6 reasons why a keyword in your business name is not useful

Yes, having a keyword in your business name has many advantages

But also disadvantages. Disadvantages that are not often mentioned or that people don't know are there at all.

6 of those disadvantages I have listed for you.

1. Branding your company name is trickier

Throughout this article, I will use my own company name as an example. Yes, I think it's a very cool company name and I get and a lot of good response to it, but branding is tricky.

This is because Online Marketing Agency is a generic term. A term that is used by many online marketing agencies, because an agency sounds nicer than an agency.

So because it's used all over the place, it's very difficult to emphasize exclusivity and use it as a brand. Well, my company name is already in people's minds. Not as my company name, but as a generic term.

To turn this around is going to take a lot of time, money and man hours.

2. There will be a lot of competition on your company name organically and paid

Reason number 2 for why a keyword is not useful in your business name seamlessly links to reason 1. I just told you that in my case, my competitors also use this term.

And because they use this term, there is much more competition on it both unpaid (organic) and paid. That means:

• Scoring in Google on your business name is a little trickier.
• A lot more organic results show up when people google your company name.
• A lot more paid results show up when people google your business name(and thus the cost-per-click is high).

3. Tools like Google Alerts handle this awkwardly

In a previous blog, I mentioned why you can't do without Google Alerts. You see, Google Alerts allow you to get an email whenever a certain name or term is mentioned somewhere online.

And so you can set the same for your company name. You guessed it ... When you have a generic company name, you will often get emails that are not relevant.

So it's harder to stay on top of where and when your company is mentioned.

4. Your Google My Company does not always show up when you search on your company name

Your Google My Business is the card on the right side in Google when you search for your your business name.

Here you can put in such things as your phone number, your address, a contact link and more. The big advantage of this is that people can contact you right away without having to go to your contact page.

For customers and potential customers, this is convenient.

When you have a generic business name, the Google My Business is not always shown. This is an assumption, but to Google it then does not seem obvious that people are looking for your business when people have typed in that name.

This is also difficult to determine, because when your company name is identical to a keyword, there is simply no way to make that distinction.

5. Your social media channels are shown less often

The aforementioned reasons why a generic term in your business name is not useful make sense to many people. But besides Google, you have another important channel in which you are less easily findable if you have a generic business name: social media.

When I type Online Marketing Agency into Facebook, I get a lot of results. And because that search function of Facebook is not too extensive, it is sometimes difficult to find the right one.

Especially if you are abroad or if the person searching has a non-Dutch profile. So for findability within social media channels, this is not helpful.

But there is another reason why your social media channels are not being displayed as much. Your Facebook page and also your LinkedIn page are indexed in Google.

Because of the reasons mentioned earlier, these too will be harder for your target audience to find.

6. Internationally, entrepreneurs in other countries can also use your company name with their own domain extension.

This doesn't go for everyone, but it does for me. Online Marketing Agency is an international term. It is used in England, in America, in Germany and many other countries.

Especially by the big agencies that want to sit down internationally.

Now I already own onlinemarketingagency.com (which I'm terribly happy with) and the .de, but that's about it. So it is quite plausible that there is another company in the world called Online Marketing Agency.

For example, in France, Australia or Poland.