Methodology · Visibility

How the SEO share of voice is calculated

Method version visibility-v2 · Last updated 2026-10-14

In short

SEO share of voice is a brand's share of the estimated organic search clicks that all tracked brands receive on a shared set of keywords. Each keyword's monthly search volume is multiplied by the expected click-through rate of the brand's Google position; the clicks are summed per brand and divided by the total. Searches about something the company doesn't offer ("Not your market") don't count. It can be filtered to branded or non-branded keywords and to one product line.

Formula

Estimated clicks of brand b on keyword k = search volume(k) × CTR(position of b on k)
SEO share of b = Σ clicks of b ÷ Σ clicks of all tracked brands × 100
CTR by position: 1: 28%, 2: 15%, 3: 10%, 4: 7%, 5: 5%, 6: 4%, 7: 3%, 8: 2.5%, 9: 2%, 10: 1.8%, 11–20: 1%, beyond 20: 0%

How it is calculated, step by step

Build the keyword set from the keywords the tracked brands rank for in the chosen market and languages.
Record each brand's Google position per keyword (top 20).
Estimate clicks per brand and keyword with the click-through-rate curve.
Sort every keyword into a product line, General or Not your market (see Product clusters) and leave out Not your market.
Sum per brand and divide by the total; apply the branded / non-branded and product filters where chosen.

What goes into it

Keyword set: Keywords the tracked brands rank for, with monthly search volume.
Positions: Each brand's Google position per keyword.
Branded keyword: A keyword containing a tracked brand's name as a whole word, or a search for one specific company (its name, website, login or app, also when that company isn't tracked); all others are non-branded.

Data sources

DataForSEO Labs (ranked keywords, search volume), Google in the tracked market and languages; each brand's 200 highest-volume ranking keywords per language, top 20 positions.
Claude (Anthropic) for sorting keywords into product lines and recognising searches for one specific company.

How often it is updated

Monthly.

How to read it

Non-branded share shows who wins people who have not chosen a provider yet — usually the most important view.
Branded share shows whether competitors capture searches for your name.

Example

A keyword with 1,000 searches where you rank 1st and a competitor 2nd: you get 280 estimated clicks, the competitor 150, so you hold 65% of the tracked clicks on it.

Limitations

The click-through curve is an industry average; real CTR depends on ads, rich results and AI overviews on the results page.
Search volumes are estimates from the data provider.

Frequently asked questions

How is a keyword classified as branded?

When it contains a tracked brand's name or domain name as a whole word, so 'banking' does not count as the brand 'ING', or when it is a search for one specific company such as 'belfiusweb' or a bank's login page.

Why estimated clicks instead of rankings?

A first position on a keyword with 10 searches matters less than a fifth position on one with 10,000; clicks combine both.

SEO per product cluster — Every search keyword is sorted into one of your product lines, General or Not your market; share of voice is then calculated per product, and Not your market doesn't count.
Estimated search traffic — Estimated monthly visits from Google per keyword: search volume × the click-through rate of the brand's position; summed per brand.
Keyword difficulty (KD) — How hard it is to reach Google's top 10 for a keyword, from 0 to 100: easy below 30, medium 30–59, hard 60 and above.
Rest of the market — The part of the clicks or AI mentions that goes to sites and brands you don't track: comparison sites, media, forums and other providers.
Share of voice (Visibility) — Your share of the visibility of all tracked brands together, per channel (SEO, GEO, backlinks, socials); the Visibility score is the average of the four.