How do generic words in business name affect SEO?

Question

I have a client whose main business is pilgrimages and trips. The name of the business translates to English as roughly

Pilgrimage and Tourism Center XYZ

("Centrum Pielgrzymkowo-Turystyczne XYZ").

However, the most common name for a travel agency in our country is

Travel Bureau ABC

("Biuro Podróży ABC").

Should I advice this client to change the name of the business? I'm thinking something like:

Travel and Pilgrimage Bureau XYZ

It'd not involve changing the domain name - roughly "xyzpilgrimages.pl".

I imagine that such a change will give them a better place when someone searches for "travel bureau", which is what someone would typically do when looking for a non-pilgrimage trip. I also don't think it'll affect people looking for pilgrimage-type trips, as the names for such businesses vary between "bureau", "center", etc. Does this reasoning sound about right?

Answer 1

I would look more towards the content on the website as it will have a larger impact on SEO. Short and long tail keywords are what you want to look at.

You also seem to be looking at 2 audience types. I would recommend having separate pages for these on the website. This will allow one page to rank high for pilgrimage trips, and the other for non-pilgrimage. You may even want to consider 2 websites if the audiences are extremely separate.

Answer 2

The name of a business has an impact when you expect people to search for it by name. Otherwise, what you need to make sure your pages and websites are relevant to what your target audience is looking for.

So if the the specialty is pilgrimages make sure that you have pages that show it with the pathname and headings (H1, H2) expressing that. Basically, the page has to show to users what it is about which is why Google prefers things that are highly visible to the user.

Now the domain name is an important part of ranking. Although Google mentioned it was toning it down a little, I still find that it can often skew results. Meaning you can search of X Y and a popular page called X that mentions Y is often ranked than a page named Z about X Y.

What you can do is get creative such as called the domain pilgrimages-by-xyz.com or equivalent. Just to be clear though, these are all small factors among hundreds that affect ranking. They each make a difference somewhere but a big impact really comes from doing a lot of these but not necessarily all of them. You do have to put your users first because when Google tweaks its algorithms, it is generally to promote pages that are better for users.

Answer 3

I agree with Jason, work on brand recognition with the client, and on identifying the differences. If what they do is pilgrimages and tours, and that's their name, then they'll probably do quite well if you can build brand recognition around that company name with quality relevant content, PR etc.

Obscure beer-mat business names are a pain in the butt IMO, and can sometimes be harder to gain brand recognition with... and if you can't be associated with a product/service, how will users remember you when it comes to searching, or when presented with them in SERPs?