The Importance of Category Titles In a Business Directory

Ever wonder about the importance of the category titles within an online business directory? Should an organization or chamber assign the title of “Mortgages” or “Home Loans”? “Financial Institutions” or “Banks”? “Automotive Repair” or “Auto Repair”?

Well research has shown, it does matter!

Case in point. The two images attached here show an example of a recent Google search for “Boerne, TX mortgage”. This Chamber of Commerce has named their category “Mortgage Lending”. Therefore, because the word “Mortgage” is situated in the category title, this directory search result appears favorably on this popular search engine. Whereas when a similar search conducted for “Boerne, TX home loans”, the chamber’s website is nowhere to be found - even going to page 3 of the Google results. See example screen shots below.

There are several examples of this throughout the country. So our recommendation when this question arises is to tell your chamber or organization to use commonly used words for the category titles instead of lesser used names. Their members and the online consumers will thank them for it.

Think back to the basics when it comes to titling categories. Use common words like “Banks, Auto Repair, and Mortgage” instead of “Financial Institutions, Automotive Service or Home Loans”. Granted, everybody thinks a little differently, but the less commonly used words should be reserved for the “About” section of the members’ online member web page (landing page).

Knowing this information could make an impact with the level of SEO success that our organizations experience.

Important Note: These results vary from city to city and chamber to chamber. So until we can discover the common link that makes these great results appear more predictably in more communities throughout, be sure to not guarantee this will work for every community.