Make your brand front-of-mind in any conversation online

Ashley says: “Treat SEO as more of a brand-building activity.

Look beyond the traditional KPIs of visibility and towards making your brand the preferred choice in any conversation that's relevant to you.

That will make you front of mind and grow your brand awareness and brand presence.”

Are you aiming to build the number of searches for your brand and increase organic branded traffic?

“Exactly. The growth of brand search is a really interesting conversation at the moment. At a time when we're seeing traffic from organic search start to drop, and AIO and other LLM platforms coming for website traffic, brand search gives us a great opportunity to retain that traffic.

When people are specifically coming and searching for you, they are undoubtedly going to land on your website because they're closer to the point of conversion, or the point of action.

Growing that brand search – growing the number of people that are searching for you with not just your brand term, but ‘brand term + important/relevant search term’ – is going to be really important.”

Are increased brand searches on other platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and LLMs impacted by SEO activities?

“We're very much platform agnostic. Our SEO doesn't just cover traditional search engines; we are looking at opportunities on TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest and all of the emerging platforms that are now part of the search journey.

If an audience is searching for a solution, a problem, or a pain point on that platform, can we conduct SEO activity on there (that we would have traditionally done via blogs/PLPs on our website) to grow that brand awareness, presence, and preference?”

Do you also measure organic discoverability as opposed to the number of searches?

“If we've established that there's a 10% increase in branded search volume this month (based on the activity that we've conducted across TikTok, YouTube, or whatever), we're then looking at what that has translated into.

What destinations have we moved people to? Which PLPs or blog pages? We're definitely more concerned with moving people to pages that are closer to the point of conversion, so we are primarily looking at those key decision-making PLP landing pages.

Measuring when someone reaches one of those pages from a platform like TikTok can be tricky. On certain platforms, you can deploy UTM links, which is great. On others, you are leaning on users mentioning specific creators at the point of conversion. If someone has discovered the brand because a TikTok creator mentioned them, we're calling that out with CRM activity post-purchase or at the point of conversion.

Obviously, direct attribution from a specific TikTok video to a PLP is tougher, but that's where we lean on growth in brand search as the middle destination. A user sees a video on TikTok, and they then go and conduct a Google or Bing search for ‘brand + the topic that was mentioned in that video’. If we see an increase in that, we have a good hypothesis that it's come on the back of that social search activity.”

Should all SEOs be embracing UTMs?

“I wouldn't go out on a limb and say that all SEOs should be embracing them. It works for us when we're working with content creators who are able to incorporate those links, and when we're trying to gain features in listicles and affiliate-like publications.

If it fits your needs and your reporting goals, then absolutely. We've found huge benefits there. However, it has to fit the needs of the account and the client.”

If you have a trackable link on a different platform, can that have a positive organic/ranking benefit on traditional search engines?

“Obviously, from the Google leaks that we've had over the last 18 months, we've started to realise that engagement is a good signal to send to Google, which is going to facilitate further improved rankings across your site.

If we can drive brand search and brand search engagement, that's only going to have a positive impact on the rest of your website's rankings and visibility. We do say to brands that, if you're able to drive these brand searches, it will facilitate non-brand visibility improvements.

The value of a number one ranking or a number one visibility piece of content on a traditional SERP is declining. Many SEOs are starting to recognise that, due to organic listings continually getting pushed down the SERP.

The SERP is almost becoming too competitive, so use your discovery across other platforms to drive these brand searches, where it’s going to be easier for you to own the conversation.”

How do you encourage more people to search for your brand?

“For us, it's by handling and owning that discovery stage across the various platforms that make up a search journey.

First, we establish which platforms our specific audience expects brands to show up on. For fashion brands, that would almost always be TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and arguably YouTube Shorts. Once you've established that they are the platforms you need to be surfaced on and have a voice within, you ideate content that's at the top to middle-of-funnel. It's earning those discovery layer conversations. Within the fashion space, that would be fit checks, flat layers on Pinterest, and how to style a hoodie, for example.

When you own that stage and have inspired users by putting your brand's products at the heart of that discovery, that's going to lead to a Google search for that hoodie. Conversions are still very likely to take place back on the website at the moment, so that brand search needs to happen for a conversion to occur.”

What content do you want to be displayed in LLMs, and how can you control that or measure the impact and value of it happening?

“There are two ways to look at this: there’s right now, and there's where we expect AI and LLMs to go.

Right now, you want your brand to be served in all the publications where audiences will look for those brand mentions. If that’s ‘The Best Streetwear Brand of 2026, or ‘The Best SaaS Tools of 2026’ for a given pain point, you need to be earning your brand's presence within those listicles. That way, you are more likely to be cited and referenced within the AI and LLM responses to queries. That is where attention should be in the short term, because those listicles are what is being scraped and served.

For the future, I can’t look past agentic search. I think that it's going to be very personalised. Whichever search engine ultimately wins the battle, it will have ultra-awareness of what content you've engaged with across platforms, your typical user journey, your preferences, and your personal choices, and it will serve results based on what you've enjoyed in the past – almost like a mini social media algorithm.

At that point, it's very much about getting your brand out to users as quickly and as early as you can in the user journey, so that the agentic model learns that they enjoy your content or your products.”

What does increased personalisation mean from a tracking perspective, and what data will be available on the queries people are likely to ask in LLMs?

“There has been a shift. For the longest time, we’ve had search volume and keywords, and we’ve been able to cluster those keywords into topics. That is going to start to dwindle, and our ability to track those searches is going to dwindle as well.

The way that I may prompt an AI and LLM will be completely different to the way you or another brand's user may prompt that AI. We are going to have key pain points that will be served in many different prompts, and we'll be looking to earn those key phrases – almost like long tail keywords. It'll be about owning those.

That may become a search volume conversation (we may be able to get search volumes for those queries specifically), but if not, it'll be leaning on your brand team, your internal team, and your internal comms to understand your specific customers' pain points and meet those needs. You may have to base that on surveys, CRM responses, and things like interviews with your persona profiles.”

You say that improved brand presence can act as a proxy for trust development and relevance in conversations, but how do you measure the value of improved trust?

“Again, that's not just going to be a conversation for the SEO team; that’s where the SEO team can start to lean on the social team a little bit. We've got social listening tools, which are going to help with those sentiment values that we're seeing in comments and in general interactions.

You’ll be able to lean on the customer service team to say, ‘Talk to me about how customers view our brand, and how you’re seeing that,’ then combine all of those facets to come up with a single solution on how people perceive your brand.

In terms of AI and LLMs, the most trusted brands will be the most cited and most referenced. That will be a signal that you are trusted within ChatGPT, Perplexity, or whatever platform. On Google search, it will be the same for AI Mode, featured snippets, and then the traditional SERP – if that exists in and beyond 2026.”

How can SEOs harness the power of offline activities to positively impact brand searches and drive organic branded traffic?

“Certain TV ads have started to recognise that opportunity; as the CTA at the end of a television ad, they'll encourage people to search for the brand. eBay is a really good example, where they were encouraging users to go and search for ‘eBay pre-loved’. That moves people from TV into that search journey, and that brand search specifically.

In physical stores, you could deploy store activations that encourage people to head online to discover certain things. At the end of the day, there's only so much floor space in stores. You can't put every lookbook onto your storefront, but you can put a call-to-action that encourages users to brand search or head to the website to then see an extended lookbook or an extended breakdown of why this hoodie is the hoodie for you.

I think it will be in that call-to-action model. Instead of just getting people to sign up to a newsletter or head on to the website, it will be to go and take a brand search.

There's no reason why brand search as a KPI can't also be deployed for physical activations. Whether you've done a pop-up store, a London Underground activation, or been at a conference handing out merchandise, if you then see an uplift in brand search, that starts to become an insight into success.

If your brand is usually searched for 1,000 times a month, then you do that type of activity and, in the month following, you're searched for 1,300/1,400 times, that's an indicator of success. It means more people have seen your activations, they've taken note, and then they've searched for your brand.

I don't see why brand search can't be deployed as a KPI for offline activity as well as search activity.”

Ashley, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“Lean on brand, lean on social, and lean on search at different times.

Historically, we've been very siloed teams. Break down those barriers. Work alongside your brand team and your social team. With your search team at the core, treat SEO, search, and those aforementioned activities as a brand-building exercise – together, as a single digital unit.”

Ashley Liddell is Search Everywhere Director and Founder at Deviation. Find out more over at WeAreDeviation.co.uk.