Hi , Thanks for creating such a helpful site, these Q&A’s are awesome. Two questions, (both super rookie), Firstly how important is it to use standard text symbols in online company branding / SEO? (we use ± in our name instead of the more traditional ampersand &). Secondly, apart from Google what are the other big search engines you would recommend uploading / listing business on?
text symbols ± big search engines
A
Hi Nathan, Since your company name is a branded name, it will have lower search competition. If the symbol was in a very highly competitive term, the symbol may have an impact over someone using an ampersand or the word "and." But this can easily be figured out by doing a search and seeing what happens. When I search for "dodge and burn new zealand" your site pops up in the number 1 rank. So you're solid. :-) For your second question, I don't really know. I've heard that Bing is not even used in NZ and OZ, and even here in the States, Bing accounts for around 15% of search traffic. So it's not that big. So not sure if you need to focus anywhere else. It would really depend on what's most used with your target market.