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.
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
-
Why not just use an alias if the only change is a different domain Name?
We are rebranding our store with a new name. We have purchased a NewDomainName. Can I just make the "Old Domain Name" an alias for the "NewDomainName"? The site will not change in any other way than having a new logo. This is an e-commerce site with over 100 categories of artisan made products. So once we move the site, the old domain will be empty. Thank you Stephen
Branding | | stephenfishman1 -
If other people copy your content, is really GOOD or BAD for SEO ?
Hi MOZ friends. Last week, when i was following up the backlinks linking to my domain, i detect that a new website from an unknown administrator copies the content of an entire section of my website. The administrator of that webpage did not remove the internal links on the post, so i could find.
Branding | | NachoRetta
My website has a better domain and page authority and we focus every day on create new content, but when we found people that only copy content from another, i feel disappointed. But then I got to thinking that could be good that people copy our content, although they did not quote us. If they do not remove the links either by mistake or on purpose, we receive new backlinks. ¿What do you think about this? ¿Is really good that a website copy our content? If they remove all backlinks, Is risky that Google detects that the content owner is another? ¿What do you do in this cases?1 -
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 -
Local SEO (UK)
Hi all, Question about 'local SEO' or 'Google Places' or whatever it is now called! 🙂 My day to day work is in house for a UK national travel agency and I pretty much know what is expected and what I need to do with regard to SEO. However, I have a friend who owns an 'upmarket' hair salon in my city of Sheffield (UK) and after a rebrand and a complete new website he has asked for my help with regard to 'local SEO' This is my dilemma, because the salon only wants to target the local area of Sheffield (5th largest city in UK with approximately 500k inhabitants) should I focus solely on 'Google Places' and if so, can anyone recommend any guides, books, or training that will give me an overview of what is required? I have previously 'touched' on citations and claiming the 'Google Place' but I could seriously do with a refresh! Many thanks Andy
Branding | | TomKing1 -
Importance of Google+ name?
Greetings Mozzers, I'm working on some Google+ profiles currently and have one interesting case where I'd like some advice. The name of one of my clients' web addresses, company name, and Google+/Google Local verified local business names all reflect the same thing. [Name] Surgical Associates However, on Google+ it looks like it has a limited number of characters so it reads: [Name] Surgical Ass... How important is it to keep the name identical to everything else on the web? Could I get away with just changing the name on Google+ to [Name] Surgical I appreciate in advice on this matter and what would occur if I changed it here. Thanks.
Branding | | MonsterWeb283 -
Best to have separate private and the business twitter accounts?
Just starting to use twitter and can see its potential but I have a personal account, one my holiday letting business and one for my CCTV installation business. Obviously the problem is I have to login to each account separately and post relevant tweets. I like the idea that people following because they're interested in the subject but the downside obviously is that I have to split my time and my total followers across three accounts. What do you do with your twitter presence focus on one account or have separate accounts?
Branding | | whitbycottages0 -
Using Multiple Locations for Google Business/Maps
Hey MOZers, I currently work for a company with several other offices in other countries. Is it possible to set-up Google 'Business' and Google 'Maps' pages so when a user in a given country queries 'our business' on either Google 'Search' or Google 'Maps' they will receive the relevant business information for that country. For example, if an internet user in Canada enters a query for 'our business' in Canada (and we have an office in Canada) is there anyway to set up our Google Business page and Google Maps page so that user receives the contact information for the Canada office, rather than the US office? Conversely, if someone in the United States enters a search query for 'our business' is there a way to set it up so that the user receives our address in the states?
Branding | | NiallSmith0