Ou est Eu?: French Town Wants a New Name

My friend and web maestro, Zee, was nice enough to suggest an intriguing post topic today: How does Search Engine Optimization and Organic Search influence brand names and/or name trends today?

As way of introduction to this topic (which due to it’s complexity and intrigue I’ll continue to address in future posts), I wanted to first stress the importance of taking the time to search the Internet thoroughly for your top name candidates.

Who are the usual suspects? Who rises to the top and, more importantly, why? The Internet is not your local Yellow Pages, it’s a global bazaar teaming with brands, and you are a part of it.

Even if the other names on a search results page are non-competitive, a thousand miles away, or mostly G-rated (another common Internet naming issue), you need to ask yourself: Are you ready to compete with heavy SEO spenders? How will you deal with names that are already ranking high organically? Will my customers be confused?

Case in point. Just a few months ago, the Telegraph published an article about a French town struggling with just these issues. In fact, the mayor believes tourism is down as much as one third due to confusion and Internet competition. The petite Normandy village of Eu, is competing for valuable tourism online with a wide variety of competitors, including their apparent SEO arch nemesis, the European Union.

The article continues: “Marie-Françoise Gaouyer, the local mayor, now has two options - to pay internet giants like Yahoo and Google thousands to put the town at the top of all "Eu" searches, or change the town's name.”

But like many French enclaves, the picturesque ville is centuries old and the new name (which will likely be a longer variation of Eu) would need to put up to a vote. The ensuing legal approval could take years.

Finally, Internet search rankings are one of the few reasons that depending on your budget and marketing goals, you may want to consider a descriptive name for your company or service. Normally, I’m not a fan. But, we should be aware that the coolest of coined names will likely be more invisible to search engines without significant targeted messaging and spending behind them.

P.S. Thanks again Zee for the idea—more to come in the future about SEO and naming!