A blog about curry (...and naming your business)

I’m a branding person. And I’m partial to a curry. So I’m going to merge these two interests to make point about business naming.

Let’s imagine you’re going to open a curry restaurant in my local town, Farnborough. When it comes to naming your food business, you want to be straightforward and businesslike, and you want to appeal to a wide range of people.

You also know how important SEO is, and want to build an online presence to help you attract customers.

So Farnborough Tandoori is born.

You’re please with the name - it tells people what you do, and where you are. Everyone will ‘get it’. Job done.

You open your business and all is well. Locals, like me, walk past your restaurant and notice it's there. They try you out, and your food is great! I tell my friends about my new favourite curry restaurant. You also get a bit of coverage in the local paper. And you get some business by handing out flyers in the town centre. All good so far.

Generic names make online searching hard

But my friends who don’t know the area very well, also like a curry every now and then. They’d heard me sing the praises of a new place in town, although they couldn’t remember its name. So when they were visiting the town for a meal, they decided to do what most people do: search online.

They searched with a few keywords: Indian. Restaurant. Farnborough. Tandoori. Curry.

Each of their searches produced a page or two of results featuring every curry restaurant in the local area. They couldn’t identify the place I had recommended.

Not all keyword-rich or descriptive business names are as bland as Farnborough Tandoori. You could have chosen “Naan’s”. Or “Coriander Kitchen”. But unless you choose a name that’s yours and yours alone, you’ll only ever get found along with all of your competitors.

Think brand, not bland

If you’d chosen a distinctive, non-keyword based name for your business (what we'd call a brandable business name), my friends might well have remembered you. And you would certainly have stood out in the pages of search results.

At the risk of over-stretching my analogy, my point is simple – using descriptive keyword-based business names is a recipe for disaster.

Not convinced? Here are some more reasons why you shouldn't be descriptive with your company name.