Branded Vs. Non-Branded Keywords
How Branded Keywords Affect Your Dealership Website
Sifting through keywords is an important part of the digital marketing workflow for any business, but it is especially important for your website and Pay Per Click strategy. While any website can have thousands of keywords that are used to find it, being able to tell which ones are branded and which ones are generic is important to your dealership’s strategy and product. Branded keywords are words that customers use on search engines to find your site when they are specifically trying to find your dealership. Generic keywords can be any other words that people use to find your site – or the products and services you offer – on a search engine. People don’t always know a URL, so they often will search for the brand, or a variation of it, and that is where branded keywords come in.
How Are Branded Keywords Different?
Customers that search using a branded keyword are obviously looking for your website, but do so through a search engine. Whether they find this organically (which they should) or through PPC, the customer reaches the website by use of your brand or name. Branded searches are usually the majority of your top 10 keywords on any given automotive site and make up a lot of visits… but just how important are they?
Is a Branded Keyword or a Generic Keyword Better?
There is no definitive answer to this question, but here at DealerFire in the Digital Marketing department, our job is to build up your generic keywords so that people that are searching for cars can find your website more easily. Most car dealerships do a great job of building their personal brand through traditional media advertising, social media, blogging, community events and more, but generic keywords are what bring people to your website that may not have found it otherwise. Both branded and generic keywords are important, and if you are implementing a healthy balance in your digital marketing, you should see an increase in search traffic stemming from both.
Should I Buy My Own Brand Name in PPC?
We have battled this question here at DealerFire on multiple occasions and the answer is not always the same for everyone. Ideally, a dealership won’t have to buy their own name because they will rank in the first several spots on Google for that search term and the likelihood is that customers will click on an organic result. However, there are many stores that buy others’ brand names to rank higher in the paid results at the top. Buying your own name can eliminate your competitors from the top, but it costs more to buy your name and you need to ask yourself if that price for a couple clicks is really worth it.
Checking your progress of both branded and generic keywords in your analytics is a very important step to tailoring the marketing strategies of your business. If you are doing very well in branded search, you may want to up your game in the generic keywords. While if your generic keywords are flourishing, you may want to pursue a better brand management and awareness campaign. The experts here at DealerFire can help make sure that you have a healthy balance of both and will be able to separate your search keywords in analytics to see what you can improve on.
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