Many small business websites use a variation of their business
name in the belief that it creates Brand recognition. Unless the
specific words contained
in your company name are already very well known to your potential customers, they are
probably useless as a Domain name. Your identity on the world wide web should describe
what you do, who you do it for, or the business values your customer might be
looking for.
Unless you're business is like Nike, your company name may not be very well
known. The domain name - www.nike.com works, because Nike is a well-known brand.
If your company name is Big Bob's Bargin Barn, (www.bbbb.com is not
presently available) registering the Domain name www.bigbobsbarginbarn.com (it was
available when this page was written) would be
a very poor choice. Why? The answer is very simple: What does this
company do? What products or services do they provide? Who do they do this for?
Where would this company be located? Why would anyone want to find their website?
When would it be important to anyone, to find this website? Why can't they spell?
(bargin should be bargain) The domain name doesn't
give many clues, does it? The domain name: www.cheapoakfurniture.bc.ca tells a
nearly complete story,
in the domain name! They manufacture (or sell) cheap, oak,
furniture and they are located in British Columbia, Canada. It's a pretty good
start.
From the www.cheapoakfurniture.bc.ca example, having a page that's about
dining room tables and chairs named "products.html," could only be
effective if the person looking for a supplier of "cheap oak dining tables,"
mistakenly entered the search phrase "Cheap oak furniture
products" in
the search engine's query window. Again, "dining_tables_chairs.html" would
be a more descriptive (and profitable) page name.
We often see websites that title every page with their
company name. "Our
Company" is never an appropriate title for a web page! "The History of
Our Company" would at least give the reader some important clues about the
web page content. Search Engines (and people) decide to visit pages that let
them know what to expect. Web page titles are the single most
important page element,
for search engine optimization.
Each section heading adds to the focus of the information
contained on a web page.
The most important or main topic heading is labeled with the <h1> label.
The sub-headings, <h2-h6> are determined by the sub-topic and the subject contained
under that heading. Validating a web page will
also allow you to see the heading use for that page. Just check the
"show outline" box and then revalidate the page. You might be
surprised to discover
how poorly most web pages are written.
The text content on each web page that describes important,
focused, aspects of the page title topic,
will make search engine spiders excited to come back and crawl your web pages again.
Giving your visitors lots of
relevant free information, gives the same relevant
information to search engines. Web visitors want to find the right answers to their
questions to (solve their problems), search engines want to help them!
Good text information is always a win-win scenario.
Please note: Google does not permit direct searches from non-exclusive business
websites and so they are not included. Please search Google directly at www.google.com
[d]
