Where people mess up when naming their business and domain name

From time to time we find requests on what people should name their business.   I love to pull this example from years ago,  they were planning on opening a book store in Reading, PA.

They wanted to name it “Reading Bookstore”,  after the name of the city they were located in.   This was dismissed after a deep explanation on why that company name won’t work.

Here are the Google results for “Reading Bookstore”

As you can tell,  a new startup has little chance of ranking for the right term,  even after considering location enabled searches and other factors that Google uses to rank local companies.    The issue is that Reading is the name of the city,  and pronounced differently but spelled the same is Reading (as in the opposite of writing).    In this case if that company went ahead with their plans,  they most likely would still have difficulty ranking even in their local market.

When selecting a keyword or domain name,  focus on something brandable and useable,  and not common terms.   The internet has grown so much in the past 20 years that it’s safe to assume that most common terms are highly competitive.

So steer from something used,  and go for something unique.    Google in the past few years has declared a limited war on exact match domain names.    It is safe to say that you won’t get the boost that you expected going that route.   So stick with something that you invented, not something that’s out there already.