Posted on 21 September 2011 by Alaina No Comments

Is Bienalto the same as Bien Alto? Not according to Google

Have you ever tried searching for your business on Google using a mis-spelling of your company name? It’s a question that hit home recently when a prospect kindly informed us that he couldn’t find “Bien Alto” using the search engine.

When he entered “Bien Alto”, Google produced an endless list of Spanish websites for the poor man to sift through. No Sydney digital marketing agency in sight.

It’s not Google’s fault. “Bien alto” is a Spanish phrase and would most commonly be found on Spanish websites. In case you’re interested, it loosely translates as “scale new heights” – a neat summation of what we help our clients achieve.

Spanish lessons aside, there is a great Google lesson here. Bienalto is not a simple word to spell. If I mention our company name to a prospect, he or she might hear “Bienalta” or “Beernolto” or any other crazy variation. They might search for us in the Sydney CBD, or in neighbouring Surry Hills.

Having heard that we do business in Melbourne, Brisbane, Darwin and Canberra, they might think our head office is in one of those cities, too.

What to do with all these typos and geographic slips?

To help point Google – and your prospects – in the right direction, it’s important to think about all the ways that people might search for your business.

To cater for them, sneak the typos and mis-spellings into your website’s metatags or your blog – just like we have done here. Or, run a Google Adwords campaign for the more common mis-spellings of your name so that you can gently redirect people to the right place.

This way, you can cater for everyone and hopefully land that extra project or sale that your business needs.