How does a business name affect SEO?
-
We have a client that's changing the name of their medical practice from the doctor's name to their region + "eye care." However, they recently told us they're changing it from "eye care" to "eye center."
Many of their direct competitors use "eye care" in their name. I ran a quick keyword analysis and it shows "eye care" gets a million US searches a month, whereas "eye center" gets 450k searches a month.
While that alone would make me suggest they keep "eye care," I ran a keyword difficulty analysis and found that "eye center" has a KW difficulty of 41 and "eye care" has a KW difficulty of 78.
Should we recommend they stay with "eye care" because it gets more searches? Or is it better to go with "eye center" because it'll be easier to rank for?
-
You are losing the big picture......the content on the site is the content. New content can continue to focus on "eye care" or "eye center" regardless what the core name is....... Make sure if they change the name and change the url you redirect from the old url to the new. Remember, you also have the ability to generate additional "defensive urls' on the same subjects that support either term.
Good luck. Please show me the thumbs up.
Mark
-
The focus below is mainly on the domain name, what about the actual business name? Think this would be equally (or more important) from an SEO standpoint as it would appear multiple times in the pages, title etc.
-
I agree with Alan. I have a few clients (lawyers) that I suggest getting a domain name with their practice and their area (e.g. type of law + area). This works great if they are mid level firm. They care more about traffic than branding.
-
I think that depends who you are. If you really are a brand then fine, but if you a small business cutting lawns, then lawnmowingdallas.com would be the way to go.
People can nly reconnize or remeber so many brands, we can't all be a household name.
-
Although keywords in domain name do have relevance in ranking it should not be the sole focus of a business. I would rather have a solid brand name with no keywords in the domain than some long domain with brand+KW for the sole purpose of ranking. I work in highly competitive verticals where none of the top 5 have KW's in the domain, and the ones that do tend to rank at the bottom. It's all about branding and authority.
-
I second Alans comment!
-
I would go with "eye care center"
-
I think it is always a better practice to try to keep the desired keyword in your domain name. However, if they are set on center, you can always make a silo for care and still do plenty well in ranking for both keyword phrases.
In thinking this out loud, I might suggest keeping "eye center" as there domain and use "eye care" as the blog that supports the domain. This way you would be covering more ground and have a two pronged strategy to hit both choice key word phrases.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Standardising of Company Name Across The Web Question
Good Morning All There are two variations of our company name on the website. Sometimes the name is listed as "name and name" and sometimes listed as "name & name" The domain is obviously www.nameandname.co.uk I believe I am correct in saying that we would be wise to go through and standardise, using one form or the other? Secondly, my main question is would we be wise to use "name and name" as the default, as the word "and" and not the symbol "&" is in the domain itself? Many Thanks
Branding | | ruislip180 -
SEO for Facebook's search bar?
Hey everyone! Had a quick question for ya'. Does anyone know if there are currently SEO tactics that are in place to help a company's Facebook page rank in their search bar? For example: When I search "Idaho Auctions" into the facebook search bar, there's a multitude of results - ranging from groups, to events, to businesses. How do these get ranked above each other?
Branding | | TaylorRHawkins1 -
A problem when our brand name is searched
We have an issue in that when someone enters our new brand name "68 degrees creative" into google.com.au, the following results show: http://postimg.org/image/8x2id4ta9/ The second result is the Linked In page for Hiroshi. This is a person that was part of our old business but is no longer part of the new business (68 degrees creative). And therefore, his LinkedIn profile should not be appearing for this search as he has nothing to do with the new brand. In his LinkedIn profile, he has made no mention of our organisation 68 degrees creative. He also does not feature on our website: www.68degrees.com.au. We can therefore only conclude that the reason he is appearing for the search "68 degrees creative" is that Google has somehow connected him with the new organisation due to previous online ties and relationships which Google has determined by virtue of that associated him with the new organisation. We are ultimately unsure what their algorithm is in establishing this. Is there any way in which we can change this? We don't want his LinkedIn profile appearing when our company name is searched when he has not part of the company. Any help here would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
Branding | | Gavo0 -
Should the Facebook page be just the brand name or also include keywords?
Hi. Do you recommend that a company's Facebook Page be just the Brand Name, or should it include some keywords in the title?
Branding | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Is it OK to choose a Domain Name with Brand-name followed by keyword?
My client has a website (brandname.co.in) The website is popular in India (we show up 1st in SERP for our brand name as the search query in Google India) but results are different in Google US, Actually we are not even in the top 10 results in the US version of Google SERP. The Domain name (brandname**.com**) is already taken by another person and he isn't using the domain but expects around $100000 for selling the domain. So we are only left with the option of buying another domain name. My client provides business intelligence consulting services/solutions. What I would like to know is can I recommend buying (brandname-bianalytics.com)? Would this be treated as keyword stuffing? Is there a possibility that my website be penalized by EDM algorithm updates for my primary keyword(bi analytics)? Please advise.
Branding | | PaulineRose0 -
Should I remove spaces from my brand name?
I'm looking for some second opinions on this one. In talking with another SEO, he is of the opinion that if my company name is two words like Crazy Man, I should write some news release that have my brand combined as Crazyman because it is a variant of the brand name. He claims that Google does not look at my brand as Crazy Man, but as one word and in Google's mind Crazyman as one word is my brand. What do you all think?
Branding | | kadesmith1 -
E-commerce Platforms and Seo Doubts
Hello There, I plan to launch my online store with products soon via one of the saas hosted based platforms like shopify & bigcommerce. The issue is am trying out to see how this works for us. But then simultaneously we would work towards seo efforts to bring in relevant traffic too. Later once we grow and I decide to change the entire website based on custom design etc so that means again all the seo work has to be re-done? How can I avoid this since I have already invested capital and time in building the current saas hosted website and its almost ready to roll out. Can someone advice the best way forward and possibly a relevant solution Thanks Aditya
Branding | | shanky10 -
Is adding SEO links within Clients Footer good?
With the Google Panda update craving quality, relevant content is it acceptable to place a targeted keyword within other customers websites such as " SEO in ......" ????? Cheers
Branding | | samr2170