Choosing Your Business Name with Google In Mind – SEO-Friendly Business Names

Congrats! You’re opening your own business. Chances are, you’ve been dreaming about this for a long time and already have the perfect business name picked out. But let’s pump the brakes. You’ve probably never considered how your business name affects search engine optimization – but you should.

Check out this video Oneupweb created to illustrate how to create an SEO-friendly business name:

Tips for Thinking SEO When Naming Your Business

As the world becomes more digital, brands have an opportunity to live solely in an online world. When you think about your business existing solely online, you can’t ignore search engine optimization when it comes to naming your business. Here are some specific tips for choosing an SEO-friendly business name:

1. Do Your Research

We hope before you settled on your business name that you researched to see if other businesses were already using the same one. It’s 2019, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a completely unique business name unless it’s a made-up word. This process is more about understanding where your competition is marketing and whether you’ll be fighting for control of your branded terms.

You can quickly enter your proposed business name into Google and see how many results you get for it. If it seems like a lot, it probably is. Remember, simple tweaks to the name may have a big impact. We found that simply removing the space from “Point A” and making our name “PointA” drastically improved our performance in the SERP.

When it comes to choosing a domain name, you’ll want to do just as much research. Now, we obviously don’t own the www.pointa.com domain, but when it’s all said and done, www.atpointa.com isn’t going to ruin our business. Keeping an open mind and exploring all your options is a good way to keep your sanity in this process.

It’s worthwhile to peek at what social channels you might use to clear your business name there as well. There’s nothing more frustrating that registering a business name, purchasing a domain and then finding out that you can’t use that name on Facebook or Twitter.

2. Don’t Worry About Keywords in Your Business Name

You might think the best way to rank for your business and associated keywords is to put them in your business name. But, according to a report by Mediaworks, businesses with a unique name, and not one dictated by keywords, perform better in organic search.

For example, if you’re opening a flower shop you wouldn’t name it “Blossoms Flower Shop” (37,400,000 results w/ 210 searches a month) and instead might land on “Petals and Twigs” (3,190,000 results and 390 searches a month) or something similar. A search for this business name (Petals and Twigs) pulls up only 96 results – they’re almost all flower shops – but, still, not bad for an off-the-cuff business name. See, you can do it, too.

You can see the difference in search volume and competition for the two flower shop name options.

The “Blossoms Flower Shop” name is dictated by the keyword “flower shop” and that’s not ideal.

3. Make Your Business Name Perceivable

This is a tip that’s good for SEO but also just good practice in general. You don’t want your business name to be something people don’t know how to pronounce or can’t spell easily. You don’t want a debacle like in “The Office” when Dunder Mifflin is bought by Sabre and they pronounce it Saab-ray instead of Say-brr. 

But in all seriousness, when business names are spelled the way they sound, it makes it easier for the consumer and for search engines, too. Google does a lot of guessing

There’s other research out there that suggests you should create business names that  “use alliteration” or “only use two syllables,” but in our opinion, it’s more important that your business name reflects your voice and tone.

Know When to Take It Easy

If you’re opening a business, you’ve got a lot on your plate – some of it fun, some of it less than enjoyable. Remember, choosing your business name should be fun!

When you’re ready to get into the nitty-gritty of marketing motions and decisions, you can count on PointA. If you need help with designing that website you just snagged the domain name for, reach out. We’ll get you to point B.