Brand Names: an interesting subject and one open for plenty of debate. There have already had a couple of blog entries on here about the subject, and I thought it was about time to pass on some of my knowledge when it comes to branding and SERPs for your brand. Personally, I have branded a few sites (I'm not going to name names here, as that would just be shameless promotion), but I have a couple of very handy tips for anyone wanting to brand their site to make it stand out from the crowd.

The first thing to do is clearly establish what your site is about and who it is targeting. Let's take two sites I am involved with right now: one is a Mental Health Community and Advice Site, the other a Luxury Hotel Reviews site (I use these because the domains are already taken and established).

Once the purpose of the site has been established, you need to do a bit of research in order to prime yourself for the online brand you are going to create. To do this, you need to think of the most common keywords you would associate with the site content and not your brand (content is king!). For the mental health site, we researched the common keywords associated with mental health. We used various online keyword research tools and we came up with things like 'mental health', 'Schizophrenia', 'Depression', 'illness', 'support', etc. In other words, the things you would generally associate with mental health.

Secondly, you look at 'Personal Associations': what YOU would associate with your keywords. As the site author is a social worker, this person had a different association to the 'normal' user. The social worker came up with things like 'social care', 'theory', 'debate', 'support', etc.

Now, mix the two together and create a nice big list of keywords. You do not need to go back to online research at this point as the rest is mainly done using your own brain power. Put the list of keywords into Microsoft Word (or an online dictionary) and for each one, choose a synonym that is appropriate to your user.  By this, I mean that for the keyword 'mental', some synonyms are 'cerebral', 'psychological', etc. As you will be targeting the people wanting to access the service, these search terms would bring up journal articles and medical papers in most cases. These are not 'accessible' (more on this in a minute).

One of the keywords that came up was 'mind' as a synonym for 'mental'. It's a simple four letter word, easy to spell, and it conveys the point, so that is something that would be really good to get into our brand. Above and beyond its easily-memorable nature, it can be spelt by almost everyone.

So we have the 'mind' for the brand as a keyword, which relays the general basis of the site: Mental Health. Now, for anything else we can include, we look into the site's function. The site is a community--a place for people to gather, meet and discuss issues, as well as giving information. Again, looking into synonyms for 'discuss', you find the word 'talk'.

So the site is a place to discuss mental health issues: simplified, it is a place to talk about minds, hence the final name of 'TalkingMinds'. The impression just from the name is that it's not only a place for discussion and debate about mental health, but also that it is a place of knowledge and professionalism: people giving their input and knowledge to others by talking from their mind.

This is only one way to find a brand name. Another is the use of clever analogy. Let's look at another example: a hotel reviews site for luxury and boutique hotels in the UK.

This is a very competitive market, with the possibility of a niche. The main sites are called obvious names containing words like 'luxury' and 'review'. To stay away from becoming another nondescript site, we needed a concept--something that people would link to luxury hotels easily, but something quirky enough to remember.

Think about what your market does, what people think of instantly when they think of your market. This has a double-entendre effect: your visitors immediately get the correct impression from your brand, and they form their own mental snapshot of what you do. The brand also links well to the theme of the product. Your name means something to the product and vice versa.

Here's where you really have to get thinking. Luxury hotels: what do you expect from them? Most people will say things like 'wedding night', 'honeymoon', 'romantic weekend', 'expensive', 'posh', 'big beds', 'butlers for your room', 'personal service', 'chocolates on your pillow', 'champagne and roses', etc. Jot a few down yourself and get others to do the same. Tally the results and work out which one is most popular. In this case, the most common trait was 'Chocolates On Your Pillow'.

As a domain name, chocolatesonyourpillow.xxx would be too long to be snappy and memorable, so we take the two most descriptive words (nouns) and use them. Hence, chocolatepillow.xxx becomes the brand and site domain.

The instant impression has many effects. Firstly, chocolates are seen as indulgences (for most), and pillows are seen as relaxing, comforting and safe.  So the site has a subconscious feeling of indulgence and relaxation - just what you want from a luxury hotel. The name is also not too obvious so you get a secondary effect for those inquisitive minds--people search for luxury hotel reviews and stumble across chocolatepillow and the name draws them in as it sounds intriguing. What have chocolates and pillows got to do with hotels? The connection has then been made (usually with an 'Ohhhhh...Yeah!' reaction when it clicks). They land on your site after clicking through from curiosity, and they remember it because it's quirky and usually gets an emotive response. That emotive response is the key!

If you can get your brand to have a unique name that provokes an emotive response then you are onto a winner.

You will get lots of return visitors, as well as being able to boost your rankings by not instantly targeting the very competitive keywords. Search Google for Chocolate Pillow or Talking Minds - these sites are top of the SERPs, as they were primed for those keywords and are gradually being primed for others as well.

Why prime just for the brand name? Because slow and steady wins the race! People find your site and tell others: somehow it usually gets to another webmaster who becomes intrigued. Perhaps they do something similar or need what you offer, so they pay you a visit and you potentially get a backlink with little effort. In addition, you have primed these keywords for yourself: you have created your own little internet niche without having to compete with the very large players. You have also prompted people to talk about your site. One way to start this is to tell friends and family and post on a few relevant forums, stating how you just found the site and it looks really good, or even by asking on forums for people to go and look at it and give you feedback to make it better. It's surprising how well that works to get people coming back!

One thing people forget with SEO is that word of mouth can be so much more powerful than link building in some senses. If you just want visitors to come and go, then optimize to your hearts content. If you want people to come and then come back again and again and again, get a brand name that matters and means something. A lot of people will then scan their own heads for your brand name: "Let me think: what was it? Talking health, chatting mental, talking about mental health, talking about your mind...Talking Minds! That's It!!" Alternatively, "What was that name, choccy something, something to do with hotels and your bed? Hot chocolate? Chocolates...  bed... Chocolates on your pillow... Chocolate Pillow!"

Just by them thinking about it, they will be intrigued and the name will stick!

Overall, remember one thing: your content is always king! A brand name can do a lot, but your content will get people back, particularly if they trust it. If you speak about another site, then reference it! If you are honest, your users will trust you!