Search is changing. While the organic SERPs (search engine results pages) are still important, AI (artificial intelligence) search and features like AI Overviews are here to stay. This means that traditional trust signals are changing, for both regular search rankings and AI discoverability.
This is where brand mentions SEO comes in. Brand mentions are when your business name, services, products, or website are mentioned on third-party sites. Sometimes they come with a hyperlink to your website, and other times they don’t.
The good news? Even without a link, brand mentions send strong online reputation signals to Google and AI models that you’re credible and relevant. All of this helps to improve AI visibility for inclusion in summaries and boost your organic SEO rankings.
Contextual brand mentions that come with a positive sentiment surrounding your business strengthen entity recognition for Google and AI machines. It helps search engines and AI models understand your brand and how it connects to the wider world more easily. Again, this packs a punch when it comes to growing brand authority in AI search and traditional search engines.
Want to know more? Our expert Click Intelligence team spills the beans on building an effective brand mentions strategy for better results right here.
What Are Brand Mentions and Why They Matter
Brand mentions for SEO are any time that your brand, products, or website is talked about online. It could be a news article, blog, podcast, directory, review, social media post, or any other online content. They can help boost your traditional SEO and AI SEO visibility, even when they don’t come with a backlink! How? Google classes these mentions as implied linksHyperlinks, also known as links, are the connection points on a webpage that take you to other webpages..
Linked and unlinked brand mentions from relevant, high-authority websites are vital for both search engines and AI. When credible sources are talking about your brand, it strengthens Google’s E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) signals, which is great for rankings. It’s also a win for AI models, as they view brand mentions as a form of social proof that your brand and content are worth summarising in responses.
Contextual brand recognition is an essential factor for both search engines and AI, as it helps them understand more about your brand and the sorts of queries to show it for. Brand mentions help bolster both Google’s and AI’s impression of your business and its place within the context of your industry and the world.
How Brand Mentions Influence Search & AI Visibility
Mentions from numerous high-quality sources can enhance your visibility in the organic SERPs and AI summaries and responses. There are a few reasons for this:
- Brand mentions help connect entities: Entity-based SEO is all about improving how search engines and AI connect certain themes and topics. This can result in higher rankings for traditional search. For AI search visibility, quality brand mentions strengthen knowledge graphThe Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base that Google uses to organize information. signals. Knowledge graphs are how machines organise the information they use in responses and summaries, so inclusion here is vital for better visibility.
- Brand mentions improve trust: Brand trust metrics are a vital factor for search engines and AI. Every time a quality and relevant third-party website mentions your brand, it increases trust in your brand. This translates into giving you higher contextual authority, meaning your content is more likely to rank better or be included in AI summaries.
- Brand mentions appear directly in AI summaries: High-quality brand mentions in top industry directories or relevant listicles increase your chances of having your brand name featured in AI summaries for relevant queries, as it positions you as a figure of authority, which is a massive win for brand mentions AI SEO.
The SEO Benefits of Building Brand Mentions
The SEO benefits of brand mentions are vast. For a start, brand mentions act as fantastic credibility signals for search engines and AI. Remember what we said about them being like a form of social proof? The more buzz there is about your business and the more publications that name-drop your brand in their content, the better your search engine and AI discoverability will be. That’s called brand visibility growth.
Think of brand mentions a bit like authority link building, which is definitely the case when there is a link attached to a mention! It helps to raise your domain authority, meaning your organic rankings will get a boost. All this translates into higher user trust in return. When users trust you, they’re more likely to turn to you in the future or buy your products or services, which is good for your return on investment (ROI)The ROI is the ratio of the return from an investment to the cost of the investment..
How to Earn High-Value Brand Mentions
So, you know the benefits of them, but how do you earn brand mentions? Through a combination of the following:
Digital PR Campaigns
A digital PR strategy can help you secure precious exposure for your brand. Using a mix of PR and SEO tactics, like advanced brand mentions link buildingLink building is a process of acquiring links pointing to your website. These links are obtained by creating content, participating in social media or commenting on other blogs. and journalist outreach, can help you get features, articles, and interviews published in top-quality online publications. Contextual media mentions in editorials, reviews, and industry listicles validate entities for AI and traditional search engines. In other words, digital PR for AI SEO and traditional search is a non-negotiable if you want your brand to stay relevant.
Become a Thought Leader
Creating your own original, quality content that offers fresh insight into your industry helps position you as a thought leader. When people realise that your content is interesting and offers something new, they’ll shout about it, whether that’s in a blog, on social media, or in a forum. When they link to you, that’s some authority publication links you’ll be earning there, too.
Use Structured Data
Using structured data, or schema markup, search engines and AI better understand your content. From product pages, event listings, or FAQ sections, structured data also raises your chances of being included in AI responses.
Best Practices & Pitfalls to Avoid
There’s a right and wrong way to go about building brand mentions.
Brand Mention Best Practices and What To Avoid
- Diversify mentions: Having a diverse collection of brand mentions is better for your search and SEO visibility, so try to aim for this when building your campaign. Too many of the same type of brand mention can appear spammy and have the opposite effect.
- Aim for natural mentions: It’s all about getting the balance right between brand mention quality vs quantity. Mentions need to appear as natural, whether that’s ensuring the publication mentioning you is relevant or simply gaining natural mentions through your brand being shared organically because you have top content and products.
- Don’t ignore negative brand mentions: Always acknowledge brand mentions that have negative connotations. A bit like how you wouldn’t ignore negative reviews or comments.
- Avoid spammy outreach: When reaching out to publications for brand mentions, take a highly personalised approach for increased success. A one-size-fits-all approach will not cut it.
- Don’t forget context: The context around brand mentions is essential. That’s why you need to make sure that you’re mentioned in highly relevant content, as this strengthens search engine and AI understanding of your business.
Future Trends: Brand Mentions in the Age of AI
Traditional and AI SEO are evolving rapidly. While keywords and backlinks are still important, the future of brand signals relies on how AI models and search engines connect entities. It would not be surprising if this marks a shift towards entity-first indexing eventually. That’s where brand mentions will be really important as they help AI models and search engines understand concepts better, which will boost traditional and AI-driven search visibility. Want to increase your entity authority and future-proof your SEO strategy? Book a call with our helpful team today.
