Free Share of Search Tool

A simple yet effective online tool that calculates the share of search for any brand or company in Google Search. Just enter brands, topics, or keywords and see how popular they are compared to each other!

What is share of search?

Share of Search (SoS) is a marketing metric that measures the number of branded organic searches a company receives from Google Search, relative to the total number of organic searches for all brands in the same industry within a certain time frame.

The share of search was established by marketing experts Les Binet and James Hankins in 2020 as an equation that can help businesses better understand the effectiveness of their marketing strategies and track the overall performance of their campaigns.

Share of search vs. share of voice vs. share of market

Share of Search, Share of Voice, and Share of Market are metrics used by marketers to evaluate the overall brand awareness of a company but from different perspectives:

• Share of Voice (SoV) - It measures a brand's media expenditure across various marketing channels, compared to the total media expenditure of all brands, products, or services in the market. While SoV was a reliable advertising metric for predicting a company's marketing success in the past, it has become less so with the evolution of the internet and online marketing strategies.

• Share of Search (SoS) - It measures branded keywords of a company in comparison to the competitors' branded keywords within Google Search. Unlike the SoV metric, the Share of Search can actually evaluate the outcome of the marketing activities and predict the market share of the company.

• Share of Market (SoM) - measures the amount of sales a company generates within a specific time period compared to the total number of sales in the entire industry or product category. Both SoV and SoS metrics can be used as predictors of a brand's market share (SoM).

Why is share of search important?

Share of search can help you better estimate how popular is your company in the online world as well as predict how consumers within your industry are likely to buy a product or service from you.

There are multiple reasons why you might utilize the share of search as opposed to other popular marketing metrics:

a) It's easy and reliable

Share of search allows you to easily check and track brand awareness in Google Search at any given point in time.

All you need is search volume data about your branded keyword, which you then compare with the branded organic searches of all companies in your industry:

• High share of search = the brand is more popular than its competitors.
• Low share of search = the brand is less popular than its competitors.

b) It tracks the impact of your marketing efforts

Share of search can help you monitor and evaluate the success of your marketing campaigns over time, and identify those that have effectively boosted the brand's visibility within the search engine the most.

c) It correlates with the market share

Share of search can be used as an indicator of a brand's market share - companies with higher branded searches tend to also have a higher number of sales compared to other brands within the same niche or industry.

According to James Hankins (and Les Binet), the share of search is a robust predictor of a brand's market share due to a strong correlation (83%) between SoS and SoM metrics:

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Source: IPA

Therefore, regularly checking and evaluating the share of search can help you better estimate the actual market share of your company (and SoM of your competitors).

How to calculate share of search?

Share of search can be calculated as the total search volume of your branded keyword divided by the combined search volumes of all brand-related keywords in the industry. The result can be then multiplied by 100 to derive the percentage SoS value.

Formula: Share of Search = (Search vol. of the brand ÷ Combined search vol. of all brands in the industry) × 100

So, for example, if the branded keyword of company A has a search volume of 2000, and companies B, C, and D, which are within the same industry or product category, each have search volumes of 1000, the share of search for company A would be 40%.

Example: Share of Search = 2000 ÷ (2000 + 1000 + 1000 + 1000) × 100 = 40%.

The precise search volumes for any brand-related keywords can be obtained with tools like KWFinder; however, manually calculating the share of search like this on a regular basis would be unnecessarily time-consuming.

A more convenient way of generating share of search data for your brand is to simply use free tools such as:

• Google Trends
• Mangools Share of Search tool

How to improve share of search?

In order to improve the share of search in your industry, you need to analyze your competitors, identify and address gaps in your marketing strategy, and optimize your share of voice expenditure to get the most from your marketing efforts.

From an SEO perspective, there are many ways to enhance the share of search for your branded search terms and boost your company's overall online presence:

• Perform competitor keyword analysis
• Focus on Surround Sound SEO
• Boost your link-building outreach
• Track and compare your SERP visibility

1. Perform competitor keyword analysis

Analyzing organic keywords that your competitors are ranking for in Google Search will help you uncover hidden opportunities that can improve the brand's website awareness and increase the overall search volumes for your branded search terms.

With KWFinder, you can simply enter the domain of any competitor in your industry to check all branded and non-branded keywords they are ranking for, along with many useful SEO metrics such as search volumes and keyword difficulty.

This strategy can help you steadily enhance your online presence in Google SERPs, boost your company's brand awareness, and consequently, increase the share of search for your brand over time.

2. Focus on Surround Sound SEO

Surround Sound SEO is a marketing strategy that focuses on brand mentions on external websites that rank at the top of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for relevant and highly searched keywords in your niche.

The main goal of this SEO strategy is to enhance the SERP visibility for your brand and (ideally) improve the overall brand awareness for your company.

3. Boost your link-building and PR

Link-building is a core part of SEO, but it can also directly influence your brand's share of search and overall market share.

4. Track and compare your search presence

Although the share of search can be used as a reliable long-term metric for brand-related keywords, you should also monitor and assess rankings for non-branded search queries that are relevant in your niche.

Share of search limitations

Although the share of search metric can provide a valuable overview of your brand's or product's strength in Google Search, in some instances, it may obscure the actual state of companies within the online world.

Frequently asked questions

What is SoS in digital marketing?

SoS (Share of Search) is a marketing metric that measures the brand's visibility in Google Search compared to all other brands within the same industry.

What is the relationship between SoV, SoS, and SoM?

SoV (Share of Voice) estimates the overall success of the company's marketing strategy which directly influences the SoS (Share of Search). The value of the SoS directly correlates with the SoM (Share of Market) metric.