Branding vs. Keyword Optimization for Company title.

[bricegump]

I have a new SEO client that I am working on putting together an optimization strategy and have come across something that has me second guessing.

Reach out to Moz Community...

The client is a doctor who runs a tattoo removal clinic out of his office. Technically they are two separate businesses: doctors office and tattoo removal clinic.

The tattoo removal clinic is my client. They have an independent website where they generate leads.

The website is not the brand name. It is [city]tattooremoval.com. The logo on the site, heading, footer all reflect the web URL.

The actual brand name for the company is used in all the directory listings, facebook page, google+,  basically everywhere else on the internet.

When drafting up new meta titles, putting together content, everything really, the website URL has primary keywords included making it way more convenient to use that.

However I'm not sure how it will look to the search engines about having everything pointing to the site be one company title and when you get to the site not see the company title in the logo or titles and such. The company name is just down in the corner somewhere on the page.

Anyone with any experience to a similar issue?

On one hand I think I'm over thinking it, not having the brand name on the home page title tag shouldn't be a huge deal if the website delivers value to the customer. On the other hand I don't see a lot of companies that do this online in general (especially with larger brands), although research shows a many of companies in this niche using the [city] + keyword (or vise vera).

[Chris.Menke]

I agree with Sheena.  A focus on the domain name as a brand is so yesteryear.  And what's worse, having an EMD makes it almost impossible not to have it stand out as brand-like.  These days, when I see them in the search results, I'm skeptical and will often click on something else just to avoid them.  While I may not be typical, there may come a time when such is typical.  In fact, I don't preclude a future where it may be better to move to a brand domain name and 301 the EMD to that .

Absolutely focus on the brand and forget the domain. That will be helpful to you in the long run.

[Sheena_Schleicher]

Oh the woes of exact match domains...

If I were you, I'd try to work in the actual brand name, even if it's just a logo or branded tagline somewhere in the header. As you explained, it wouldn't be very good for visitors to arrive at a site that has almost no reference to the brand they thought they were visiting the website for. I would also look into a possible rebrand that works the primary KW (tattoo removal) into the brand name - "[Brand Name] Tattoo Removal." With that, you could build out a location page that reinforces the target city with local SEO.