Best Name for Business and Backlinks / SEO

[RetBit]

Sorry if this is a basic question I should know the answer for. We have just acquired the .org for a moderately well searched keyword set. Our objective is to fight for rank specifically on this one set of two keywords. We want make sure our site is setup and business named optimally for this. Here is my question. What is the best business name for SEO and keyword rich backlinks, or anything else I'm not thinking of?

KEYWORDS: Blue Widget     DOMAIN: BlueWidget.org

BUSINESS NAME OPTIONS:

A) simply BlueWidget.org. We like this but do we lose some benefit of "Blue Widget" with a space on backlinks?

**B) Blue Widget Foundation. Is this better because people will reference us by the keywords with a space "The Blue Widget Foundation", instead of "from the people at BLUEWIDGET.org"? **

Am I missing anything important here in the name? We just want to start everything off on the right foot.

Thank you Moz. Just joined and my first post.

[RyanPurkey]

Excellent! Glad Monica and I could point you in the right direction. It sounds like you have the pieces in place to make the most of it.

[RetBit]

Thank you Ryan. Very helpful. We are aware there is a lot of work to do. I write and have some recognition in my field, and am prepared to roll up my sleeves for this. Being that we're at ground zero, we just want to start off with the best advantage.

Thanks to you both for the help!

[MonicaOConnor]

I think you have the jist of it. Ryan did a really good job of breaking it down and making what I was trying to say a little clearer. Without knowing specifically what your domain is I cannot tell you whether or not I think it is best practice. And at the end of the day, you have to make the decision that best suits your business and strategy. I only recommend, like Ryan said, using the name on your business cards and letterhead. Branding is very important.

[RetBit]

No, this isn't the industry what we're looking at. Just an example.

We are the only company with an EMD for the target keywords in our industry. Our .org happens to be fairly brandable for our industry; it should not come across as spammy. It is far more "feedthehungry.org" than "buybabypowder.org". I'm just trying to find out if it hurts to go with this (specifically from a google perspective) or helps to go with this, and if so, if it is better to use a space in our brand name instead of calling ourselves exactly keywords.org. I hope I'm making sense.

[RyanPurkey]

It's ok. It's a little tricky to get as this aspect has changed over the years as well. And Feed The Hungry is a good example of where their brand matches their domain like Monica mentioned earlier.  As a business "Feed The Hungry" is what goes on their business cards, letterhead, LinkedIn, etc. That the brand name is tied in to an applicable search is helpful partly for people who remember them and create a link back to them (branding) and partly as an EDM. Still the press they've gotten, DA they've built, and networking they've done online and off under the name "Feed The Hungry" has a stronger weight than the EDM. That the EDM ties into it though smoothly is icing on a cake built from all those other efforts.  So, EDM isn't worth zero, but you shouldn't sacrifice branding to get one.

Another search that's instructive: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=google incorporated When you search for Google Incorporated you get different results than just searching for Google, same goes for LeSEA Global Feed The Hungry, Inc vs Feed The Hungry.  Search Engines have done well at figuring out search intent in addition to nuanced differences like lack of spacing in the domain vs the business name (earlier example).  An excellent litmus test would be to go with the name that you feel most comfortable promoting, pressing, and talking about as that's the work that's going to get you to rank.

[MonicaOConnor]

Take a look at the competition here. There are far more qualified domains, that should out rank feedthehungry.org. The reason they don't is because "Feed the Hungry" is the brand. If you look, there are other relevant sites that appear with this query, but no where in the title can you see the exact match to the query. If you want to compete on a branded key term like this one, it is going to take strategic back linking and great on page content so that the engines can equate your domain as relevant to the topic.

[MonicaOConnor]

Yes, they show because that is the name of their organization. It is their brand, not their key term. Does that make sense? That is an extremely competitive term. It is a branded key term as well, making it even more competitive because you have to compete with the actual brand name. So if you wanted to compete with them on that phrase, which has only about 700 searches per month, you would need to work extremely hard to get your brand associated with that topic.

[RetBit]

A good example may be www.FeedTheHungry.org. It comes up first for the search "Feed the hungry".

I'd imagine their #1 placement for this search term is due in part to the EMD for "feed the hungry" search. Maybe I'm wrong. If there is an advantage though, would there be any extra advantage to calling themselves the "Feed the hungry organization" vs "feedthehungry.org". This is the crux of my question.

Sorry if I'm dense and not quite getting it.

[MonicaOConnor]

No worries. We were all beginners once.

I would say your domain name should be the name of your company, your brand. Your key terms will be included in the URL for your categories and products. Stuffing the URL with key terms will not help you rank. Take the baby powder example. If your domain is babypowder.com and your category page is Baby powder, and your product page is entitled baby powder for infants, your URL would be www.babypowder.com/babypowder/babypowderforinfants which is not best practice.

If you make your brand johnsonandjohnson.com, your URL becomes www.johnsonandjohnson.com/babypower/babypowerderforinfants.

So, to answer your question, no having the keyword in the URL several times does not help you rank. Having a naturally flowing URL that contains your brand and key term is what will help you rank. Having the space in the domain name is frowned upon, it generally isn't best practice.

You want to avoid using the EMD, your domain should be your brand name, or business name. An EMD is a domain that exactly matches your key term, like babypowder.com.

[RetBit]

Thank you! So if I read this all correctly, google will look for the links back to BlueWidgets.org on one hand. On another, google will also be searching the web to see if our corporate (brand) name comes up often. It is not like it is searching the text near (not in) our backlinks to see if our keywords are close too. Rather, google seems to judge the links and our brand mentions somewhat independently.

In that case, "BlueWidgets.org" might be good for our brand name if people easily and widely refer to us as "BlueWidgets.org". It doesn't really matter for our ranking if we have that space in the name or not, only that people use our brand name.

Put more simply, we don't get any extra SEO push if we make the keywords ALSO part of our brand name. The EMD is enough. Does that sound about right?

Thank you for the help. The article was good also. As you can see, I'm a beginner.

[MonicaOConnor]

Take a look at this article about domains. It is very high level, and it breaks down the importance of brand vs. key term. Hopefully it can explain it a little better than I am doing right now, lol.

[MonicaOConnor]

I disagree. I think that if there is any short term value it will be exactly that, short term. There is not enough value for the short term. It will eventually make it harder to rank and then you will have to start over. EMD (exact match domains) have lost significant ranking value. It is what comes after the .com that is important, what products are in your URL, what key terms you use, not what your domain is. It is too easy to manipulate, which is why it has lost its value.

[RetBit]

Yes, I've read this quite a bit. Still, we surely assumed there would be value in starting a business on "BabyPowder.com" vs "AnyNewBrandNamewithnoKeywords.com", if we're trying to get our traffic from searches for "Baby Powder" specifically, no? Has the EMD value eroded so much that these premium domain names are worthless to build on?

[MonicaOConnor]

The difference is web mentions vs Backlinks. If someone mentions your name, Blue Widgets Foundation, that is valuable in its own way, where as if you were using anchor text it would more likely be for a term you are trying to rank for, like a product or converting term. Not that you couldn't link to your name, because you can. Web Mentions are kind of how engines gauge the popularity of your brand name, and back linking is used to increase the rank of a particular key term and domain authority. Does that make sense?

So, it would be like saying "You can find household widgets (Backlink using key term) crafted by the Blue Widget Foundation (web mention - increases brand value and awareness)"

[RetBit]

I'm still a bit confused, sorry. I'm new to this all. Let me ask like this. Is there any SEO advantage for search term "blue widgets" with people referring to us with the spaces in our name, in their own posts and backlinks to us? I want to know if  google will give us better ranking if third party articles and forum posts reference like this:

"This article came from the guys at Blue Widgets Foundation. http://www.bluewidgets.org/conent"

Instead of referencing us like this:

"This article came from the guys at BlueWidgets.org. http://www.bluewidgets.org/conent"

[MonicaOConnor]

I agree with Ryan. I would just add that the value of an exact match domain is no where what it was 3-4 years ago. The way that Google is evolving its algorithm encourage sites to have a "brand" and not a domain that has a highly competitive key term instead of the name of the business. It would be the difference in www.babypowerder.com or www.johnsonandjohnson.org. Baby powder might get more searches, but Google with associate JohnsonandJohnson.org with that term because they are related. Does that make sense?

[RyanPurkey]

I see. Here's an instructive search: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pop urls

The news aggregator popurls (always conjoined in their branding and links) ranks highly for the spaced search while the discussion on the RFC 2384 - POP URL Scheme is further down the list.

Even if you get more far afield in your searches https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pop urls#hl=en&q=face+and+book the conjoined, but well known site ranks higher.

[RetBit]

Thank you Ryan. We're not overly concerned with the branding aspect right now. Actually, in our field "BlueWidgets.org" has a sound of authority. We kind of like the name.

If we chose it, people would widely be referring to us as "BlueWidgets.org" instead of the "Blue Widgets Organization" though. I need to know if our links are already pointing to www.bluewidgets.org/content, is there still an added advantage to people referring to us as "Blue Widget Foundation" with the spaces? Does it matter from an SEO perspective specific to these two keywords. The real traffic for us (if we're successful) will come only when people search for "Blue Widgets" in google.

Thank you!

[RyanPurkey]

Welcome! There are benefits to each. When people refer to your URL you'll have your keyword set there and when they talk about you as a business the name will be more readable. Very few business come to mind that keep the TLD as part of the business name: eBay, Google, Yahoo... maybe Pets.com--due to it's generic name without the '.com'.  So it's partly a branding decision in that regard.  I think if you do some analysis specific to what your 'blue widget' is you'll come up with a good answer as far as your branding goes. As far as SEO both will work if your presence grows.