Brand mentions are more than just conversations — they’re powerful signals that can boost your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and online authority. Whether in social media, blogs or customer reviews, these references to your business can influence how search engines perceive your brand’s relevance and trustworthiness.
In this guide, we cover the following topics to uncover how brand mentions impact SEO:
• Brand Mentions: A Quick Overview
• What Is a Brand Mention for SEO?
• What Makes Google Interested in Implied or Unliked Brand Mentions?
• Brand Mentions and Building Domain Authority and Trustworthiness
• How To Gain More Brand Mentions for SEO: 6 Strategies Worth Exploring
• Don’t Forget To Monitor Brand Mentions
Brand Mentions: A Quick Overview
A brand mention happens when people talk about your company, product or brand online. These mentions can appear in social media posts, blogs, news articles or reviews.
Tracking these mentions is important for a business as they reflect how people feel about a brand.
There are two types of brand mentions:
1. Linked mentions are when your business is mentioned with a clickable link to your website. These pass along “link equity” — a positive signal to search engines that your site is trusted — making it valuable for improving your website’s ranking.
2. Unlinked mentions, on the other hand, refer to instances when your brand is mentioned without a clickable link. While they don’t provide the same immediate SEO boost, unlinked brand mentions still help raise brand awareness and show search engines that people are talking about your brand.
Where Brand Mentions Occur
As introduced earlier, mentions of your brand can occur across various online platforms. Each offers different insights and opportunities for you to track public perception:
• Social Media: Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok are prime spots for brand mentions, whether users tag your brand directly or reference it indirectly.
• Blogs, News and Articles: Brand mentions in blog posts, news articles and online publications add context to how your brand is discussed in formal settings. Securing “follow” links used to be the primary goal, but as you’ll learn later, unlinked mentions themselves now hold significant value for improving SEO.
• Forums and Discussion Boards: Reddit, Quora and other discussion forums are increasingly prominent in search engine results, making them essential platforms for tracking brand mentions. Discussions on these platforms often provide detailed, candid feedback from users.
• Online Reviews and Feedback Platforms: Sites like Yelp, Google Reviews and TripAdvisor are dedicated spaces where customers can leave feedback about their experiences with your brand. Mentions here can significantly impact purchasing decisions.
What Is a Brand Mention for SEO?
Brand mentions for SEO trace back to Google’s 2012 patent that introduced the concept of an “implied link.”
Unlike a traditional hyperlink, an implied link is a reference or citation to a resource that is not a direct, clickable link. The patent explains that a resource can be the target of an implied link without users being able to navigate to it directly. This description aligns with the idea of a brand mention as a non-link reference.
What Makes Google Interested in Implied or Unlinked Brand Mentions?
Google aims to display the most naturally popular and relevant sites on its search engine results pages (SERPs). When people talk about your brand (whether through news articles, social media or online forums), the search engine sees these as signals of authority, trust and influence.
These unlinked mentions serve as organic endorsements, reflecting authentic discussions about your brand without the manipulative practices often associated with link-building strategies.
Brand Mentions and Building Domain Authority and Trustworthiness
In the past, Google primarily used backlinks to assess the reputation and relevance of websites, rewarding those with links from reputable sources. This led to widespread link building strategies. However, updates like Penguin and Fred penalized manipulative practices like spammy or paid links, making link building harder and less reliable.
While backlinks remain valuable, unlinked brand mentions have become increasingly important for building trust and domain authority.
In 2016, Bing confirmed that it incorporates unlinked mentions into its ranking algorithm, stating that they can be as impactful as backlinks in some cases. Google followed suit, with its representatives acknowledging that unlinked mentions of high-quality content positively influence rankings.
This shift highlights that backlinks are no longer the sole factor in improving search engine rankings, with unlinked mentions playing a growing role in boosting domain authority and trustworthiness.
How To Gain More Brand Mentions for SEO: 6 Strategies Worth Exploring
While brand mentions may happen naturally, relying on them alone won’t maximize your visibility.
Here are six essential strategies you can explore to proactively encourage brand mentions and support your SEO efforts:
1. Grow Your Social Media Presence
Social media has become the primary hub for digital interactions today, where users share opinions, feedback and discussions. The more people engage with your brand (through comments, shares and references), the higher the likelihood of generating brand mentions.
To boost mentions, focus on increasing engagement through these strategies:
Use Trending Hashtags
Leveraging trending and relevant hashtags can significantly extend your content’s reach, attracting more attention and interaction from a broader audience.
Create a Hashtag Campaign
Launch a unique hashtag campaign to encourage user-generated content (UGC). This turns your followers into brand advocates, boosting visibility across platforms like X and TikTok by helping spread the word about your brand.
2. Run Brand Awareness Ads
Brand awareness ads on platforms like Google, Facebook and Instagram expand your brand’s reach by targeting a broad and relevant audience. These ads target relevant users who may not yet be familiar with your products or service.
Get started with successful awareness ads with these guidelines:
• Know Your Audience: Understand their preferences, needs and pain points to create relevant ads.
• Use Compelling Visuals: Use eye-catching images, videos or graphics that communicate your message effectively.
• Write Clear and Concise Copy: Use simple language and focus on the benefits of your product or service.
• Test and Optimize: Monitor the performance of your ads and make adjustments as needed to improve their effectiveness.
3. Create Shareable Content
Creating shareable content is essential for increasing brand mentions and online visibility. High-quality, engaging content encourages people to share, ultimately promoting your brand and building credibility and trust.
The question is — how do you create content that encourages sharing?
• Know Your Audience: Tailor your content to their preferences.
• Be Informative and Entertaining: Provide value through education, insights or humor.
• Use visuals: Include eye-catching images or videos to boost engagement.
• Make It Easy To Share: Add social sharing buttons to encourage your audience to share your content.
• Monitor Trends: Create content around popp style=”padding-left: 40px;”ar topics for greater relevance.
4. Try Guest Blogging for Related Industries
Guest blogging is an effective strategy that goes beyond just gaining backlinks. Writing for reputable sites within your industry helps you reach new audiences by sharing high-quality content tailored to their needs. It not only boosts brand SEO but also enhances your visibility and credibility.
Focus on crafting informative, engaging posts for well-established platforms to maximize this approach. Doing so can lead to valuable linked mentions, increased traffic and organic brand discussions. Quality content on suitable sites positions your brand as an authority, encouraging readers to share and mention your business across the web.
5. Interact on Forums
Interacting on forums may seem old-school, but platforms like Reddit and LinkedIn groups are still valuable in increasing brand mentions by fostering discussions around your brand.
Here are some tips to gain more brand mentions through them:
• Add Value to Conversations: Avoid self-promotion. Instead, focus on contributing helpful information and engaging thoughtfully in discussions. Doing so builds trust and encourages organic mentions of your brand.
• Choose Relevant Forums: Participate in industry-related forums where your target audience is active. Consistent, meaningful contributions boost your visibility and help establish your brand as a thought leader.
• Optimize for Search Engines: Use relevant keywords naturally in your content to improve discoverability. Well-crafted forum posts can also rank in search engines, indirectly enhancing your online visibility.
6. Use Customers’ Testimonials
Customer testimonials are powerful for encouraging mentions and improving brand SEO.
Here’s how to make the most of them:
• Optimize Testimonial Pages: Create SEO-optimized testimonial pages so they appear in search results. As these reviews gain visibility, more customers can be encouraged to discuss your brand, boosting organic mentions.
• Use Structured Data Markup: Implement schema markup to enable testimonials to appear as rich snippets. The more prominent your reviews appear, the more likely they are to be mentioned across your platforms.
• Share Testimonials Across Platforms: Post customer feedback on social media, newsletters and blogs. This strategy multiplies touchpoints where others can see, share and mention your brand’s positive feedback.
• Engage With Reviews: Responding to customer testimonials keeps conversations active and encourages more engagement, leading to additional mentions.
These strategies can help amplify the visibility and reach of your testimonials, generating more organic brand mentions and strengthening your SEO efforts.
Don’t Forget To Monitor Brand Mentions
Monitoring brand mentions is essential for improving brand SEO and managing your brand’s reputation.
When you consistently track brand mentions, you can respond promptly to feedback, handle potential PR crises and gauge customer sentiment. This gives you valuable insights into how your business is perceived, allowing you to adjust strategies, engage with your audience and stay ahead of competitors.
There are several tools you can use to track brand mentions effectively:
Google Alerts
This free, easy-to-use tool sends email notifications whenever your selected keywords are mentioned online.
While it’s primarily web-based and doesn’t track social media, it’s a great starting point for monitoring mentions without costs. Simply enter the keywords or phrases you want to monitor, and you’ll receive alerts whenever they’re discussed.
SocialMention.com
This is another free tool that aggregates content from social platforms, blogs and forums. It also provides sentiment analysis and identifies influencers, giving you a broader view of how your brand is discussed online, helping with SEO efforts.
Mention
The tool monitors mentions across various sources, including social media, blogs and forums. With features like real-time alerts, sentiment analysis and detailed reporting, Mention is ideal for managing brand mentions efficiently.
Don’t Just Be Mentioned — Lead the Discussion With Thrive Local
Staying on top of references to your brand is essential for building your online reputation and improving your search visibility. Whether through social media, articles or reviews, these mentions influence how both search engines and customers perceive your brand.
By understanding the impact of linked and unlinked mentions and proactively encouraging more discussions around your brand, you can strengthen your authority and drive long-term SEO success.
Ready to take control of your brand’s online reputation? Thrive Local offers the tools you need to track brand mentions and online reviews, giving you control over the narrative and helping you build trust with your audience.
Don’t let the conversation happen without you — schedule a free demo today to see how automated reputation management solutions can elevate your brand’s visibility and ensure you’re always part of the discussion.
