When reviewing the list of organic keywords that bring visitors to your website, retail jewelers often ask me why their store's name appears at the top of the list. Some jewelers wonder if it's a competitor searching their name, and others wonder why there are so many variations of their store name being searched for. This Daily Golden Nugget will explain all this to you.Let's consider the customers that shop in your jewelry store. How often do new customers come into your store compared with repeat customers? Many of the brick & mortar jewelers I work with frequently say that repeat customers make up the majority of their business, while e-tail jewelers have a higher percentage of new customers than repeat.
Regardless what type of jeweler you are, those repeat customers may or may not exactly remember your store name between visits. To refresh their memory, these repeat customers will search online for your store name or some permutation of your store name. When they finally find and click your website link, the name they searched for will get recorded in your Google Analytics account.
Let's consider another scenario where you or one of your employees has introduced yourselves to people at a networking event. Meeting people in person in small networking groups is becoming more popular in the USA thanks to Meetup.com and local LinkedIn groups. There's a lot more in-person networking happening locally without being involved with the Chamber of Commerce or national business networking groups. You may or may not have exchanged business cards during this in-person networking, but certainly you will have the opportunity to explain your business or job to a few people. Sometime in the future it's those people from the networking meeting that might also search for your store name through Google.
The last scenario I'd like you to consider is the word-of-mouth referral from an existing customer to one of their friends. A word-of-mouth recommendation usually isn't accompanied with one of your business cards, but rather your name and town. Before visiting your store it's highly likely that the friend will search for you online. In this case they will probably search for a permutation of your store name and your town.
These are just three simple examples, and I'm sure you can come up with a few more on your own. It might seem silly that someone would search for your store name when your domain name is the exact same, but they might not know or remember that at all.
The point is that these people are trying to navigate to your website for more information or to make a purchase, but they don't know or remember your website address. Therefore within the search engine optimization industry this type of search has been dubbed as the "Navigational Search Type."
The next time you review your Google Analytics you should rest assured that it's not a competitor looking for you online, but rather it's someone with prior exposure to your jewelry store, possibly because they are an existing customer, met you outside of work, or got a referral.
