How do I get my game found when people search for its name?

The short answer: make sure the name is one people can actually search for, use it exactly the same everywhere, own at least one page that is about the game and nothing else, and link your pages together. Do those four things and a search for your game’s name will usually find you, because you will have given Google the same name from several places that point at each other.

1. Check the name first

Before anything else, search for your game’s name in a private window. If the first page is full of other games, products or ordinary words, you are competing for a crowded term and everything below will take longer. That is worth knowing before you print it on a trailer. A distinctive name, or a name with a clear subtitle, such as “Name: a pixel adventure”, gives people and search engines something to hold on to.

2. Use the name exactly the same way everywhere

Search engines build up an idea of what a name refers to from every place it appears. Spell it, capitalise it and punctuate it the same way on your store pages, your website, your socials, your press kit and your trailer description. Small differences (“Last Lighthouse”, “The Last Lighthouse”, “TLL”) split the signal, and they make it harder for people who remember it slightly differently.

3. Own a page that is about the game

A store page is not yours to shape, and it competes with every other game on that store. A page of your own, on a domain you own, can be built to be found:

• The title has the game’s name first, then what it is, for example “Name | a pixel-art adventure game”.
• The main heading is the name, once.
• The description says what the game is in plain words and where to play it.
• The page is fast and works on a phone, because most people will arrive on one.

It does not have to be big. One good page beats five thin ones.

4. Connect the pages to each other

The pages should point at each other, because that is how a search engine decides they are about the same thing:

• the store page links to your website, and the website links to the store page;
• your socials, your Discord and your devlog all link to the website;
• anyone who writes about the game links to it, which is what a press page and a good set of screenshots make easy.

5. Tell Google it exists

Add your website to Google Search Console, submit a sitemap, and make sure the pages you want found are not blocked. A small amount of structured data can describe the page as a video game, with its name, genre, platform and publisher, so search engines understand what it is.

6. Be patient, and measure

A new page can take weeks to settle. Once a month, search for the name in a private window and look at what comes up, and look at the Search Console list of queries to see which words people used to find you. If another site, such as a store or a database, outranks your own page for the name, that is normal for a new game, and the aim is for both to appear and for yours to be the one that explains the game properly.

What I do

For the games I have built sites for, the website sits at the root of the game’s own domain, and the game lives on its own path, so the name’s domain does the job of the shop window. You can see how that looks for The Last Lighthouse and FarmFolk, and the service is described on the indie game websites page.

What to do next

If you tell me the name and where the game is up to, I can tell you what I would fix first.