Is Your Company Name Killing Your Online Business?

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company ... ...
What ... you from everyone else.I would be willing to bet that you spent a good deal of ...
up with the perfect name for your company. Am I right?S 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 timecoming 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 thesingle biggest hindrance to your business's success online.Unfortunately, for most companies it is.Choosing a name for your business online is much different thanchoosing a name for a brick and mortar business.You see, in the real world, a business with a catchy, easy toremember name will get traffic simply from people driving by on thestreet or walking by in a shopping center even if they have neverheard of you before.Unfortunately, this is not how things work online. Online, thereis no drive-by traffic, no people walking in to your business becausethey were next door shopping.Online, you must be found among a pool of tens of thousands of otherbusinesses.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 notgoing to search for your company name.Studies show that approximately 80% of internet users find what theyare looking for by way of search engines (i.e., Yahoo, AltaVista,Excite, etc.), and I guarantee you, they are not going to be searchingfor your wonderful catchy name, they will be searching for the topicthey want.Let me give you an example. Let's say you own a gourmet coffeebusiness called "The Brewmaster" that you decide to take online.Of course you love your name and create your online identity aroundyour 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 otherdirectories and search engines. Ahhh....life is good.
Orders shouldstart 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*Whether your dealing with a directory or a search engine, the sitetitle is the single most important aspect of your listing.
For searchengines, the text found within the title tags of the page is givenmore weight than any other single factor on that page (i.e., keyworddensity, keyword frequency, heading tags, etc.). In a directory, yourentire listing is comprised of two things, your title, and yourdescription.In both cases, if the keywords related to your business are not foundin your title, your chances of coming up for a search are virtuallynon-existent.
If your site is about "gourmet coffee" then those wordsor at the very least, "coffee", should be somewhere within your title.*The Company Name*Just as your site title should have your most important keywordswithin them, so should your company name.Why you ask??? The answer....directories.In directories, when a visitor uses the search function (which iswhat the vast majority use) you will only be found if the searchterm the visitor uses is found either in your site title or yourdescription. Unfortunately, virtually all directories require yoursite title to be your actual company name.
Remember that directoriesare powered by humans, not software. A human reviews the site, andassigns 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 end up asyour company name.Looking again at the above example, this would mean that yourtitle in almost all of the directories would be "The Brewmaster".
Thismeans the only place you would have left to put your keywordswould be the description, and this again is up to the editor. Thismeans that any site that has the search term "coffee" or "gourmetcoffee" in both the title and description would come up far ahead ofyour site in the search results, costing you the traffic and salesthat could have been yours.*The URL*Here is another very overlooked tool.
Whenever possible, your URLshould contain your most important keywords. Many engines anddirectories will give your site a boost if your keywords are foundwithin your URL.
Also, when you submit your site to the directories,if your URL, your company name, and your site title all match, thatwill virtually guarantee that you will get the title you requested.Let's tie the three previous areas together with an example of whatyou 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 includesour 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 listingyou want.Of course, this is only one possibility, but I think this shouldillustrate 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 developinga very steady flow of large amounts of traffic from the directoriesand you will be well on your way in the search engine arena as well.
Article Tags: Most Important Keywords, Company Name, Most Important, Site Title, Important Keywords, Business Name Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com .