Many of the big brands in the UK are seeking to invest heavily in SEO as they prepare to come out of a lacklustre economy and rank for more search engine keywords than ever before; the rise of brands begins in 2026 but is here to stay for many years to come.
Many digital agencies are currently facing reduced contracts and budgets being downsized from clients; however, many brands are investing heavily in the future, as they know the time to invest is now so that when the economy rebounds, they will be in a great position when it comes to SEO.
Big brands in the UK are starting to realise the benefits of SEO extend far beyond just getting sales and ranking for keywords; they see the full picture that SEO is a great branding tool and can help to increase sales in local stores and even help to convince new customers to finally buy from them and switch away from the competition.
The market demand for cost-effective digital channels is extremely high in the UK as brands start to look at return on investment closely. We are also seeing brands wanting to invest in channels that are already proven, such as PPC and SEO, which have a long-term reputation and are now some of the oldest ways to get sales and visibility online.
Many brands are finding that agencies that are good at SEO can provide unique market research that they may have missed from tasks such as keyword research, backlink analysis, and competitive analysis. These skills can provide brands with new product ideas and new marketing suggestions and can even uncover a whole new market that they didn’t realise existed yet.
SEO has existed in some form for over 20 years now, which makes it an older, more trusted channel for brands. While TikTok may be a new channel that is growing quickly, we still see major brands heading for trusted channels that have proven themselves over the long term. Brands like any channel that can be scaled quickly and can connect them to potential customers.
SEO has many benefits as a channel because it provides real-time data into what customers want. This can be done by checking internal data and finding out popular keywords that users type in to find you online. You may also find a gigantic uptick in sales simply by having more visibility after the brand name reaches page 1 of Google for thousands of search terms. The trust in a brand name comes from as many people hearing about the brand as possible.
SEO can also be considered a long-term investment; if done correctly, brands can see a huge uptick in sales from SEO in the long term, as each Google update brings the rewards of more search terms hitting page 1, which then means more money to invest in content, which then leads to more page 1 rankings. Brands have learnt that reinvestment is the key to gaining huge ground, and they tend to see a much bigger picture than smaller businesses do.
Brands have now begun to adapt to new Google updates such as the Page Experience Update and Core Web Vitals, which were rolled out with the end goal being to serve users results extremely quickly. This has led brands to focus on technical performance, with special emphasis being placed on providing accurate information quickly and ensuring a website is easy to navigate for the end user.
We also saw the release of Google’s product algorithm update, which was released with the end goal of helping users make more informed choices so they can purchase the product that is best for their needs. This is an important update for big brands, and we have seen them taking more time and investing in helping consumers by providing more detailed information, creating better site search boxes, and even hiring experts to create content that answers commonly asked questions.
We can also see Google showing more information about how their search engine works in order to educate the consumer on how they choose which sites to rank at the top of the results; they have also provided some high-quality information for agencies and business owners which details how to write high-quality content such as product reviews.
Brands also saw the launch of Multisearch, which enables searches using both images and text. This is powered by Google Lens, which allows people to use their mobile cameras or photos to search for relevant images and text to find what they need.
These developments give big brands a strong hint into where the future will take us and how to get ahead of the curve. Based on these updates, they can see that AI is becoming much more advanced; you must now create more visually appealing content and also put mobile optimisation as the number 1 focus.
The Google Helpful Content update was rolled out, and big brands took notice of the changes that needed to be made. These included things like creating content for users and focusing on uniqueness, adding notes to your review section so users can leave more detail, and blog posts must now add something of value, such as a unique perspective, instead of something that could already be found. From the notes, we can see that Google is now way more effective at spotting spun content or automated copy and paste, which may put a dent in AI-generated content.
The last thing of note for the big brands to look at is the Google Spam update, which has had a profound impact on their overall SEO strategy. Gone are the days of copy and paste and thin content pages; you must focus on choosing a keyword rather than keyword stuffing to cover as much ground as possible. There is also the discussion of not using AI to create content and instead using it to assist you in generating content ideas.
In summary, there have been some large-scale updates and shifts in how search works, but major brands are still ahead of the pack with so many page 1 results. This year has proven to be tough for the UK economically, but the big brands are still investing heavily in trusted and older digital channels such as PPC and SEO with the idea that this will pay off when the economy bounces back.
We can see major brands are paying close attention to the updates that Google is releasing so that they can not only correct any flaws in their model but also take a glimpse into the future and find out what Google is thinking; this will help them gain a first-mover advantage over the competition, and they can actually start to gain ground or even push further ahead of the pack by taking risks and leveraging first-mover advantage.
Building a brand can’t be done overnight, but SEO is a proven channel that has been around for 20 years now and has become more and more important as time passes. Consumers just expect a good experience by default, and they expect you to rank well for product-related keywords when they search. They also want to gain further information on the product they are thinking about buying, and ideally, your site should offer expertise and content that is geared towards helping them.
A brand that doesn’t help the consumer is going to plummet down the search rankings because Google wants to see quality content and will reward the brand with trust and organic rankings when they comply with the latest update and help the consumer. In the end, Google understands that users have much bigger requirements these days, so gone are the days when you can just copy and paste and expect to see rankings and sales.
The best-placed brands in the UK will always be the ones that commit to long-term strategies and place greater emphasis on helping consumers to get what they need quickly. Things like providing a good mobile experience are increasingly important, and providing the consumer with as much information as possible should be the end goal of any UK brand in 2026.
Based on SEO tools, we can see that major brands have had over a decade of growth after each major update. We can see some brands learning after an update decline, but certain brands seem to have great insight into what both users and search engines find valuable, and as a result, they experience rapid growth that ends up with them taking over so many search terms when an update happens.
The future is brighter than ever for big brands because they become stronger and gain more market share. During down economies, you will often find that brands turn to heavily investing in marketing and advertising because others cut costs and downsize; major brands think very differently, and as a result, they plan long-term and end up dominating those who only care about short-term success and money. Brands play the long game, and as a result, they are rewarded with major trust from Google and other platforms.