Rank in the mind, not on the SERP

Otuto says: “Use brand positioning to move from SERP rankings to mind rankings.”

What are mind rankings?

“Recently, we have seen that SEO is shifting, and AI search is now summarising results. Because of this, it's no longer enough to just chase rankings. The brands that will win are brands that strongly position themselves in people’s minds, to the point where they search for them by name, regardless of where they are on the SERP rankings.

For example, if I say ‘best soda’, the brand that automatically comes to mind is Coca-Cola. If I say ‘energy drink’, the brand that comes to mind is Red Bull. If I say ‘SEO audits’ and ‘keyword research’, Ahrefs and Semrush are what come to mind. If we talk about ‘link building analysis’, Majestic comes to mind. That is what brand positioning is: when your brand is the best at delivering a particular value that your customers truly care about.

When they care about this, they will remember you, and they will automatically search for you by name. In 2026, what will win is when you are not just found; you are remembered.

This might not sound like SEO, but it’s something that we can introduce to SEO to make your SEO processes better. You are focussing on optimizing your brand so that people search for you automatically.”

What do you need to do to encourage more people to search for your brand?

“The process for achieving that brand positioning is not alien to us, as SEOs, and there are five components that you need to tackle.

Number one is understanding your competitors. Every SEO specialist has to understand their competitors. If your brand was not there, what would your customers look for? Number two is understanding your market category. What exactly are you talking about? In a huge market, what are you trying to deliver to your customers? Take Calendly, for example. Calendly is not a calendar. It’s a calendar that helps you schedule meetings. They have picked a category for themselves.

Number three is understanding your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile): who they are, what they want, and what their pain points are. Number four is creating a unique selling point that has a feature that will stand out from your competitors, and number five is identifying how that feature is valuable to your customers. With these five components, you can achieve a good position for your brand.

These are also things that you’re looking for as an SEO specialist, because if you understand your customers and you know what you want, you will write content and do keyword research that relates to them.”

Do you have to think about all five of those components when you write each piece of content?

“The main thing is understanding your ICP: who they are, what they want, and their pain points. If you have these three things in mind, you will be able to write good content because you're not just chasing high-volume, high-traffic keywords, as we normally do in SEO.

Yes, they are important, but you really need to be addressing their pain points – the questions they would normally ask – and answering them in your content. Once you can do that, it will help keep those customers with you, and it will also help them retain you in their minds. If your customers know you and they trust you, you begin to build authority. You will start obtaining customers who will return, and that builds authority as well.

Once you have built that authority with your customers, not only will your customers trust you, but Google will trust you, so it is more likely to rank you well.”

In this new world, where data like ranking is less relevant, how does an SEO articulate the value of their activities and justify their role?

“Like I said, AI is changing everything. Now, AI-driven results try to summarise the answers. Ranking number three or four on the SERP is not as relevant anymore because, once AI provides that summary, it cuts traffic.

Before, as SEOs, our focus was to ensure you entered those top 10 positions, and being in those positions would get you clicks. Now, we are actually trying to cut through that AI to be able to rank by brand, not just by keywords.

Ranking by brand is something that you can also apply organically within your websites, at an SEO level. That way, instead of people finding you via a random search query, they come and search for you by name because they know that you will actually deliver what they want.

When you have a good brand position, AI will pick up and feature your content, which emphasises that you're the brand to go to in the future. Then, when they're ready to buy, they’re more likely to search for your brand directly.”

How do you make it more likely for your brand to appear in AI search results, and where are the biggest opportunities within AI search at the moment?

“You can achieve that by ensuring that you have implemented all five of the components that I spoke about earlier.

Currently, there are some things that AI cannot replace. Most of the time, what AI will replace is informational keywords: when users are asking how to do X or how to do Y. Once people know who you are and understand the value you can give them, they will automatically come and search for you directly.

When they start searching for your brand, you will appear in both traditional and generative search engines. They'll refer to you as the brand that can actually do this particular thing that your customers are searching for. You won’t just appear in AI Mode or an AI overview; you will also feature on the SERP because both Google and your customers now see you as an authority.”

What metrics do you provide to stakeholders within a business to demonstrate the value of being an authority?

“One of the key metrics to measure is your brand mentions, how often your brand is mentioned, which you can get through Semrush, Ahrefs, and Google Analytics.

You can also monitor your retention rates to see how well you retain the customers that you have, new customers coming in, and return rates as well. You can measure all of that with Google Analytics.”

How should an SEO work more closely with other marketing channels, and which channels are most likely to maximise the impact of brand?

“It's an omnichannel strategy. Now, once you get a good brand position, the next thing to do is to craft a brand message, which is more or less the goal of your brand. This is something that you can put across all your platforms: your websites, your ads, your social media, etc.

If you have this across your platforms, your customers will see that you have one clear and understandable message. Exactly which channels to use will depend on your industry. In some industries, LinkedIn is more widely used, but in others, it will be Instagram. The main thing is that you have a unified message from your website to these channels, and even to your ads.

Once this collaboration has been established, redirecting from your social media to your website can help your customers make purchases or take action. However, it is essential that all channels – your websites, your ads, your social media, etc. – are in alignment with your position.”

How do you incorporate your brand message without being salesy and stay focussed on helping the customer find the answer they're looking for?

“You can still implement your normal SEO strategies. If you have a keyword, there are related terms that you can also use. You don’t need to just deliver your brand message at every stage; you can also use related terms to identify other relevant keywords.

The major focus is that you are attending to the needs of your customer. Your brand message gives an overview of what you are doing. When a customer arrives on your home page, they will actually see and understand what the brand, the product, or the service is doing. From that home page, the different topics and content pieces are being crafted out, but not all of that content is directly based on the brand message.

There are things outside of your core message that will also affect your ideal customer.”

What do you do with old content that isn't relevant to what the brand does now?

“If it is not relevant, I personally believe that it's not needed. However, if it is related in some way, it might be something that you can keep. You just need to find something that the old piece of content has in common with your new messaging.

If you can find a common point, you can retain it. If you don't find a common point, I would advise you to remove it, because you want your customers to clearly see you for what you are, and understand you for the offer and the value you give to them.”

Otuto, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“You should begin to create strategies based on your brand positioning.

If you have clear positioning, you ensure that you are top-of-mind for your audience, so you will be remembered and searched for automatically, regardless of where you are ranking on the SERP.”

Otuto Umeji is a Freelance SEO Specialist. Find out more over at OtutoUmeji.com and OtutoUmeji.medium.com.