms, and they go from an average ranking of page one to page five!

You need to determine which keywords you want to rank for outside of your brand, starting with the products you sell. Once you have these, determine the pages you want to rank for these keywords and start tracking them in a keyword ranking tool, such as in Moz Pro, so that you can monitor your progress over time.

Monitoring your average position in Google Search Console is also a great way to find out how you perform for your non-branded keywords. Filter by query, exclude your brand name, and you’ll be able to see how many Clicks and Impressions your site gets for non-branded terms. The aim is to see these numbers increase over time.

It’s important to track both branded and non-branded keywords to measure the overall growth of your business. Non-branded traffic offers a wealth of opportunity that many businesses overlook in favor of branded traffic, generally due to the belief that brand is everything.

While good branding is at the core of every successful business, capitalizing on non-branded traffic provides you with the opportunity to attract users higher up in the marketing funnel, enabling you to build trust and demonstrate expertise.

Remember, there will always be people who haven’t heard of your brand, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want what you have to offer. They’re out there asking questions and looking for guidance; you just need to be that voice that comes to their aid, which will benefit you in the long run and keep new users and customers coming in for years to come.