Should I change my listing title or even my domain
-
I have a domain for a lawn maintenance company. The domain is something like mycompanyyardcare.com
Even though this company do yard care most of the business that is trying to attract is Lawn maintenance. The keywords that most people type when they are looking for this service is "lawn care".
Should i change my domain to mycompanylawncare.com instead of mycompanyyardcare.com?
Other thing, in the listings or links that I'm creating in directories, the company name is Mycompany yard care & snow removal. Should I change to Mycompany lawn care & snow removal?
-
Title Change is the best idea. You should not change the domain name. It will harmful to your website.
-
Hi Joao!
This is a really good topic and you've received some very important advice from both Matt & Bryan.
Your situation is exactly why my ultimate preference is to have local businesses choose a domain name that reflects their real-world brand rather than focusing only on keywords. Your business could eventually expand to include, lawn care, yard maintenance, landscaping, snow removal, tree trimming, controlled burning and who knows what all if you are growing! You can't fit all of that into a domain name. But, if a business name is TidyYards and the domain name is simply TidyYards.com, then the business will have to focus on the strength of things like its content rather than hoping that an EMD will do the trick. I definitely understand that Google is still rewarding keyword-focused domains, but to me, this is a holdover from their less-sophisticated past that I believe will recede over time. In sum, I think building a strong real-world brand is more important than keywords in your domain. If you're considering starting from scratch, you might want to throw that idea into the mix.
-
You are 100% spot on about needing to be sure if you change this in one place, you must then change it in all. Good advice, Bryan!
-
Just keep in mind that there will be a number of other SEO ramifications if you decide to migrate domains. I can't say for sure not being totally familiar with your company/site, but in my opinion it would almost never be worth it to change domains for the reasons your considering. There isn't much of a bump from the domain name, and the search engines are getting much better at recognizing context, intent, and synonyms.
You may want to read through Cyrus Shepard's "Keywords to Concepts," which may help you understand the concept of topical search. It's actually possible that "yard care" is helping you with "lawn care," too.
You may want to incorporate phrases like "lawn care" into some of your site's copy, just to be safe, but I sincerely doubt it would be worth it to go through a domain migration just to change "yard" to "lawn" in your URL.
-
That really depends on what your analytics say. If the trade-off between the volume you do get for "yard care" would remove a lot of traffic, or your site is well-ranked for that, changing to "lawn care" may hinder you more than hurt. Again, this depends on your rankings, keyword goals, and how much a difference the switch might make. All that said, from what you're saying it sounds like the switch to "lawn care" may benefit you in the long run.
Another important note: if you're going to change the branding/name from "yard care" to "lawn care", make sure you do it everywhere. In every directory you're active on, all social media, and other branding. It's important that those things be universal.
One last note: While changing your keyword focus, I'd suggest still having content for "yard care" as a keyword so that you don't lose as much of the work as you may have put into it.
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
-
SERP Business Listing
Hello, While searching on mobile I was testing keywords to see if my business listing would appear. I noticed for certain keywords it would trigger a competitors business to come up in the knowledge panel. I'm running adwords so my business typically always appears in the top ad panel but my business listing isn't recognized for particular keywords. Is there any reason why a competitors business listing would appear in the SERP over our business? It seems random. Is there maybe something I could add on the google business listing? Does anyone have any tips for this? Thanks!
Local Listings | | Dsv1 -
Local Listing Submissions: Best Bang for Your Buck
I have a client that has ~30 office locations. Normally, if a business has 1-2 locations then I just submit through Moz Local. However, the marketing director won't approve a $1000+ annual local submissions package. My question: What strategy or service do you recommend that would allow me to submit these 30 locations to the best directories that I can without spending an excessive amount of budget and time? More specifically, if you had around 4 hours and ~$300 to spend on submitting 30 locations, how would you do it?
Local Listings | | capsquare0 -
Incorrect Google Places Listing Outranks Other
We have 2 Google Places listings (due to 2 Google Accounts). One listing (the one with the wrong address) outranks the correct listing. Am working on updating citations and have updated the website with the correct address. I do note that Google has not picked up that the contact page has changed and has not seen the changes to many of the citations. Do we: Update the incorrect listing with the correct address for the time being to resolve issues with clients. Remove the old (incorrect) listing. Or is there a better way to sort this out am concerned that removing the listing will lose us our Google Places rank.
Local Listings | | GrouchyKids0 -
"Duplicate" on Google Local - Attorney and Business Listing
For our law firm, we have a Google Local listing for the firm (Riddell Law LLC). Google also created a local listing for one of the attorneys (Riddell) (we didn't create it, but are in the process of verifying it). Both listings are at the same address. Moz Local says these are "duplicates" - is that true? Would Google penalize us for this? I am not sure how to fix it - both the individual attorney and the business are in fact at the same address. If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!!
Local Listings | | bpurdue0 -
Multiple Business Listings at the same address - Negative or Positive?
Hi everyone Does anyone have any experience of working with multiple business listings at the same address? It's making me itch my head! I work for a travel agency and we have multiple websites for different holiday types/destinations. I want to add business listings for the businesses but I'm concerned that it could have negative effects from the businesses sharing the same address and sometimes the same phone number. Has anyone got any pointers on this, if will effect rankings or my SEO strategy. Thanks!
Local Listings | | Steve-Witt0 -
Changing Business Names
Hi All, I am working with a client that is changing its business name and website domain. Obviously, they want Google Maps to display their correct information. I know that in order for this to happen, they will need to do some citation clean-up and update their Google+ Local page, but does anyone have any opinions on the order in which these things should be done? Thanks!
Local Listings | | PapercutInteractive0 -
Local Medical Practice Listing Question
We have 4 separate locations for an OB-GYN practice. They are XYZ OB-GYN and are affiliated with ABC Health System. All of these OBGYN offices are located in buildings belonging to ABC Health System with multiple practices (other doctors). Two of the locations have seperate suite numbers & two don't. How do we promote our OBGYN practices if they have the same address (with no suite number) as the other practices in the same exact building? I don’t believe Google wants multiple listings for separate practices that are using the same address without a suite number.
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120 -
Unable to verify my google local listing page by phone verification.
Hi, I have created the Google local listing page for my business site. I want to verify it using the phone verification but there is only a option - "verify by postcard". Is there no option to verify it using a phone number? Help needed.
Local Listings | | SangeetaC0