The Importance of Optimizing Your Business Name for Online Yellow Page Directories

NEW YORK - When it comes to running a business, one of the most important things any entrepreneur can do is establish a definitive and eye-catching brand. And when any business puts their first foot forward, the initial thing anyone will notice is the name of their company. Thus, coming up with a catchy title for your enterprise isn't just important from an aesthetic sense; you can also drive business towards your brand, provided you've optimized it properly.

The importance of optimizing your business name when it comes to your placement in online Yellow Pages and search engines is still a relatively new thing, but in recent years it's taken on increasingly vital importance; importance that will only continue to grow as more and more people rely upon digital methods to locate the goods and services they need.

There are multiple attributes that could shape the name of your company when it comes to optimizing it properly, and no one detail is any less the other. But while doing so may still be a strange activity to those recent converts to the digital realm, it must be noted that similar aspects have been in play ever since the creation of the print phone directory; indeed many of the same attributes, including alphabetical order, keywords, and specific words denoting personality and the types of services offered have all played a part in driving brand identity home and increasing customer recollection and responsiveness.

Before the dawn of the digital age and the use of the Internet, consumers typically turned to print phone books in order to find goods and services in their area, with said services arranged by business type and listed in alphabetical order. Many businesses would name themselves in specific ways in order to appear as early in an alphabetical listing as possible, such as starting their business name with “AAA,” for example. Other ways businesses have attempted to incorporate name brand recognition into the collective consumer consciousness would be taking advantage of the alphabetical letters on the keypad of a telephone and creating a business name that could be essentially spelled when dialing its number- for example, 1-800 Flowers.

It is simple tricks like this that can make a business more memorable and increase its word of mouth, and has been proven that simple factors such as these can contribute to greater sales and recognition and the overall marketplace.

As the internet gained prominence and more and more consumers turned to it when searching for business listings, early search engines typically returned results for sites that included search keywords in their actual domain name. In other words, if a person was searching for a plumber, early search engines typically returned results of sites whose keywords most closely matched the user’s search query. "Plumbers.com" would do well in that scenario, for example. 

As time went by and Internet searches grew in complexity, this practice eventually fell by the wayside in favor of far more complex and accurate algorithms. But well-known search terms nonetheless remain the basis of any ideal company name when it comes to name-brand recognition.

Today, consumers use online Yellow Page directories such as Yellow Pages Goes Green and search engines such as Google, and these online tools no longer require a user to have to guess the domain name of any given business. However, because of this, many businesses find themselves forced to pay to advertise for their own brand names as keywords in Google search campaigns in order to lure business away from competitors; ultimately, it's a never-ending battle to stay on top of search results.

However, in this day and age creating a recognizable brand name that you can incorporate into your web address is still one of the best ways to bypass all of the competitive red tape and lead customers directly to your website. It's all a matter of finding a creative and recognizable way of incorporating your business name into a URL, and if someone else happens to possess it already, it may well be worth your while to invest in acquiring it from them if it happens to be for sale.

In the end, coming up with a business name that can be effectively incorporated into your advertising, brand, and even website address is one of the best ways to get noticed in this age of digital Yellow Page searches.