What is Brand Authority?

Brand Authority is more than brand awareness

Brand awareness is having people recognise your brand, whilst Brand Authority is having people recognise and trust your brand.

Having a strong, recognised brand has always been important, but with the limited marketing budgets of small businesses, it was way down the list of things to spend money on. It was way more important to spend money on performance marketing (primary focus on generating leads and sales) than on brand marketing (building your brand). With the introduction of AI in Google search and AI Agents like ChatGPT, this has changed.

What are the benefits of strong Brand Authority?

Before we look at why building Brand Authority has become so important, let’s first look at the benefits of a strong Band Authority:

You stand out from your competitors
Convert more leads and quotes as there is already a level of underlying trust
Able to charge higher as a more recognised brand with higher levels of trust
More stable business growth with less volatility as unknown business brands
More referrals and recommendations

What is Brand Authority — and why does it matter in 2025?

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0:00 What's brand authority? Brand authority is a term you may have come across and it's become more and more important, particularly with the growth in AI in both chat agents and SEO. Brand authority is how well your brand or your business is recognized on the internet.

0:14 So it's a little bit more than just whether people recognize your name but the credibility and the trustworthiness around your brand. So how do you build your brand authority?

0:21 The simple things are things like online citations. So having your name listed across the internet on various uh different platforms so that people know that it's a legitimate business not just the website and nothing else.

0:34 Obviously reviews is a really big one having really good reviews. U being listed on other sites that reputable sites that might be there. How often your brand is is mentioned and probably the big one is is social media.

0:45 Social media is one of the big ones now because that's where people communicate conversations that will happen. So, you know, really building your brand, not just on the typical Facebook, but across all the social media. So, that's brand authority.

0:58 Uh, very, very important. Something that if you're serious about or any marketing online this day and age, you should seriously be looking at your brand authority. What's brand

Why is Brand Authority now more important?

So the above list shows why brand authority has always been important to your overall marketing strategy, but why is it now more important. The reason is the growth of AI in Google search and AI agents like ChatGPT. Traditionally, to rank well on Google, you needed to grow your Topical Authority. As long as you had a consistent brand across the internet, Google was happy to rank your website primarily by Topical Authority. It was the searchers job to click through to the links, read the content and decide if it could be trusted.

Google has now introduced AI Overviews and AI Mode to search, with the purpose of giving you the answers you are after without having to leave the Google site. This has lead to what is known as “Zero-Click Search”, with the searcher no longer clicking through to your website for the answers. Add to this the growth of AI agents like ChatGPT, where many searchers now go to get answers instead of Google search. Like AI Mode and Overviews in search, these agents keep the searchers on their platform as well, giving them the relevant answers. The good news is that when the searchers finally click through to your website, they are generally ready to convert as they have already done their research.

So as well as ranking well in normal Google search, it’s now also important to get your business mentioned in an AI answer with a source link, so when the searchers have finished their research, they have your business to click through to.

But what has this all got to do with Brand Authority?

The connection is, AI puts as much importance on Brand Authority as Topic Authority when choosing what content (and business mentions and source links) to show in their answers. Unlike traditional search where it was up to you to decide if the content was to be trusted, AI is giving you the answers direct, so it needs to know if the content it is pulling from can be trusted.

How do you build Brand Authority?

Consistent online citations

The first trust signal Google looks at is, does the business have listings throughout the internet, and are these all consistent. Consider a business that has a website but isn’t mentioned anywhere else on the internet, would you trust this business? Citations are simply listings on sites like Local Business Listings, TrueLocal, Yelp etc. It’s important that these have consistent business names, addresses and phone numbers.

Optimised Google Business Profile and Bing Places

These are just specific online citations. The key difference is they are affiliated to both Google and Bing, so can have a greater impact on the trust signals.

Business Reviews

Naturally, having a strong review profile will lead to a stronger Brand Authority. This means having as many reviews as possible with 4 to 5 stars. Bear in mind, that if you have regular new reviews, this will have a stronger impact on your Brand Authority.

Offers and Deals

Whilst having offers and deals on your website doesn’t directly impact your Brand Authority, they can have an influence on whether the various AI answers show your business over a competitor. Imagine if the searcher is looking for a hot water installation because their current system has broken, and they have no hot water. If your site has an offer around “guaranteed same-day service”, the AI is much more likely to show your business.

Social Media Presence

One of the best ways to build Brand Authority is to have a strong social media presence. Social media is all about connecting and building relationships with people. If done correctly, this can directly build the amount of trust these people have in your business, products and services.

Is Brand Authority, all you need to be found in Search and AI

The short answer is no, it is simply one part of the puzzle. You should also work on:

Building your Topic Authority
Improving your website performance and accessibility

If you’re interested in how we do this for our clients, read about our SEO Framework called SmartyrSEO.