Google Places, until recently known as Google Local Business Center, has provided
some actual guidance with regard to listing the name of your business.  They want
you to provide the actual name of your business.  This would seem to be fair,
reasonable, and obvious were it not for the fact that the name is the “title” of
this page and therefore critical to determining how well you do in placement.  So,
if the name of your business is Mario’s and you are an italian restaurant, listing
yourself as Mario’s Restaurant will work against you. In order to optimize the listing,
you want to be Mario’s Italian Restaurant since most people on the major search engines
look up local businesses by business type and location. We’ll get the location aspect
in future blog posting.

How does one deal with this dilemma?  There are several possibilities.  It appears
that as long as the name doesn’t look like keyword stuffing, Google Places is not
going to challenge the name.  So in this example adding Italian Restaurant is likely
to fly.  On the other hand if you were to use the title Mario’s Italian Pizza and
Pasta Restaurant of Lincoln Nebraska, you may get challenged.

But what if you have chosen your business name based on keywords and you really have
a corporation or DBA like the Mario’s example above, Google Places will
theoretically let you use it.  However, you may have to prove it.  And therein lies
one of the big issues with Google Places.  Who do you call?  As of now, unless you
have an adwords campaign and contact with the sales department, it seems almost
impossible to right the wrongs of Places.

The bottom line about the name of your business. If your company name has no keywords,
you may do well to change the name – officially.  In the internet age it does not make
sense to name a retail or service business with some very clever brand strategy,
unless it is possible to add at least the main keyword.  The Rubber Duck might be a
cute name for a toy store, but I would name my toy store The Rubber Duck Toy Store.

If you do not officially change the name, I would still risk adding one keyword to
your Google Places “name.” Keeping in mind that Google will want to verify your new
business name by post card, which can take 3 to 4 weeks but it’s well worth it if you
get to the top of Google Places. If you want to add this same keyword to your address
block on your home page and about us page of your website, you will increase the
credibility of the “name” in Google’s eyes, and have less chance of being challenged.

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