Local SEO: Special charakters in brand name?
-
Hey guys,
we run a local gym in Germany located in Nuremberg called: "STUDIO N°1 - natürlich fit".
Our domain is: www.studio-no1.de
We are currently working on a new website since our current Website isn't really SEO optimized. Until then I would like to start optimizing some off-page attributes. As far as I know one of the main points in Local SEO is that your firm is registered at important directories. In our case we are already registred in most of the important german directories.
The problem is that our oficicial company name has a special charakter included. This means that in some cases we have "N°1" and in some others "No1! Our Google Business name for example has "N°1", facbook not (no special charakter allowed). Germanys most important site for listings: Gelbeseiten, doesn't even allow special charakters in brand names....
On which name should I focus to get all the business listings to have identical NAP informations? Does it even matter?
Schould I focus on "STUDIO No1 - natürlich fit" or "STUDIO N°1 - natürlich fit"?
I hope you could understand my problem. Big Thanks
Jonas
-
Hi Jonas,
If re-branding is not an option, then it sounds like you will continue to experience NAP inconsistency, of the type you've noticed and explained. Without settling on a single brand for all references across the web, inconsistency sounds unavoidable.
-
If you Google our brand name including the special character, you ll also get results with No1 and vice versa. The SERP results are not the same but it seems like Google can somehow understand the difference. N°1 (numéro) is actually french for No1!
So if you also consider "usability", No1 could be the best choice. Contrary to Google, a lot of business listing sites do not understand that N°1 and No1 are actually the same. So if you type in "Studio N°1" you will not get any results! Since a lot of people might not even know where to find the ° on their keyboards, they might just type in No1. But on the other hand I would like support branding effects on N°1, since it's our ofical name.
Right now I would just changes to No1 on major business listings and keep N°1 for important sites like Google Business for branding. I would also keep using N°1 for title and description for branding. Seems like you have to accept NAP inconsistency since re branding is definetly not an option!
What do you think?
Big thanks for your responses!
-
I wasn't going to throw out re-branding quite yet, but yeah that would make sense from a couple angles. With that special character how do I say the name? Is it spoken like "NO. 1" or is it "N Degree 1" or is it "N - 1"? I actually wasn't sure how to say it. This is definitely going to be a tough one to get a handle on citation-wise.
-
Hi Jonas!
I haven't had to deal with special characters much, personally, but here's how I look at this. It's going to be most important that your website and your Google My Business page match up - so, it sounds like Google is supporting your special character, so be sure your website is branded that way, too. As for your other citations, I do feel some concerns. You may need to stick to building citations only on those directories that support your special character, or what you will end up with is a bunch of citations that are sharing your phone number, address and website URL, but not your name.
Unfortunately, even if you do stick to building citations only on platforms which support the special character, you are likely to run into a problem because of the way data is shared around the local ecosystem. For example, if you create a citation on golocal and they do accept your character, but they then push that data to das ortliche, and this platform doesn't support the character, it could automatically change the N°1 to No1, meaning that citation inconsistency could end up being auto-generated around the web for the business, simply because of the way data is shared (see: https://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-europe). So, basically, I think you're going to have NAP inconsistencies no matter what you do here.
Is it a big enough problem for the business to consider re-branding? That really depends on how well their business is already known. If they aren't well-known, a re-brand might make sense.
-
Consistency matters for citations, and this is definitely a case I haven't dealt with before. Since the name is so unique and many sites won't allow for special characters I would pick one format to use across local citations. I guess the big question is how sites see the special character. If they see "No1" as "NO-1" that might work against you from a branding/dupe listing standpoint. If the rest of the information is the same across the citation sources, then it's possible the name variations could get aggregated together. In that case No1 and N°1 could become synonymous and acknowledged as one and the same.
I see a lot of sites are respecting the special character, so the best advice is to try and make it as consistent as possible. If you have a minority not respecting the character I wouldn't worry too much about it. You're playing a numbers game, so the more sites (quality sites) that have the special character will help you. The ones without may count for slightly less, but might not hurt you too much.
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
-
What are the best link strategies to increase rankings in Local Pack / GMB and where to find them?
As someone who manages GMB for 50 plus local US clients, I absolutely loved this article https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors#local-pack-finder-ranking-factors and found it somewhat useful. Most of the gurus are saying link building is the key, but I wish at least one of them would mention where do we find these links. Is there a reliable source for this ( based on personal experience only please ) ? A one stop shop for any local business to do quality links ? I feel like to be truly useful to a local business this piece of the puzzle is missing and I would truly appreciate anyone's help.
Local Listings | | OlegLevitas2 -
What is the naming format for locations is it brand name--Location name?
I am trying to arrive at an agreeable format for consistency across the ecosystem for our multiple locations. Is there a character limit for the location name?
Local Listings | | lina_digital0 -
How to change your location for local search results?
Hi Everybody Back in december 2015 I came across this article https://gofishdigital.com/google-results-change-location/ explaining how to change location for local search results using the google emulation tool by setting up new coordinates. This was also picked up by mikeblumenthals' blog as being one of the best way of doing this. I tried it at the time and it worked very well. I tried using it last week and again this week but my location no longer seems to update. I have tried it on fifferent computers located in different locations and still it doesn't work. Does anyone know if this feature is no longer available and if not what else they'd recommend to verify local search results. Thanks
Local Listings | | coolhandluc0 -
How to keep local citation solicitations away
Is there a way to get a client good citations for local SEO without them being badgered by solicitations by the citation sites, or at least minimize it. I realize once a company is listed they are on the telemarketing radar, but in specific keeping companies like manta , yelp etc. I am finding when I list manually for my clients that they are receiving an onslaught of 'your listing doesn't count unless you upgrade' kind of calls from the companies who I verified with. Does this happen when you list with an automated listing system such as Moz Local or any of the competitors? Thanks.
Local Listings | | DVOH0 -
What would Cause listing to fall off local search map spot?
Any reason a listing that was showing in Google between the 3 and 5 spot on local map search would suddenly disappear all together from the map position for a specific keyword?
Local Listings | | scott3150 -
Is getting a top position in a local results block acheiveable if you are outside of the central zone ?
Most of the keywords / phrases we are targeting have the city (London) appended to it ie. service name London, service name in London etc. The business of the site we are working on is located in London, but not in central London. Because of this i think the site is not being ranking as well as it could be (compared to other sites that in the centre or nearer to the centre with seemingly lower profiles, including have no reviews on their Google + Pages). The site itself is relatively strong fluctuating between 3rd and 5th spot for the target phrases in the organic listings, but because of the local block which sits under position 2 our site always towards the bottom of the first page. We've submitted the site to all the relevant local directories and listings sites, got 3 google reviews on the Plus profile and added the correct local html schema markup to any of our sites pages where our address is mentioned, but still we are sitting at around #12 on the local listings block (when you click Map results for...) at the bottom of the 7 local listings. So the site dosnt seem far off being on the front page, but I feel ive exhausted the optimisation i can do, any ideas how i can make any gains in these local listings ?
Local Listings | | Sam-P1 -
What are your experiences using the new Google Local Descriptor feature?
I'm looking for any insight from those who have used the Descriptor feature on your Places listings. Has it helped in any way? Caused issues? My issues with this feature are described in this question I posted the other day. But I haven't tried using the feature yet, and I'm hoping to learn from some of you who have.
Local Listings | | irapasternack0 -
What to do if the domain name is very different from real business name for local listings
Hey guys, any advice is very welcome , I m´ ranking locally a website in the bay area for cabinets www.cabinetsbayarea.com we picked this domain name more for SEO purposes because it has the two most important keywords that we want to rank. My issue is that the real busniess name is HEMA DESIGN CENTER, so i dont know if we should change the name in the chamber of commerce to CABiNETS BAY AREA or list the business as HEMA DESIGN CENTER, with this website www.cabinetsbayarea.comr. We only mention the real name in the About Us. CABINETS BAY AREA it is more as a deparment of the real business name HEMA DESIGN CENTER What should i do? Thanks a lot, David
Local Listings | | conexion330