Brand Mentions And SEO: How Mentions Build Authority For Your Small Business
Anything people say about your brand online matters to your visibility and SEO performance. This varies from Reddit threads to social media to your business name being mentioned in a blog post.
In this article, we’ll discuss what brand mentions are, the correlation between brand mentions and SEO, the difference between mentions and backlinks, how search engines detect these mentions, strategies to earn brand mentions, how to find, track and analyze brand mentions, and how to leverage brand mentions to improve SEO performance.
If you’re interested in improving your rankings outside your website, I’d recommend you reading my full off-page SEO guide.
Table of Contents
What Are Brand Mentions?
A brand mention is when someone writes about your brand on a blog, social media, or a forum. Even if the mention isn’t a clickable link, it shows your brand is talked about online. You can see brand mentions as digital word of mouth.
There are three kinds of brand mentions:
- Linked Mentions: Mentions that include a clickable link directly to your website.
- Unlinked Mentions: Mentions that include your brand name without a clickable link to your website.
- Implied Mentions: These are mentions that don’t include your brand name, but imply it is about your brand. (Most of the time, they describe your brand or product)
The Correlation Between Brand Mentions And SEO
When people are talking about your brand online, it sends a signal to search engines that your brand is recognized and trusted. The more brand mentions you get, the more search engines start seeing you as an authority in your niche.
It helps algorithms understand that your business is active, relevant, and worth paying attention to. That’s why brand mentions and SEO go hand in hand, it builds credibility without needing a backlink every time. A consistent online presence is key here.
The Difference Between Brand Mentions And Backlinks
There is a difference between brand mentions and backlinks. Brand mentions reference your brand online, linked or unlinked. Backlinks, on the other hand, are always a clickable link from another website to a page on your website.
They both have an impact on SEO, but there is a difference. Brand mentions show search engines that your brand is trustworthy and relevant. Backlinks improve your website’s authority with SEO value. A little side note, a linked brand mention also has SEO value to build authority.
Backlinks improve your rankings directly and can be measured with traditional SEO tools. So, you definitely should focus on building links to your website. Brand mentions focuse on your brand’s reputation. To measure these, you require other tools specific to brand mentions.
How Search Engines Detect Brand Mentions
Search engines constantly crawl websites, social media, articles, reviews, etc. scanning the text for names, products, and company details. When your business name appears online, they see that your business exists and that people are talking about it online.
To understand brand mentions, search engines use natural language processing to read the words around your brand name. This way, they can read the context around it. This tells them what you do, what you offer, and which searches you should appear for.
Apart from that, search engines connect brand mentions to their internal Knowledge Graph. This is like a detailed profile of your business. Each new mention gets added to your profile. Positive brand mentions make your profile stronger and more reliable.
A reference from a respected, authoritative website in your industry carries more weight than a random spammy website.
I mentioned above that consistency matters as search engines check patterns in how often and where your brand gets mentioned. They measure frequency, sentiment, and the places across the web where your name gets mentioned. This pattern makes AI search tools more confident to include you in their answers. This directly ties brand mentions and SEO together for stronger visibility.
Strategies To Earn Brand Mentions
Position yourself as an expert with valuable content
To earn positive, genuine brand mentions, you start by creating content that is helpful and gives the reader unique insights. People will recognize your expertise and reference your brand. Focus on creating practical guides, case studies, or how-to articles that solve real problems. The more you educate your audience and provide real value, the more they’ll talk about it online and recommend you.
Engage in community discussions
Don’t wait for people to talk about your brand. Search for it actively by getting involved in relevant discussions. Join conversations on Reddit, Quora, Facebook-groups, niche blogs, etc. By sharing honest advice and answering questions, you build a reputation as an expert.
This organic engagement often leads others to mention your brand name or link to your content. Consistent participation in these community discussions, shows that your business is present, active, and trusted within your niche.
Build relationships with content creators
Collaboration is one of the fastest ways to grow brand mentions and SEO authority. Reach out to trustworthy people in your niche, like bloggers, podcasters, and influencers. Offer to collaborate with guest posts, interviews, or expert roundups that bring actual value to both audiences.
When other respected people trust your input, they naturally highlight your brand across their platforms.
Encourage people to leave reviews
Online reviews are one of the most powerful ways to indicate to real people and search engines that your brand is trustworthy and respected. Encourage happy customers to share a review on Google or other review platforms.
Make it as simple and easy as possible for them to do this with limited effort. All these reviews will reinforce your brand authority in the long run.
Host or sponsor an event
Events, whether you host or sponsor them, are excellent opportunities to earn organic brand mentions. By hosting webinars, workshops, or sponsoring community events, you put your brand out there in front of engaged audiences.
Attendees and/or organizers often mention your brand on social media like Instagram stories or in their recaps.
How To Find, Track and Analyze Brand Mentions
Finding brand mentions
You can start finding brand mentions with Google search itself. Use your brand name with quotation marks, like “MVDMedia”, and check the search results. You can also add “-site:yoursite” to exclude your own website. Additionally, you can add “review” to spot mentions in articles.
Another great idea is to set up Google Alerts for your brand, it also emails you new mentions automatically. Use incognito mode to avoid biased results.
Tracking brand mentions
As mentioned above, Google Alerts will send you emails when your brand gets mentioned. Apart from Google Alerts, use Mention or Awario for social media and blogs, they track across platforms.
Check weekly volume and sources. This way, you stay ahead of conversations easily.
Analyzing for your SEO strategy
Look at mention sources first, high-authority websites boost SEO the most. Then, check sentiment: positive ones build trust, while negative ones need responses. Turn unlinked mentions into backlinks by doing outreach politely.
You build authority step by step, improving brand mentions and SEO naturally.
Strategies To Leverage Brand Mentions
1. Convert to backlinks
If you find unlinked brand mentions – mentions without a clickable link – reach out to them politely. Ask them to add a link to your site. This will boost your website’s authority and improve your rankings as they’re seen as signs of trust in the eyes of search engines.
Keep your outreach emails short and express gratitude for already mentioning your brand. Offer value. If only 10% of the people say yes, you’ll gain some powerful backlinks.
2. Repurpose into PR and content
If you see positive brand mentions, share them on your social channels and create case studies from positive reviews. You can never have and share enough positive experiences from people.
Turn mentions into blog posts or infographics. Pitch them to journalists for PR wins, this will make people talk even more about your business. If your audience, or even new people see social proof, you build trust effortlessly.
3. Integrate mention tracking insights into your SEO strategy
You track brand mentions daily with Google Alerts or other SEO tools. Spot trends early in who talks about you. Use these insights in your SEO content plan. Write about active, hot topics from those mentions. Align with what people are already talking about.
Adjust your strategy around these signals. This way, you stay relevant and authoritative.
