How to globalize your brand if the name contains a geo-location modifier?
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Hi Moz community,_**[Posting for one of our staff members
] **_One of our clients has difficulty attracting a national and international market potentially due to their brand name including a geo-location modifier. We believe that it may be a combination of search engine algorithms incorrectly assuming that the brand is location specific as well as human users perceiving this. I can't reveal the brand but a similar example may be "Houston Cheese-makers". This company wants to attract national and international customers and not be restricted to just Houston. It appears that both search engines and human users are understanding the brand to be limited just to Houston. The client does not want to re-brand. The brand also has a Google Plus Local entity verified against their headquarters location in Houston. We have considered the following tasks to help alleviate this restriction:- Changing site messaging to include modifiers such as "national", "USA" and "international" (title-tags, meta-descriptions, on-page text etc).
- Including a testimonial page that has testimonials from multiple international locations (eg "Joe Blogs from Sydney, Australia says...").
- Changing the title tag format site-wide from "page-name | Houston Cheese-makers" to an abbreviated version such as "page-name | HCM" or "page-name | H Cheese-makers".
- Schema tags - is there any specific tags that can send a signal about the global presence of the brand?
What other techniques can help alleviate this problem? Is the Google Plus Local page potentially hampering this as well? Has anyone had a similar experience and can shed some light?Thanks so much!
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The ideas above are all great. I would add that local addresses for branches / outlets are great if you have them. Being able to supply local addresses definitely indicates that you are not solely located in one town.
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Overall, I think a combination of all 4 of your ideas will help tremendously.
How about using a tagline to get the message across? If the client is opposed to changing the official brand tagline, even an unofficial "Title tag tagline" would allow you to build on your title tag suggestion. Such as:
page-name | World-wide Cheese | HCM
Another thought - is it possible to list multiple addresses around the world, or at least several around the U.S.? Listing Sales offices or distribution centers would help send the right signals.
On the schema side of things, some possible helpers:
- http://schema.org/isicV4 if you have an SIC code that distinguishes you as more than a local business.
- http://schema.org/brand - identifying the geo term inside the brand tag seems like a good idea.
- Also, I'd avoid using any of the schema that are specific to http://schema.org/LocalBusiness, such as opening hours or payment
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