These days, SEO is an integral part of any wide-ranging digital marketing strategy. However, even with the biggest effort and the most patience – sometimes it doesn’t work out as well as you had hoped. And you can’t figure out why you’re having trouble with ranking. Are you doing something wrong? Often enough, this simply isn’t the right question you should ask.
Instead, think about it like this – which SEO tactics work? You’ll find that, more often than not, the ones that take your brand name into account are the most effective ones. Even as an SEO veteran, you may have not thought about a brand name as an SEO potential. But now’s the time to think again!
Brand Names And SEO
If you know anything SEO, you know it’s all essentially about one key process – funneling. You work as hard as you can to funnel as much traffic into your website as you can. And just like with a solution that speeds up the product development in fashion companies or other kinds of product pipeline effectiveness tactics; you need to think about this long and hard.
Of course, when it comes to SEO, the words you expect to hear are domain authority, internal links, backlinks, etc. But in this context, you rarely think about your brand name. It’s no wonder, really; most people choose the name of their company or brand much before they start worrying about their Google rankings. However, that’s why we’re here – to tell you the importance of proper brand naming for SEO!
If you choose a brand name that’s in tune with your target keywords, you will find it much easier to land yourself the rankings you want. And, conversely, you will have trouble keeping your website on the first page of search results.
But now that you’re aware of just how much SEO and your brand name are intertwined, the question is – how do you choose a proper brand name? Okay, it needs to be focused on the right keywords – but is there anything else? As you’ll find out soon enough, it also needs to be memorable and unique. And don’t worry if it all seems too much – we’ll explain how to fully utilize the power of your brand name for SEO right here!
Uniqueness
The digital landscape is absolutely brimming with awesome brand names – and you may very well be tempted to draw inspiration from them while choosing your own. However, while Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Google, Dropbox, etc. are all clear winners; you don’t want to attempt copying them.
Not only will you risk a trademark infringement lawsuit, but your business will be seen as laughable and spammy – certainly not the impression you want to leave to anyone, let alone consumers. Instead, you want to go in the opposite direction – you need a truly unique brand name. Plus, that’s reasonable from an SEO point of view; the less generic it is, the less competition it will be facing in the SERP. Imagine competing against an Internet titan like Facebook for a similar brand name. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be copyright infringement, their SEO omnipresence would absolutely murder you.
Memorability
Alright, now that you know why true uniqueness is important when choosing an SEO-friendly brand name – what’s next on your agenda? That’s right – memorability. Let’s be realistic, it’s 2020; no-one wants to think about URLs, let alone memorize them. You want a memorable brand name that will allow anyone to find you quickly.
But how do people actually find you? That’s right – through Google, once more. That’s why it’s crucial for your brand name to be fine-tuned for SEO purposes. Imagine how awful it would be for your brand if your company didn’t rank when the keyword in question is its own brand name!
Also, you could face the issue of people simply not remembering the name of your brand; that’s even worse. But sure, we can sit here and preach about uniqueness and memorability all day long; how do you actually come up with a resonating name, that will also be great for SEO?
Alliteration
Alliteration isn’t any kind of grammar alchemy; it’s just the practice of picking two words for your brand that both begin with the identical sound. These are memorable phrases, as they easily roll off people’s tongues. A great example of that is Coca-Cola.
Not only is that a brand that’s fun to say – but it’s also not difficult to keep in mind. That’s why a lot of brands use alliteration in their names. When people make their first Google search of your brand, they’re far more likely to get it right if it’s constructed with alliteration.
Two Syllables
Did you wonder why people often (sometimes annoyingly) shorten the words in the names of their brands? That’s not just in an effort to stand out – it’s another SEO hack as well. It’s proven that shorter domain names are directly related to better Google rankings.
Be Phonetic
Finally, we arrive at our last piece of advice – a phonetic brand name. And we’ve intentionally saved this for last, as it will become increasingly important in the next couple of years. Namely, it’s the practice of coming up with a brand name that’s written similarly to how it’s pronounced.
In other words, “Google” is spelled almost precisely how it’s pronounced, so it’s very phonetic. And while this is aesthetically pleasing, it’s also important for voice searches. A phonetic brand name makes errors in communication between users and devices like Alexa far less likely. And studies show that the number of voice searches is steadily and rapidly increasing!