Share of Search: How To Measure and Improve Share of Search

Share of search is a metric that allows you to determine the percent of branded searches for which your website ranks. It’s a useful tool for seeing where you rank against competitors in real time, especially when it comes to quantifying brand awareness. Monitoring your share of search also allows you to gain insights into your market momentum by tracking searches for your brand before full market-share numbers are available.

Sustainable marketplace Zero Waste Store launched in 2018 under the name Earthy Shop, but quickly noticed that shoppers were searching “zero waste store” far more often—about 10,000 to 15,000 monthly searches. Armed with these insights, company founders Sarah Cieslinski and JJ Follano rebranded to get ahead of customer demand and make their brand easier to discover through search. It worked: Sales jumped from $6,000 in year one to $2 million the next year.

Here’s an overview of share of search, how to calculate it, and how to use it to inform your marketing strategy.

What is share of search?

Share of search (SoS) is the percentage of branded searches your business captures compared to competitors in your category. A branded search—or branded query—is when someone types branded keywords like a brand name directly into Google. For example, someone searches for “Gymshark leggings” instead of generic search queries like “leggings for yoga.”

Share of search is a leading metric of future performance, but it doesn’t measure revenue. For small ecommerce businesses, it’s especially practical because: 

• You can track it without competitor revenue data, which can be difficult and expensive to acquire. 

• It’s strongly correlated with market share over time.

• It often moves first compared to lagging metrics like sales revenue and market share, giving early indications of future sales growth.

• It reflects active customer intent.

How to calculate share of search

Calculate your share of search by dividing your branded search volume by your competitors’ total branded search volume, then multiply the result by 100.

To calculate share of search, you need your brand’s estimated monthly search volume and the total category search volume across the competitors you’re tracking. Plug those numbers into the following formula:

Share of search (%) = (Your branded search volume / total branded search volume for all tracked competitors) × 100

For example, if you find that people search for various branded keywords in your category 1,000 times in a month, and 220 of those searches are for your brand, your share of search is 22%. If a competitor gets 120 branded searches, its share is 12%, meaning your brand currently has a greater share of search compared to that competitor. 

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

• Share of search
• Share of voice
• Share of market

Share of search, share of voice, and share of market all benchmark your brand against competitors, but they measure different things: share of search measures branded search online; share of voice measures cross-channel visibility; share of market measures actual sales outcomes.

Share of search

Share of search shows how much brand-specific search interest your business captures relative to competitors. It reflects real consumer behavior, and because it requires data only on searches that mention your brand, it’s accessible enough for ecommerce businesses to track consistently.

When the share of search rises over a few months, sales often follow. IPA research across 30 case studies found that a brand’s share of search explains 83% of its market share on average, making it one of the most reliable leading indicators of growth. 

People searching your brand by name are usually closer to buying than someone running a general, non-branded search (“Kylie Cosmetics lipstick” vs. “red lipstick”). It’s not a guarantee, but because shifts in branded search often appear before changes in sales or market share, share of search is a useful early indicator of where your business is headed, especially when full competitor data is unavailable.

Share of voice

Share of voice (SOV) shows your brand’s visibility compared to competitors across different channels, such as organic search, paid search, and organic social. Rather than tracking what people search for, it tracks how often your brand is mentioned. For example, paid and organic search measure impressions compared to competitors, while organic social measures mentions or posts about your brand. Here’s how to calculate each:

Organic search SOV (%) = (Your brand’s search impressions / Total search impressions for all tracked competitors) × 100

Paid search SOV (%) = (Your brand’s ad impressions / Total ad impressions for all tracked competitors) × 100

Organic social SOV (%) = (Social mentions about our brand / Total social mentions for all tracked competitors) × 100

Since you don’t have access to your competitors’ internal data, you typically have to rely on third-party analytics tools or your own estimates based on sampling. This makes share of voice a less consistent key performance indicator (KPI) than share of search, which is based on repeatable search data.

Share of market

Share of market—or market share—is the percentage of total sales your business captures in its category. For example, if total sales in your category are $5 million in a quarter and your store generates $400,000, your share of the market is 8%.

Market share is a direct performance outcome metric because it reflects actual sales, not just attention or market visibility. However, calculating it can be difficult for growing ecommerce businesses, as reliable search volume data and category-wide sales figures aren’t always publicly available or up to date. 

In practice, businesses often track share of search as a leading indicator of momentum, then compare trends against revenue growth and any available market share data to validate whether growing interest is translating to business results. 

How to use Google Trends to track share of search

1. Build a clean competitor set
2. Compare brand terms
3. Export the data
4. Calculate share of search
5. Track trend direction over time

The formula above works with search volume data from tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. If you want a free alternative, Google Trends lets you estimate share of search using relative index values instead of exact counts:

1. Build a clean competitor set

Enter three to five direct competitors that serve the same customer and product category as your brand in a spreadsheet. Too few competitors could skew results toward a dominant competitor, while too many could dilute results. Keep this list consistent over time so month-to-month changes reflect shifts in demand, not changes in who you’re tracking.

Here are some guidelines to choose effective competitors:

• Include only brands your customer would realistically compare. Share of search works best when your comparison set reflects real buying choices.

• Exclude marketplaces like Amazon or review sites since they drive sales for multiple brands at once, and don’t represent a single competitor. 

• Track only the country you sell in, or the countries that generate the most sales so that you’re tracking search interest from customers who actually buy from you. Use state or region only if your business is local and search volume is strong enough to produce meaningful trends.

2. Compare brand terms

In Google Trends, type your brand name in the first search box. Then click Add a search term and add direct competitor brand names in the same view.

Set the following in Google Trends:

• Location. Your main sales market, or “Worldwide” if you sell globally.

• Time range. For example, past 24 hours, 12 months, or five years.

• Search type. Web Search is usually the default baseline.

Google Trends assigns each brand an index value between 0 and 100 that reflects relative search interest (how popular a search term is compared to the highest point in your selected time and region), not exact search volume (the actual number of searches).

3. Export the data

Click “Download CSV” and aggregate the data by month, as weekly data can fluctuate a lot, especially for smaller brands. If you report quarterly, aggregate monthly values into quarter averages for a cleaner view.

4. Calculate share of search

Because Google Trends uses index values rather than the raw search volume used in the general formula above, the calculation is slightly adapted. For each month, add all brand index values to get a total, then divide your brand’s value by that total. 

Share of search (%) = (Your brand index / Total index of tracked brands) × 100

For example, using the values shown in the above chart—58 for Steve Madden, 9 for Everlane, 7 for Stitch Fix—the total index would be: 58 + 9 + 7 = 74. This means:

Steve Madden’s SoS = (58 / 74) × 100 = 78.37%

Everlane’s SoS = (9 / 74) × 100 = 12.16%

Stitch Fix SoS = (7 / 74) × 100 = 9.46%

With a share of search of about 78%, Steve Madden has the largest share of branded search interest in this Google Trends comparison.

5. Track trend direction over time

Treat Google Trends’ share of search as a directional metric and track it over time. A single month can fluctuate—especially around marketing campaigns or product launches—but a consistent rise over several months is a signal that brand interest is improving relative to competitors.

How to boost your share of search

• Increase non-branded discovery
• Trigger branded follow-up searches
• Create repeatable brand signals

To boost your brand’s share of search, focus on activities that keep it top of mind, so people are more likely to search it by name. Here are three best practices:

1. Increase non-branded discovery

Share of search grows as more shoppers shift from generic search queries to branded ones. Publish category pages that group similar products together, comparison pages (your brand vs. a competitor), and educational content (“Winter hiking essentials”) around high-intent non-branded terms (hiking boots for men), then lead readers to relevant product and brand pages through contextual calls to action (CTAs).

2. Trigger branded follow-up searches

A branded follow-up search happens when someone discovers a product through marketing campaigns, social media, or other content, then later searches your brand on Google before buying. Branded search increases when people remember your brand name, so design campaigns that reinforce your brand name clearly and repeatedly so viewers remember what to search later. 

Make sure landing pages and metadata feature the same brand and product names used in an ad, so when users search, the messaging on search results matches what they remember.

3. Create repeatable brand signals

Share of search tends to increase when your marketing strategy maintains consistent, long-term visibility. Sustained exposure improves brand recall, making it more likely for someone to search your brand by name. 

Paid advertising can also reinforce brand signals, especially when your campaigns run consistently across multiple channels. “If there’s any digital ad space on the internet, we’re going to try spending money there,” says Sean Frank, CEO of accessories brand Ridge, on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “The more people we reach with Ridge, the better.” 

Ways to project repeatable brand signals include:

• A recurring content series on your blog or social media accounts

• Steady influencer partnerships

• A consistent email program and social media posting cadence

• Timing product launches and campaigns around seasonal search interest and trends