Edited by Emilie Martin

We know brands matter. And Google knows brands matter. In fact, it could be argued that brand awareness, equity, and authority are becoming increasingly important in the ever-changing world of search. But how do we, as marketers, measure and track the concept of “brand” in a way that can help us tell a story about growth and opportunity?

Brand Authority^TM

When it comes to measuring the total strength of a brand, wouldn’t it be great if there was a single-number score we could reference and compare to our competitors? Well, I have great news for you! Moz recently released an all-new metric known as Brand Authority^TM, which does just that.

Brand Authority is a score from one to 100 that takes the idea of “brand” and makes it into actionable data you can use to benchmark competitors, assess brand value, measure PR impact, and so much more. You can access this score in just a few clicks from the Domain Overview tool in Moz Pro.

Simply head to Domain Overview via the left-hand navigation menu or from the Moz Pro menu (noted under Research Tools) at the top of the page. Then, enter your domain and click Analyze. The tool will populate the Domain Authority, Page Authority, and all-new Brand Authority for the domain entered (as well as a bunch of other super helpful data).

Further down in your Domain Overview report, you can see how your Brand Authority compares to that of your top search competitors within the Competition section.

This handy chart offers a helpful visual for how you stack up next to other brands showing up in the SERPs for your ranking keywords. You can even export this entire report to PDF so you’re able to share the data with stakeholders.

Outside of your Brand Authority score, there are a few ways you can better understand your brand impact within Moz Pro. Let’s dive into how you can further complement this information.

Now that you know your Brand Authority score, how can you supplement this data with your Moz Pro Campaign? Before we dive in and explore, it’s highly recommended that you take some time to set up brand rules within your Campaign settings.

So, what are brand rules in Moz Pro, anyway? What are they used for, and why should we set them up? Within Moz Pro, brand rules allow you to set parameters for how the tool identifies and tags branded keywords within your Campaign. This also helps estimate the amount of traffic you are receiving from non-branded visits.

The first brand rule for your Moz Pro Campaign is automatically created based on the name of your Campaign at the time of creation. When going through the Campaign setup flow, you’ll be asked: What’s the name of your brand? This information will be used as the name of your Campaign and as your first brand rule, allowing the tool to start identifying your branded keywords right away.

Chose a different name for your Campaign during setup? Or need to tell the tool there are other ways to identify your brand? Have no fear! You can add or remove brand rules at any time through your Campaign settings. Head to Settings > Rankings to find Manage your brand rules. You can then create new brand rules based on how people identify your brand entity, whether that’s by product name, service, etc. For example, Apple may create a brand rule for their iPhone product.

Keep in mind, though, that brand rules should be created based on specific brand-related terms for your business. This means if your business sells cupcakes, you shouldn’t create a brand rule for the term “cupcakes,” as that is not exclusive to your brand. However, if you have a special cupcake recipe your brand is known for, like “Meghan’s super special lavender vanilla dream,” you may want to create a brand rule for that specific flavor.

Once your brand rules are set, you can then use them to filter your keyword rankings data in Moz Pro. The fantastic thing about brand rules is they will automatically label any keywords that fit the criteria of your rules with a Branded label, taking the lift off you and your team.

With the click of a button, you can now compare branded rankings and Search Visibility to non-branded. Within your Tracked Keywords Overview, use the checkboxes under Branding to see this filtered data and to update the ranking graph above.

By comparing branded vs. non-branded rankings data, you can better understand where you may have gaps in your keyword research and content strategy. If you’re ranking really well for your branded search terms but struggling to break into the top ten with your non-branded terms, this can help inform where your team should focus their efforts when creating content and additional marketing campaigns.

For even more visibility, you may want to set up a custom report that shows branded vs. non-branded rankings data. You can do so through the Moz Pro Custom Report creation flow by adding modules more than once. For example, you can filter your rankings by Branded and add in the Search Visibility graph and top ten ranking keywords module. Then, repeat the process with the Non-branded filter applied.

Once your report is complete, you can use the Schedule & Share settings to set the report to automatically generate, and email to stakeholders on a weekly or monthly cadence.

In addition to seeing branded vs. non-branded keyword rankings, setting up brand rules within your Campaign allows you to get an estimate of how much traffic your site is receiving from non-branded search terms.

To see this information, you will need to:

1. Have Google Analytics connected to your Campaign

2. Have brand rules set up within your Campaign

3. Be tracking branded keywords in your Campaign

You can then head to Site Traffic where you will see an estimated Non-Branded Keyword Visits in the Visits tab. Knowing how much traffic you are receiving from non-branded keywords can help you identify how effectively you’re representing your brand online. If the majority of your traffic is coming from branded keywords, people visiting your site are finding you via your brand name or brand-specific content. However, if you’re not seeing a lot of traffic coming in from those terms, it may be a signal that you need to work on your overall brand recognition and authority.

Finally, as a fun bonus to your research into brand impact, you can head over to our Brand Authority Archetype Quiz to find out what your Brand Authority says about your brand. By entering your domain, you’ll get the range for your Domain Authority and Brand Authority along with a fun archetype you can share with clients, stakeholders, on social media, and more. This can offer a fun visual for the strength of your brand that is memorable. Be sure to check it out now!

So there you have it! You’re now able to dive into how your brand is being represented online and make some decisions about your future content strategy. I hope you feel up to the challenge of speaking to your brand’s strength, impact, and representation to anyone who asks!