Use your company (dba) name for local search company name field; citations aren’t credit to a keyword phrase.
References:
- http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml
Many local search strategists suggest that adding keyword to your local search profile ‘company name’ improves ranks and/or CTR… as noted in David Mihm’s Local Search Ranking Factors posts such as http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml#5 – Product / Service Keyword In Local Business Listing Title and again at http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml#17 – Location Keyword in Local Business Listing Title.
I believe both assumptions are vastly in error and also believe David Mihm does as well since noting his own negative factors, such as:
- Multiple Addresses on Contact Page
- Multiple LBLs with Same Business Name
- Multiple LBLs with Same Phone Number
- Multiple LBLs with Same Address (most harmful)
Having multiple company names for the same company is more likely a negative influence rather than a positive one.
If for an example, your real dba name is Spherica Inc., and you edit that to be SEO Spherica Inc. or just use the keywords as your profile name ‘Search Engine Optimization’… what local search profile acquires the citations that are physically labeled as Spherica Inc. (as opposed to SEO Spherica Inc. or Search Engine Optimization)?
If you don’t get certain citations because they belong to a different company (by a different name than the one you chose in your local search profile) would you even know you lost that value? Probably not.
I caution anyone augmenting their listing with keywords to ensure that these associated keywords are equally used in all their citations in the same manner instead of just their legal business name or doing business as name, since each lost citation is lost ranking factors.
I have noticed that when there is a physical url reference associated with a citation there appears to be much more flexibility in associating the citation (even when a different profile listing name appears than what is used in the citation) but when searching for citations with different names and no url – they appear to be nonexistent.
