Many individuals might not be aware of the "Share of Search" indicator. However, this metric is special as it helps businesses establish the achievable market potential.
In addition to being simpler to manage than market share, share of search can bring performance teams and brands together.
This article will help you understand what is share of search and its measurement guidelines. Discover more in the following!
What Is Share of Search?
The amount of search inquiries for one specific brand about all the brands in a category is known as the brand's share of search.
The concept is based on the assumption that search engine queries reflect consumer interest and intent.
So, in simple meaning, it measures the relative frequency of searches for specific keywords or key phrases compared to the total number of searches within the same category or industry.
Market share and share of search are similar in many aspects. However, the share of search considers search volume and search engines as a landscape, whereas market share considers real sales or income proportions about the whole market.
How It's Different to Share of Voice
Share of Voice (SOV) and Share of Search (SOS) differ significantly in their focus and insights each provides.
Share of Voice measures a brand's advertising presence in the market relative to its competitors. It provides insights into how dominant a brand is in terms of its advertising efforts and helps inform media planning and budgeting decisions.
On the other hand, Share of Search looks at the brand's share of search engine queries compared to its competitors, reflecting how often consumers are searching for the brand online. This metric focuses on consumer interest and intent as indicated by search behavior. Share of Search can be a valuable indicator of brand health and consumer engagement.
Share of Search as a Substitute for Share of Voice
The Share of Search measure has been used as a substitute for Share of Voice. However, the two measures are based on distinct concepts and convey different values.
Although they can work well together, we shouldn't switch them out. The term "Share of Voice" refers to the amount of marketing investments made by every advertiser in a specific kind of product or sector.
Offline marketing's worth can be calculated reasonably using common criteria. But in the digital world, that is nearly impossible.
Share of Voice becomes less accurate as a result of the growing share of marketing dollars being allocated to the internet.
The Importance of Share of Search
In today's digital world, search engines are essential for companies trying to grow their online presence and draw in new clients.
Businesses need to make an effort to stand out in search engine results and attract customers who are increasingly using search engines like Google or Bing to locate data, products, and services.
Understanding the share of search is vital for several reasons:
1. Benchmarking Against Competitors
Share of search is a metric that measures a brand's success in comparison to its competitors. Businesses can identify areas in which they are falling behind and make strategic changes to obtain a competitive edge by examining the share of search data.
2. Evaluating Brand Visibility
Share of search helps companies to analyze their brand's presence in search engine results. A high search share suggests that the brand is well-represented in relevant searches, whereas a low search share could indicate that the brand isn't effectively reaching its target audience.
3. Informing Marketing Strategies
Businesses can analyze the efficacy of their advertising campaigns by monitoring changes in search share over time.
They can decide which marketing or activities lead to a higher search share and adjust their strategies accordingly.
4. Understanding Consumer Preferences
By monitoring the popularity and search volume of terms relevant to a brand or sector, search share presents insights into customer behavior and preferences.
Through better customer engagement and conversion rates, businesses can utilize this information to enhance the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns towards keywords that customers actively look for.
How To Measure Share of Search
Then how to measure this element? First, you need to evaluate and identify the keywords or key phrases that are relevant to your business, products, or services.
These keywords should reflect what your target audience is likely to search for when looking for products or information related to your industry.
Once you have identified the relevant keywords, you can use various tools and platforms to gather data on search volume and search trends for those keywords. Here are some of them:
1. Google Trends
Google Trends or an SEO tool like Semrush are all necessary to take part in the traditional share of search model.
Since using Google Trends is the easiest way to get started, let's start there. You can look at trends in keyword search volume over time with Google Trends, a free tool.
One of the most obvious disadvantages of using Google Trends to estimate search share is that it shows just brand search phrases used to differentiate your brand from that of your rivals.
This makes it difficult for you to figure out how much of a certain category keyword (such as "CRM software") you hold.
However, it does offer us an acceptable high-level picture of your brand's recognition in a certain area.
2. Sequence Stat
The next stage of understanding how to measure the share of search is by using Sequence Stat. Sequence Stat is an SEO tool that automates and simplifies various SEO tasks.
It has various features and can help users with various aspects of SEO. Users can easily track their keyword rankings and research, group keywords, view website statistics, perform competitor analysis, and create and monitor other SEO-related tasks.
Likewise, you can keep an eye on Sequence Stat's search share, which gives an overview of the proportion of the market's overall search volume that they control.
This gives users a deeper understanding of where their brand sits in the marketplace.
Additionally, you can utilize the Rank Dashboard feature on Sequence Stat to project the keyword search for your website.
With this feature, you can monitor the keyword list, rank, metrics, and so on to help you evaluate your keyword performance.
Utilizing Share of Search Data
After calculating your brand's search share, you can use this information to improve your marketing efforts in many ways:
- Competitor Analysis: Compare your brand with the ones of competitors by using search data sharing. Identify your areas of weakness and create plans to close the gap and obtain an edge by increasing your search share.
- Targeted Advertising: Ad campaigns that are more targeted can be made more effective by sharing search data. You may develop specific ads to attract potential clients who are actively searching for particular products or services by discovering the keywords that have significant search volumes linked to your brand or sector.
- Content Creation: You could utilize the share of search data to better organize your content creation plan. By locating common search phrases and subjects, you can create content that appeals to clients and reflects their search intent. In return, your website will get more organic visitors.
- SEO optimization: By analyzing the share of search statistics, you can find keywords with high search traffic and modify your content and website to improve your organic search ranks. This can increase brand recognition and increase your chances of attracting new customers.
Share of Search is more than simply a statistic; it's essential to comprehend your market share and online company prospects.
To make content planning easier, we offer Sequence Stat as a solution that can handle everything in one dashboard. starting with task management before proceeding to competitor analysis, keyword research, and keyword monitoring.
We offer numerous outstanding tools that might help you improve your SEO without requiring multiple memberships.
Register now for Sequence Stat so you can take advantage of the free trial to check out all the features!