The first five keywords to track for a new brand
Start monitoring with five keyword groups that catch buyers and real conversation, not every noisy mention of your category.
Start monitoring with five keyword groups that catch buyers and real conversation, not every noisy mention of your category.
1. Your exact brand name
Start with the obvious one. Exact-brand alerts catch support issues, praise and people trying to describe you to someone else. If your name is also a common word, pair it with your category from day one instead of widening the alert later.
2. Your category in the words buyers use
Buyers rarely search for your internal product label. They write "tool for tracking brand mentions", "social listening for a small business" or "how do I know when someone mentions my startup". Choose the two or three category phrases your customers actually say.
3. Brand plus problem
People often mention a product while describing the job they want done: "BrandName for Reddit", "BrandName alerts", "does BrandName catch LinkedIn". These mentions tell you what users expect from the product and which use case is spreading.
4. Competitor plus switching words
A competitor name alone is noisy. A competitor name with "alternative", "switching from", "vs" or "pricing" is usually a live evaluation. Track those phrases for the two competitors you hear about most in sales conversations.
5. The negative keywords
Exclusions are keywords too. Add the contexts you never want: job posts, unrelated products, lyrics or the other meaning of a common word. A small list that filters well is easier to read every morning than a broad list that makes you give up.
Review the list after one week. Keep the phrases that produced mentions you could answer, pause the ones that only produced noise, and add the wording real users used. HeyKeyword lets you test that first set free before you build a bigger monitoring routine.