Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to target for misspelled Brand name searches
-
Hi to all the SEO experts here,
I am working on SEO of my 4 months old website. For example, its 'abz.com'. We like the brand name 'abz' for the business and we are able to SEO well for keyword 'abz'. However, we would also like to target for the keyword 'abc'. There are 2 reasons for that:
- 'abc' is an actual word. So there is a possibility that our users may type 'abc' instead of 'abz' to reach us.
- For 'abc', the top result is 'abct.us', which is a site of adult in nature. Also our website doesn't feature at all in the results. This is hitting us hard in terms of or brand visibility.
So the questions are:
- How to feature in results of keyword search of 'abc'? Will the following approach work:
- Buying an available domain 'abc.co.in', and use it to feature in 'abc' results and 301 redirect to 'abz.com'
- Having 'abc' in the page meta (title and description). This is hard for us, since we need to rethink our taglines and copyrights.
2. If we search for 'abz', Google says "Do you mean abc". Is there a way to not have this suggestion?
It would helpful to have some more ideas for this problem.
-
Great answer Chris!
Manas,
It sounds to me like Google does not consider your brand to be an "entity" worth ranking for it's own brand name. This is why you're getting the "Did You mean?" link or "Search instead for..." in search results for your brand. The stronger your brand becomes - in Google's eye's - the less likely it is that people will see "Did You mean?" for the search.
Of course, without actually knowing the terms, it's difficult to say. If your brand name is "Helocopter" it would need to be VERY strong for Google not to show results for "Helicopter". However, if your brand is "HeelCooper" you could probably resolve that problem, and several of your others, with the suggestions below.
- Go Through This Presentation and implement what you can, such as:
-
Organization Schema with Schema.or Markup in the HTML or with JSON-LD
-
Add and Define your brand on WikiData, Wikimedia and other open data sources, or repositories for brand entities
-
Work your way up to WikiPedia by doing noteworthy things that generate press
- Make sure your Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP) are consistent across the web.
-
There are many ways to format things:
-
(Street, St. | Road Rd. | 1800, 1-800 | 555-999-5555, (555) 999-5555) | ABC, ABZ.
-
The important thing is consistency. You need to "Disambiguate" your brand from whatever that other keyword is. This is important for search, but also in reducing the amount of your potential customers who misspell your brand.
- Drive more searches for your brand, and subsequent clicks to your site by generating positive publicity.
- Use PPC ads for your branded terms, and that other term if possible, to get as much of that traffic as possible to your site, even if you aren't ranking #1. Also, google will be less likely to recommend another search if the one you performed is generating income for them. And they can use the data gained from those real user searches to inform their algorithms, which will - hopefully - eventually result in your site showing up, as it should, for branded searches.
- If none of this works, consider re-branding.
-
Hi Manas,
It's quite tough to give general advice on something like this because it often needs quite a specific answer, depending on your company name and that keyword you want to target.
If your company name is very close to that larger keyword, like Car Hirez and you're trying to rank for that branded term and Car Hire, it can be a little tricky. Without further info, my best suggestion would be to put that company name everywhere that it makes sense, and always in the same order.
I don't mean cram your company name whenever you can, just make sure it's in all the usual places like the page title, logo alt text, in your content, in all of your NAP listings, your link anchor profile etc. Keeping it to the same phrasing each time is also important for you to establish that those 2 or 3 words as your actual brand name, rather than words.
For example, don't allow alternation between ABC Car Hire, ABC Rental Cars, Car Hire from ABC etc. if the name is ABC Car Hire, make sure it's written that way wherever practical.
Of course, to rank for that broader term, the usual rules apply. Include that keyword in your page title, H1, content, internal link anchors etc etc. Treat the branded term and the keyword as separate items; that's how you want them to be viewed.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to get local search volumes?
Hi Guys, I want to get search volumes for "carpet cleaning" for certain areas in Sydney, Australia. I'm using this process: Choose to ‘Search for new keyword and ad group ideas’. Enter the main keywords regarding your product / service Remove any default country targeting Specify your chosen location (s) by targeting specific cities / regions Click to ‘Get ideas’ The problem is none of the areas, even popular ones (like north sydney, surry hills, newtown, manly) are appearing and Google keyword tool, no matches. Is there any other tools or sources of data i can use to get accurate search volumes for these areas? Any recommendations would be very much appreciated. Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wozniak650 -
Changing Brand and Domain Name - SEO Impacts
Hi everyone I'm hoping a few of you can help me out... We're an online-one retailer and we're currently looking at rebranding.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | piazza
This is for commercial reasons: Our current name is difficult for customers to spell It's not wholly representative of what we now offer We want to push offline and social marketing to help increase or DA In a nutshell, our current name implies 'cheap' and we're moving more upmarket.
Our DA is only 10, and a re-brand will make our brand more marketable.
A stronger brand and DA will help us climb up the rankings quickly - last year we ranked no 1 for a relatively competitive term before dropping a few places. In terms of current traffic: 30% is via SEO (we have a low DA but rank ok for certain phrases) 70% is via adwords We had our website redesigned last year and it performs well.
The idea is to have a new brand logo and colours and move to a new domain.
We will keep all our existing products and content. Please could anyone let me know the implications of this move?
What are potential pitfalls, and what will we need to do to alert Google?
I have read about 301 redirects, would these be required? As always, any help is very much appreciated. Many thanks Abs0 -
Should brand/company be included in meta title?
Is there any point/benefit/requirement in using brand/company name in the meta title, I realise search engines like Google prefer brand focused pages, However it is unlikely that someone would be including the company in our search terms. Any thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
How to Submit My new Website in All Search Engines
Hello Everyone, Can Any body help to suggest Good software, or Any other to easily Submit my website , to All Search Engines ? ? Any expert Can help please, Thanx in Advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | falguniinnovative0 -
Domain name suffix impact on SEO
Hello there, We are about to launch a new website and were wondering what impact a specific suffix would have from an SEO point of view. We were thinking about going for a domain which ends in .london as oppose to .com We are based in London and sell world wide via our website. We are suggesting www.domain.london as oppose to www.domain.com I would appreciate your views... Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | roberthseo0 -
Is there a limit to images file names?
Hi, I have an eCommerce site with hundreds of product images. For management reasons files are named in length to have the product details in them.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
Is there a limit for a filename length before it is considered ambiguous or spammy etc.?
(it usually ranges 50-70 chars). Thanks0 -
Exact match domain names
Hello, Someone approached a client of mine to sell a exact match domain name for a very competitive and high converting keyword. Would this be of any use and what are the best tactics to employ if it is purchased? I was of the opinion that the 'power' of exact match domain names are dying fast but would be interested to hear what people with experience in this think and what they have done with them (i.e. set-up a website on that domain or re-directed it)? Thanks, Rikki
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RikkiD220 -
Multiple Domain names pointing at one website
Hello, A collegue has asked if we can buy multiple domain names which contain keywords and point them at our website. Is this good practise or will it be seen as spam? Will these domains actually get ranked? I'm sure I'm not the first person to raise this but can't seem to find any questions and answers about this. Thanks Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | markc-1971830