A Business Name That Search Engines Confuse

A name that leads somewhere else

A neighbour recommends the business by name. The customer types it into Google that evening and gets a dictionary definition, a church, a private school and a property manager.

Or a company with the same name in Ontario, with more reviews. Or a page of competitors, because the name is the trade and the town, and Google read it as a search for both.

The business exists, and so does its listing. The name simply does not lead to it.

Some of those customers add the town and try again. Many call whoever came up first.

Names that confuse

• Common words, chosen for a feeling of quality, height or strength.
• Shared names, already used by businesses in other towns or trades.
• Trade-and-town names that read exactly like a search.
• Clever spellings, which customers type the ordinary way.
• Initials, which stand for dozens of other things.

The third looks like an advantage and rarely is. A name that matches what people search for is treated as that search, so the results show every business in the trade, with yours competing among them.

What a search engine is doing

A search engine is guessing what the searcher means. With a common word, the likeliest meaning is the word itself, or the best-known business that uses it.

With a shared name, it leans towards whichever holder has the most links, reviews and history, which may be a company two provinces away.

With a trade-and-town name, it assumes the searcher wants the trade in that town, and shows the map with three businesses and a page of directories.

Your own listing can still appear. It is simply one candidate among many, for a search that was meant to have one answer.

The descriptor

The usual cure is a descriptor: a word or two added to the name, normally the trade and sometimes the area. A single common word becomes that word plus junk removal, or roofing, or bookkeeping.

The full name is now distinctive. It says what the business does, it is far more likely to be free as a domain and a social handle, and a search for it has one obvious answer.

The descriptor has to be part of the name in real life, not just online.

Google My Business expects a listing's name to match the name on the sign, the vehicles and the stationery. Words added only to the listing break its guidelines.

Choosing the domain

Register the name with its descriptor, spelled the way people would type it after hearing it once.

Avoid hyphens and numbers, which nobody can say over the phone without spelling them out. A .ca address is more often available for the full name, and it tells visitors where you are.

If you already have a domain built on the bare name, keep it and point it at the new one, so old cards and links still arrive.

A worked example

A junk removal company with two trucks was named with a single common word, the same word used by a church, a credit union and a yoga studio in its city.

Much of its work came by word of mouth, and from property managers and real estate agents clearing out homes, usually by name, in conversation.

People who searched for that name found the other three first, and some called the credit union. The company's listing appeared only when a search included both junk removal and the city.

The owners adopted the name plus junk removal as the full name, and put it on both trucks, the cards and the invoices before changing anything online.

Then the Google listing was updated to match, a domain with the descriptor was registered and the old one redirected to it, and the social handles followed. Regular referrers were sent the full name to use.

Handles and short forms

Social handles bring their own limits. Twitter allows fifteen characters, which rules out most full names with a descriptor.

Decide one short form and use it everywhere a handle is needed, rather than a different abbreviation on each platform.

Where possible, make it match the short name on your Google listing and the first part of your domain, so a customer who remembers one can guess the others.

Saying what you are, wherever the name appears

Search engines connect a name to a trade and a place by seeing them together, repeatedly, in places they trust.

Put the full name, the trade and the town together in the site's main heading, its page titles, the about page and the footer, and in your directory listings.

Email signatures, invoices and quotes should carry the full name too. Customers forward them, and they are often where a referral starts.

Naming a new business

For anyone still choosing, test the name before printing anything.

Search it with and without the town. Check the domain and the main social handles. Say it aloud to somebody who has never heard it, and ask them to type it.

A name made only of descriptive words is also hard to register as a trademark, which matters later if a competitor chooses something similar.

The counter-case

Not every common name needs fixing.

In a small town where everybody knows the business, a plain name may cause no confusion at all. A name built on a surname is often distinctive enough already, especially with the town.

And an established business with decades of goodwill should rarely rename. Adding a descriptor keeps everything customers know while giving search engines something to hold on to.

Where searching your name finds somebody else, though, add a descriptor and use it everywhere the name appears.

The order to do it in

1. Search your name as a customer would.
2. Choose a descriptor you will use everywhere.
3. Put it on the sign and vehicles first.
4. Update your Google listing to match.
5. Register the matching domain and redirect the old one.
6. Align your social handles on one short form.
7. State name, trade and town together on the site.

Step three is the one that makes the rest legitimate. A descriptor that exists only online is a keyword rather than a name, and Google's guidelines treat it as one.

Keeping that name identical on every card, sign and listing is covered in a business card, a sign and a website that disagree.

Frequently asked questions

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