We’re #1.. on Google, anyway…

When I started the Geekazine website, I did a lot of searching for a name that was going to stick out. I learned from a sub shop in the area that sometimes you have to find something unique to make a name for yourself. But when I started, I found that I had to work hard at getting things to where I want them.

Today, I Googled the site, which I do periodically. Lately I was finding my website as the 8th or 9th hit with Twitter and MySpace being on top. However, after a few fixes, the search had finally done what I wanted it to - put the website on the top of the list.

To create a name is kind of an empowering thing. Now granted - Geekazine is not a household name and not going to be added to Websters dictionary anytime soon. There is no Wiki of Geekazine. Heck, even the stats say that only a few people will even read this article right now. It’s a new site - these things take time.

However, if you do things right, you will find that small victories will lead to larger ones.

I talked about a sub shop in the area - it was called "Big Mikes’ Super Subs". Well a few years ago they did a search and found that Big Mikes Super Subs was rather an un-unique name. From what I understood, the company wanted to change their name to give it presence.

They looked a lot of different names before coming up with "Milios". The idea was simple - a name that isn’t mistaken for anything else. For example, I could start a site called "Bob’s shop", and then have to compete with 25 other stores across the world who is also "Bob’s Shop" or even a variant like "Bobbies’ Shop".

At the time if you typed in "Milios" into Google, you really got nothing. Now you get all about Sub sandwiches. Pretty cool niche.

When I decided to find the name of the site that soon became "Geekazine", I did the same thing - I searched many different outlets to make sure the name was not going to conflict with anything. When I first Googled the name, it came back with 2 or 3 references - all obscure. This was after a host of names came across the plate, and were shot down in one way or another. In fact, I was planning on going with "IT Man", but the website was already taken.

Branding of a name is an important step. Years ago I created a site called "Toonzed", which was a play on the fact that I was running cartoons. In fact if you Google Toonzed nowadays, you still get remnants of that site (which has been out of operation for 4 years now).

Allbusiness.com has some great articles on naming websites. The biggest one is to make sure your name sticks out. That is important, because if I called myself "Googly", not only would it harness legal issues, but people might get it confused with Google and therefore never visit my site.

But getting the name is half the battle - the other half is to do what I just strived to do - get to #1 on Google. A month after I started the site, I searched the name again. 40 hits - and Geekazine was #5. A lot of hits went to sites that really had nothing to do with Geekazine or the content. They were just glaumming off the name.  Even today when I search, I get 155 hits with viable links, but also some links that you have to ask "How did that get on there and what the heck is wyszukiwarka.stron.org?"

So it’s a small victory for Geekazine, but still a great one. In this time I learned a lot about how your website is presented. There is still a lot to learn, too. But with a great network like Techpodcasts.com and some great books out there, you can surely believe that in a year if you were to Google "Geekazine", you will see a lot more than 155 hits. And hopefully,www.geekazine.com will be on the top.