Step 1. Enter your domain
On aSERP's home page, type your domain into the free audit box and start it. The audit reads your home page to work out your brand, what you sell and your market.
Step 2. Check what it read
The audit shows what it worked out: your Brand name, What you do and your market, which has four fields: Country, an optional City, Language and Reach. Correct anything it got wrong.
Step 3. Write one topic and three questions
Type one topic, the subject you want to be found for, then three questions your buyers ask about it: one to learn, one to compare and one to buy. The audit calls these informational, comparative and transactional. The grey text in each field is an example; type over it with your buyers' own words.
Step 4. Add every name your brand goes by
Under Also known as, add each other name and spelling of your brand, pressing Enter after each one. The audit says why: “Engines name you with whatever spelling they learned.” A name you leave out is a mention the audit cannot count as yours.
Step 5. Ask the six engines
Choose Ask the six engines. The audit asks each of your three questions once on each of the six engines, so up to 18 answers.
Step 6. Read the result
The result starts with how many of the answers named your brand. The next line names a rival that was named instead, or says that no rival brands are tracked yet. Then The answer you missed shows one answer, with its question, its engine and its date, so you can read what was said instead of your name.
Step 7. Read the score for what it is
The score out of 100 is deliberately conservative and capped well below 100, because one capture cannot show a trend. It is a first look, not the Visibility figure a tracked workspace measures every day, and the result says so itself: “A snapshot, not a trend.”
Check it worked
Right away
You have a first look: how many of the answers named your brand, who was named instead, and one answer you missed, with its engine and date.
In aSERP
To keep tracking, continue into the workspace. If you are new to aSERP, the audit becomes your first brand, with its answers already measured. If you already have an account and add the audited site as another brand, aSERP measures it again there, so its numbers may differ from the audit's.
With the free audit
There is no after-check with the audit: it runs once per visitor and asks each question once, so it cannot show whether a later change worked.
If nothing moved
If your brand was named in none of the answers, read the answer you missed: it shows who was named instead. Then check that the audit read your brand and its other names correctly. Three questions captured once are a first look, not a verdict; daily tracking of more questions shows the pattern.
What not to do
- Don't compare the first-look score with Visibility.
- Don't run the audit again to check a change.
- Don't draw conclusions from the one answer shown.