Name Awards

Stupid connections to search engine marketing

The stupidest question I get asked, usually by bright, naive would-be company founders, is should they consider the search engine rankings of a name or words first, then find the company name, or find the name first. And last week it came up a number of times, so I fear this silly virus is spreading.

So let me put it to rest here and now, and as  politely as possible say: If you consider search engines first, you are flat out stupid. Consider the facts:

• Whatever clever, catchy web name you come up with for your product line, it is still only one of many web search terms.
• Whatever name you come up with, I can put it in the title or keywords of my web pages and score as high as you (or better).
• Whatever name yo come up with, I can make a webpage with that same key phrase and score as hight as you (or better).
• Whatever name you come up with, if it is a popular search term, it is probably generic so you cannot trademark it.
• Whatever name you come up with, it is almost impossible to get consumer or business brand awareness, since humans are so brand-centric.
• Whatever name you come up with that is popular with search engines, will also be popular as a general search term and you will be home alone, lost on the internet.
• Consider where you would go to buy a CD, a computer, a pair of shoes online. Really..you wouldn’t go to cd.com, computer.com or shoes.com (respectively) so why would your clients go to the generic for your industry.

If you want to sell scientific text books online, you could own the domain scientifictextboooks.com  (it is for sale, and they are only asking $1,400). But how could you make this a brand? And how would you compete against the big brands? So please, first type this term in a search engine and see who else comes up. Even Target stores comes up early in this search, and that is far from their core business. Plus what happens if you really find your audience are searching for technical books instead?

Enough said. Go get a great unique short brand name that you can own and protect. Then do your search engine marketing properly.

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