By Andrew Holland, Director of SEO at JBH
SEO is changing faster than anyone expected
Over the last year, the search landscape has shifted more dramatically than in the previous decade. AI-generated answers are eating traditional search results. Clicks are disappearing. Traffic is becoming harder to earn and even harder to attribute.
For many SEO professionals, this has created a sense of panic.
But underneath the noise, something far more important is emerging — a metric that could redefine how we understand brand demand and marketing effectiveness.
That metric is Share of Search.
And if you work in SEO, GEO, PR, or digital marketing, it’s about to become the most important number you’ll track.
Share of Search: the metric that predicts business growth
Share of Search measures how often your brand is searched for compared with competitors in your category.
It’s a simple idea, but it captures something profound: how famous your brand is in the minds of consumers.
According to research from the UK’s Institute of Practising Advertisers (IPA), Share of Search is a remarkably accurate leading indicator of future sales and market share.
Across 30 case studies, 12 categories, and seven countries, the IPA found that a brand’s Share of Search explains, on average, 83% of its Share of Market.
In other words, the more people search for your brand, the larger your market share is likely to be.
The same research found that branded search volumes correlate with sales at an average rate of 69%.
So if your branded search activity doubles, sales can be expected to rise by around 69%, with the rest explained by factors such as price and distribution.
This makes Share of Search an early-warning system for growth.
When brand searches rise, market share follows. When they fall, it signals a problem long before sales decline.
Why SEO needs to evolve from clicks to brand demand
For too long, SEO has been treated as a blunt force tool to gain traffic.
That mindset worked when search results were plentiful and traffic was primarily informational.
It doesn’t work like that now.
As AI continues to answer more user queries directly, SEO must focus on something bigger: how much people actively want your brand.
Share of Search gives SEO a metric that matters and can be grown through a range of PR, advertising, content, social, SEO and GEO tactics.
Instead of asking “how much traffic did we get?”, marketers can ask “how much attention are we earning?” and “is our brand becoming more famous?”
This shifts SEO from being a conversion channel to being a core part of brand strategy.
It becomes a discipline that helps businesses build long-term growth through visibility and fame.
This places SEARCH at the heart of all marketing conversations.
And it brings SEO into a key position to discuss organic revenue growth.
Conversations in SEO can involve more meaningful discussions about the number of people searching for a business, its products, and services. And how many clicks through to your site’s revenue essential pages?
In an interesting paradox, in an era of less traffic, every click matters even more.
Share of search becomes the biggest needle to move, and merges channels into one singular goal. Reducing waste and increasing marketing effectiveness.
And as part of this shift, I have some big news.
Announcing the JBH × My Telescope Partnership
To help marketers understand and apply this concept, we’re announcing an exciting new partnership between JBH and MyTelescope the leading Share of Search analytics platform.
My Telescope tracks search demand across Google, YouTube, TikTok, Amazon, and other major search platforms. Providing real-time insight into how often consumers are searching for your brand compared with your competitors, and how that interest changes over time.
This means we can now measure brand fame more precisely than ever before.
\We can see which campaigns create real curiosity, which markets are gaining momentum, and where brand attention is starting to fade.
At JBH, we’ll use these insights to publish regular reports that uncover what’s really happening in the world of search, cutting through speculation and delivering hard data on how consumers think, feel, and act online.
This partnership brings together the two disciplines that matter most for modern marketing success: PR and SEO.
It enables us to directly link storytelling, content, and earned media to measurable changes in brand demand.
Why this matters for every marketer
The implications of this are huge.
First, Share of Search is predictive. When your share rises, you can expect growth in sales and market share in the months that follow. When it falls, it’s an early sign that brand health is declining and that action is needed before the numbers hit your P&L.
Second, it’s comparable. You can track your Share of Search against direct competitors to see who’s winning attention in your category and why. It’s a practical benchmark for understanding which marketing activities are cutting through and which aren’t.
Third, it’s accessible. Unlike complex attribution models or expensive econometrics, Share of Search data is straightforward to gather, interpret, and communicate to business leaders. It’s a metric everyone can understand.
And finally, it’s strategic. Share of Search links short-term performance activity with long-term brand building. It connects the dots between PR, advertising, SEO, and paid media, providing one metric that all teams can align behind.
How to increase your Share of Search
If Share of Search is a reflection of brand fame, the question becomes: how do you make your brand more famous?
There are four fundamental levers every brand can use:
Be interesting and appealing. Fame starts with something worth talking about — a story, a product, or a purpose that captures attention.
Reach mass audiences. Fame requires visibility. Whether through PR, content, or advertising, your message must reach beyond your current customer base.
Be distinctive and memorable. Consumers remember what stands out. Consistent assets, tone, and creative ideas build recognition over time.
Encourage engagement. The best fame happens when the public and media participate — when people share, search, and talk about you.
Small and medium businesses don’t need global budgets to achieve this. They just need a strategy and the best tactics.
A clever, creative idea amplified through the right channels can drive disproportionate relative fame in your category.
What this means for the future of SEO
Share of Search represents the bridge between brand and performance, the place SEO has always belonged.
As search continues to evolve, success won’t come from chasing algorithms or gaming AI answers.
It will come from understanding how your brand lives in the minds of consumers and how that awareness translates into action.
The JBH × My Telescope partnership will help brands measure and build that fame.
Together, we’ll demonstrate how PR, content, and creative storytelling boost search demand and predict growth well in advance of sales data.
Because in the end, the brands that win won’t just be found online, they’ll be searched for.
Final thought
Share of Search is more than a metric. It’s a way of understanding how your brand connects with the world.
It gives marketers and SEOs a clear, evidence-based view of what’s working, where demand is growing, and how to focus their budgets more effectively.
At JBH, we’re excited to lead this next chapter, helping businesses measure, understand, and grow their Share of Search.
If you’d like to know how famous your brand really is, or how to build a strategy that grows your Share of Search, get in touch.
Andrew Holland
Originally published on LinkedIn on 22 October 2025.