I often hear businesses say they “have good SEO” because when they perform a Google search for their business, their website pops right up in the search results. To which I reply, ” Your website better pop up in the search results when you use the business name in the search! That’s not good SEO.”

Let me explain: If your business is (hypothetically) named “The Best Carwash LLC” and you type the following into Google “The Best Carwash LLC” your website SHOULD be the first result displayed. This is called a Branded Search. People searching this term in Google already know the business name, they are just trying to get to that specific website. Leads can come from a branded search, but as a business owner, if you want to increase traffic and qualified leads, you want people to find you through “Non-Branded Search.” See the example below:

Non-Branded Search means the visitor does not know about your business specifically, but they are looking for the services or products your business provides. A Non-Branded Search for your business might look like the following: “best carwashes in (city where your biz is located)” – visitors don’t know about your business, but they want a carwash in your service area. Make sense? If your business pops up at the top of Google’s organic search results and a visitor clicks your site, then you have a qualified lead. See the example below:

Non-branded Search is what a website should be optimized for. So when we talk about SEO, the general rule of thumb is that an SEO company will optimize your website so that it appears in non-branded search results, thus increasing traffic and qualified leads. – Written by Courtney Smith, Owner of Smith and 7