It’s that time of the month where we delve deeper into the misunderstood world of SEO. This month we will be taking a closer look at brand mentions and how these can positively impact your SEO.
There are lots of different ways your brand can be mentioned online, for example being featured in a blog post, included in a comment on a forum or mentioned on a social media platform. Part of Google’s algorithm for determining search results is called ‘Panda’ and in a patent filed for Panda, Google mentioned that ‘implied links’ are used as a calculating factor. An implied link by Google’s definition is a link that cannot be followed, in other words a mention of a brand name that doesn’t necessarily include the url of the brand website (the inclusion of the url would mean this was a backlink to your site).
Google and other search engines think that if users are talking about your brand online this is a positive thing and an indication of your brands popularity and the attention it is being paid by users online.
It can be tricky to know when users are talking about you online but on quick and free tool you can use is Google Alerts. To set a Google Alert visit the Google Alerts Website and pop your brand name into the alerts search bar at the top of the screen. Once you have added your brand name select ‘Show Options’ and then you can adjust your settings such as how frequently the alerts are sent to you as well as filtering the results by country and selecting the email address to send the alerts too. Whilst this won’t be able to track mentions on Social Media, this will help you to find out if blogs and other websites are talking about your brand.
If this is something you are very conscious of as a business, there are paid for services that can help you to monitor mentions across the web including social media platforms but as a free and easy first step we think Google Alerts is the best option!