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Ahhh...your company name.
Your identity. What separates you from everyone else.
I would be willing to bet that you spent a good deal of time
coming up with the perfect name for your company. Am I right?
Something catchy, easy to remember, and unique. How am I
doing so far?
What if I were to tell you that your company name is possibly
the single biggest hindrance to your business' success online.
Unfortunately, for most companies it is.
Choosing a name for your business online is much different
than choosing a name for a brick and mortar business.
You see, in the real world, a business with a catchy, easy-to-remember
name will get traffic simply from people driving by on the
street or walking by in a shopping center even if they have
never heard of you before.
Unfortunately, this is not how things work online. Online,
there is no drive-by traffic, no people walking in to your
business because they were next door shopping.
Online, you must be found among a pool of tens of thousands
of other businesses.
Online, people don't casually browse with friends to pass
the time.
Online, people search... and unless your name is Microsoft,
Wal-Mart, or another extremely well known and well branded
name, people are not going to search for your company name.
Studies show that approximately 80% of Internet users find
what they are looking for by way of search engines (i.e.,
Yahoo, AltaVista, Excite, etc.), and I guarantee you, they
are not going to be searching for your wonderful catchy name,
they will be searching for the topic they want.
Let me give you an example. Let's say you own a gourmet coffee
business called "The Brewmaster" that you decide
to take online. Of course you love your name and create your
online identity around your offline name. You reserve the
domain name "www.brewmaster.com", keep your company
name, and title your site "The Brewmaster".
You've submitted your site to Yahoo as well as all the other
directories and search engines. Ahhh....life is good. Orders
should start rolling in any minute now......
Guess what? Unless you have a HUGE marketing budget for banner
ads, etc., you've just doomed your business.
Let's look at why.
First, let's look at the..
*Site Title*
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Whether you're dealing with a directory or a search engine,
the site title is the single most important aspect of your
listing. For search engines, the text found within the title
tags of the page is given more weight than any other single
factor on that page (i.e., keyword density, keyword frequency,
heading tags, etc.). In a directory, your entire listing is
comprised of two things: your title, and your description.
In both cases, if the keywords related to your business are
not found in your title, your chances of coming up for a search
are virtually non-existent. If your site is about "gourmet
coffee" then those words or at the very least, "coffee",
should be somewhere within your title.
*The Company Name*
Just as your site title should have your most important keywords
within them, so should your company name.
Why you ask??? The answer....directories.
In directories, when a visitor uses the search function (which
is what the vast majority use) you will only be found if the
search term the visitor uses is found either in your site
title or your description. Unfortunately, virtually all directories
require your site title to be your actual company name. Remember
that directories are powered by humans, not software. A human
reviews the site, and assigns the title and description that
he/she decides is correct. Yes, they all let you suggest a
site title, but ultimately, regardless of what you submit,
your title almost always ends up as your company name.
Looking again at the above example, this would mean that
your title in almost all of the directories would be "The
Brewmaster". This means the only place you would have
left to put your keywords would be the description, and this
again is up to the editor. This means that any site that has
the search term "coffee" or "gourmet coffee"
in both the title and description would come up far ahead
of your site in the search results, costing you the traffic
and sales that could have been yours.
*The URL*
Here is another very overlooked tool. Whenever possible,
your URL should contain your most important keywords. Many
engines and directories will give your site a boost if your
keywords are found within your URL. Also, when you submit
your site to the directories, if your URL, your company name,
and your site title all match, that will virtually guarantee
that you will get the title you requested.
Let's tie the three previous areas together with an example
of what you could have named your site instead of "The
Brewmaster".
Here's one possible alternative: "Gourmet Coffee Brewmaster".
The above alternative would give you a company name that
includes our most important keywords and the perfect title
for your page.
You could then reserve the domain -
http://www.gourmet-coffee-brewmaster.com -
giving you a perfect trifecta. The same company name, page
title, and url, practically insuring that you get the directory
listing you want.
Of course, this is only one possibility, but I think this
should illustrate my point.
To Summarize
-Unless you have a huge advertising budget or are an extremely
well- branded business, DO NOT name your online business something
like the above example.
-Use a business name that contains your most important keywords.
-Use this business name as your site title
-Use a URL that contains your most important keywords and
whenever possible, is the same or as close as possible to
your keyword laden business name.
Follow these rules and you should have no trouble in developing
a very steady flow of large amounts of traffic from the directories
and you will be well on your way in the search engine arena
as well.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Buchanan is the author of the book "The Insider's
Guide to
Dominating The Search Engines", and publisher of a FREE
monthly
newsletter "The Search Engine Bulletin". Visit us
at
http://www.se-secrets.com
for more information or to sign up for
the newsletter.
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