1. Make it more than just a keyword. A name made up of two or more keywords is often the first thing that new business owners lean towards – and is usually not successful. They are easily forgotten, confused with other companies, and can lack interest – in other words, BORING.

For example, when you hear bestwidgets.com, betterwidgets.com, superiorwidgets.com and greatwidgets.com it is obvious than none of them stand out in a unique brand.

2. Make it sound different. The name you choose should sound like nothing else. Here is a bad example – Claris, Clarins, Claritin, and Claria. It’s hard to remember which names refers to software, line marketing, antihistamines or cosmetics. Even if you did remember it’s likely that you would associate all words in one category.

3. Verb Potential. Think ‘Xerox’ or ‘Google’. A generic pronounceable word that means nothing is the best launch for a brand to become unique. Words such as these develop their own verb. There isn’t a day where you hear someone say ‘google it!’ If you hear someone spending their time saying “[your name]-ing it” then you’ve got a promising brand name.

Kudos Brandbucket.com

Here’s how it all works:

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Sign up and fill out the normal info. From there, you choose topics that you “know” about.
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Then you can Ask a question and people who have tagged your keywords will respond…
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…or you can Answer questions.
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Questions like the one above have infested Aardvark and are downright blatant attempts to gain my information. This type of search engine won’t fully function in mainstream if anyone can be an “expert” in anything and fill the site with mindless noise. Does “Arthur” really want me to believe that a less-than-computer-savvy user signs himself up for an account on Aardvark, uses emoticons and is an avid Google Earth participant (which doesn’t require a password) needs my help to find his password by having me email him? For six months my phone beeps every 10 minutes with a notification to answer a question from Google Chat (which I signed up for, but when it serves little purpose to their core function, it’s irritating).

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In Conclusion
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Will I be leaving Google here any time soon for Aardvark? Probably not. And I’d recommend the same for you. But if you do find search engines frustrating, I’ll offer you some quick tips:

Sure, you can close your description with clichéd phrases that consumers have been beaten over the head with for decades, but that’s not pretty productive in the end. For one, your listing might seem like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey dropped by and threw a bunch of nonsense together. You know, the one where all those incomplete sentences are pushed next to each other: 100%Guarantee!While Supplies Last!Great Finish!Call TodayYippie!.

Or, I’ve sometimes run into what I call “Sequel Listings” where the description just ends without telling the customer how everything previously stated correlates into why they should come by or pick up the phone immediately. I know all the contact information is above, but your local search listing should grab their attention and never let go. Don’t pull the rug out from under your customers.

So, what are some ways to have your customers clamoring for an encore? For starters, you could end by appealing to everyone through geo-targeting. Let’s say you’re a carpet cleaning business in Ames, Iowa and you just expanded into five states recently. Success is hitting on all cylinders and you want more. Here’s how you could close your local listing: “There’s more to our carpet cleaning. From Ames to Austin, TX, come see how we’re spot-on with spot cleaning”.

You’ve done two things here. Rather than run off 50 cities that you service, you’ve come up with a concise geo-targeting system that reads well. Also, you’re smoothly transitioning your number one keyword, carpet cleaning, into Ames, giving the listing a little more added SEO meat to it.

Imagining new ways to close out your audience can make your business listing and your business prospects seem intriguing for going the road less traveled.

Now let’s say he actually goes headfirst onto the web.  If you wanted to be an SEO copywriter for his website, let’s call it Who Cares What Time of the Day it is, It’s Conan!, your first priority would be keyword placement of this extremely long title.

Now you’ve gone to Wordtracker and started your keyword research.  What comes up?  Wordtracker gives you a blank look.  Just typing the beginning of the title will cause Google to go crazy and give you around 529,000 results with the title sporadically thrown around each result.  It’s allright, you’re just beginning the optimization process for the website.

Next, try It’s Conan! and see where that gets you.  Wordtracker again comes up looking as puzzled as before.  Google AdWords gives you a variety of “Conan the Barbarian” terms to go up against “Conan O’Brien” (A monthly search volume of 165,000 for each)–no help there either.

Now your left to go back to the producer of the show, most likely Conan himself, and timidly tell him you are unable to make the title fit and that he should think of another one that would be “search engine friendly”.  He laughs at you and tells you to go back to the drawing board with the original.  You go back to your office and defiantly think up something that would catch the eyes of Wordtracker and Google AdWords.

And then it hits you:  Yay, Conan! Now type it in Wordtracker and see your hard work pay off:  search result…1.  And the lone keyword reads:  “conan obrien yay boo beer”.  Not exactly your best avenue to promote the show, but at least you’re getting somewhere.  Trial and error eventually will give you the platform for which to spread the news of Conan’s new website.  Finding clever ways to utilize your keywords inside the brand without sacrificing the reader’s attention is one of many tools to excel at SEO.

If it makes you feel better, whatever title you give Conan’s new show, it would probably rise to the top 5 organic searches on Google in about an hour—besides writing for The Simpsons, Conan O’Brien has a rabid fan base.  It just never hurts to practice your Wordtracker and Google AdWords searches.

Regardless if you’ve been caught flat-footed and are scrambling to cobble together some PPC ads, or are, I dunno’, on the ball and prepping for Valentine’s Day, let me show you a handy tool that can help you position yourself for glorious windfalls no matter the occasion. Let’s check out Google Trends.

And let me quickly tell you that the graph and numbers are only relative to the, “average search traffic in the chosen time period,” which creates a baseline where the, “subsequent terms are then scaled relative to the first term.” Yeah, I stole that from their FAQ, but it usually seems to be the first thing that comes up when I show this to people, so I wanted to keep you from getting too excited.

Anywho, go ahead and type in, “long stem roses,” to see a terrific example of a powerfully obvious trend. You probably could’ve guessed the result beforehand, but let’s say you’re running a small toy shop and are wanting to gauge consumer interest in a couple items. I can tell you that the new Space Police Lego sets have been forced into a lot of conversations by my eight-year-old son lately, along with some kick he’s on with working on cars, so there’s an erector set in the mix as well. Using these as search examples, our imaginary shop owner can compare and contrast the old standby erector set with this new Lego line to see which is garnering the most attention from consumers.

Here we see an alien learning to respect crosswalks.

If you perform this search today you’ll see the Space Police are noticeably cooler at the moment, though both are on an upswing, clearly riding the wave of the holiday season, as shown by the previous years’ data. From this information our imaginary owner could pick a direction for a PPC campaign, use it as an additional way to forecast demand in regards to ordering product, or plan future SEO campaigns. This could allow our owner an opportunity to build some nice organic results for the timeless erector sets, while leaving a PPC budget for whatever the next super-awesome, super-cool, “all my friends have one, so I need one,” toy-thing of the season. So, go play with Google Trends and see how it can help you and your business.

What this video fails to mention is that your website is more than likely not included in your listing until you claim and edit it. There are so many people who see their physical address and numbers are correct and leave it at that, of course most of them don’t even realize the possibilities and options right in front of them either.

The second thing is that by simply claiming your site you immediately get a boost in Google’s 10-pack (that list of businesses beside the map in certain searches). It’s a tidbit that gets picked up in Google’s algorithm and gives your listing a nice kick in the pants for the smallest amount of effort on your part.

It’s time to break out of our old-timey phone book mentality and take advantage of the little angles we can be working online; naming your business “A1” anything may still get you listed first in the big book of yellow pages, but with more people searching for products and services online than anywhere else, becoming just a bit more Internet savvy can be a boon to your business.

Right, I won’t mince words: I don’t enjoy using Twitter. Maybe it’s my age, as I am very much on the downside of their pinnacle 20-24 year old core demographic. The grouchy, late 30 somethings make up roughly 4% of the user base and it slowly slides into oblivion from there. I’ll venture to guess that many don’t see how they could possibly say something useful in those 140 characters without completely breaking down into L337-Speak (if you don’t know “LEET”, then you may be actually less cool than me, and that’s really saying something… I’m sorry), which I would tend to agree, though I must make exception for business owners/marketing persons. No, you likely can’t fit a full description of your world-changing product/service into a single post, but you certainly can work in a link back to your own site that not only contains your glowing description but an opportunity for a quick sale as well.

Beyond content though, and without delving into the SEO possibilities, today I’d like to focus the ol’ stinkeye directy on Twitter’s, dare I say, crap user interface, and how you can easily clear that hurdle with the help of a totally free dowload called TweetDeck. Yes, it works for both Windows and Mac OS X, and it will make this whole micro-blogging thing less of a chore as it organizes everything from tweets, to @ replies, to your own custom-made groups, and in a tiny form of reputation management, all mentions of you from across the Twitter-sphere (as far as I know, I just made that up). TweetDeck truly unlocks Twitter’s potential for you, allowing for more and much simpler control over this necessary marketing tool.

If you’re already using Twitter, then this should be a welcome addition to your addicition, and for those who have spurned it in the past, as I too once did, I hope you’ll find this to be a breath of fresh air, or at least a patch of sorts. Because listen guys and gals, Twitter is fast chewing into the overall social media market share and if you don’t find some way to make these unpleasantries into opportunities, then you and your lithograph machine may soon find yourself left in the dust.

Another obvious gain comes in the form of repeat visitor traffic, giving you a good base to build on, but to keep them coming back for more you need a few things:
1. Clearly, you need to provide something to pique their interest and make them actually want to come back for more. You don’t need to create some Tolkien-esque universe and saga to transfix them, but how about news regarding upcoming events? Ask for customer feedback on a new item you’re stocking, brag about a cause you’re supporting, show off/pick on your employee of the month – whatever you do, be human, engaging, and…

2. be punctual with your posts. Decide if you’re going to do this daily, weekly, monthly, just be sure that whatever schedule you go by that you stick with it. If you track your readership you’ll quickly see a decline the first time you miss an expected post. It might seem excessive, but you will see it, no matter how reliable you’ve been in the past… those ungrateful so-and-sos…

3. Don’t forget to install an RSS feed! Sure, people might bookmark your site on their browser, but there will also be plenty who say to themselves, “Hmmm, this is an interesting site, I’ll have to remember this,” only to completely forget your address within two mouse clicks and a sip of coffee. The addition of that cute little RSS button is a call to action for your readers, and with a mash of the orange box you have a subscriber who will from then on be alerted every time you cobble together another masterpiece. This simple and so often overlooked addition will help prod return traffic to your site, translating to loyal customers, repeat business and untold wealth and fame.

At the very least it gives you the opportunity to publicly humiliate your employee of the month…