Naming your business is probably one of the most importantthings you can do for your business as this is something that you are going tostick with almost forever, so you want to make sure you name your companysomething that is going to last.
One of the best strategies you can use is to take out anotepad and start writing down random words and name ideas that you alreadyhave floating around on your mind, just have them all on paper. Write down wordsthat relate to your business, products or services. Take a day off and referback to this list and go over each word, if you have more ideas add to it butchances are by looking at these words you’ll be able to come up with a newwords just by combining some of the keywords you already included in your listor by going over your existing list, you might get an idea for a new word. Othernaming strategies will involve taking 2 words and combining them together toform a new word, for example, Verizon is a combination of two words merged together.The famous YouTube channel ValueTainment is a combination of two words.
Choose A Name That Is No More Than 2 Words
Now it's hard to give you advice on how to actually come upwith a name but I can definitely give you advice on some things you should beon the lookout for so that you can make the best decision possible.
First things first, you want to have your name no more than2 words or less. Don’t be one of those companies that have these long names forexample “kitchen cabinets and home renovations .com” you definitely don’t wantsomething like that as your name
You want something unique so that when people do Google yourname, only your website pops on.
Choose A Name That Is Easy To Pronounce
Next is you want something that can be easily pronounceableso when people do end up on your website, the following day when they go backto Google to search your brand name they don’t by accident end up on the wrongwebsite simply because they don’t know the correct spelling of your companyname. never go with a name that has multiple spellings because you have to buyall the domains and you run the risk of having your clients end up on the wrongwebsite.
Search On Google To See If Anyone Is Using The Name YouAre Planning To Use.
Before you decide on which name to go for your new business,do a quick Google search and see any websites currently show up at the top of Googlesearch, if there are already companies with the same name as the one you werethinking of having, Id avoid using that name entirely simply because if thereare multiple websites that have the same name, Google can only rank 1 websiteat the top and typically the older website that has been using the name thelongest will end up dominating the top section of Google.
Don't Tell Anyone What You Are Going To Name Your Business
The next most important tip is while your at the earlystages of your business make sure you don’t announce the name you are planning touse for your business to your friends or family members or worse, on socialmedia because there might be people around you that might go on Godaddy or anyother domain website and buy the name that you were thinking of buying. So keepit to yourself until you get it officially registered and you’ve alreadysecured the domains and social media accounts. Then tell anyone you want aboutyour new business name.
Use An Abstract Name If Possible
If you plan on building a brand that will one day end up inmultiple industries, choose a name that doesn't actually relate to any onespecific industry and go for a broad name that can apply to any kind ofbusiness you decide to expand into. For example, the company tesla use to becalled Tesla Motors but now they are in the solar business, they are inmanufacturing they will soon have their own charging station stores and they alsohave their own battery business. So they changed their domain from tesla motorsto just tesla to make it easier for everyone to remember. Apple use to becalled apple computers but now they are just called apple.
Does It Sound Good On The Phone
If you are in business chances are you are going to bemaking a lot of calls and when you or your staff members introduce yourselvesover the phone you want to make sure you have a name that they can be proud tosay so do a phone test and see if the name you are thinking to use actuallysounds good over the phone for example … Hello, this is John calling from Nordello,how are you doing today?
Use Brand Bucket To Brainstorm Ideas
If you go on Google and type in brandbucket you will come across a website that basically allows you to browse by industryall the different names that are available for sale in every single type ofniche with the logos already designed and their corresponding domain namesavailable as part of the package you can choose to buy an already existingbrand name or you can simply use this as a brainstorming tool for new nameideas.
Use Name Chek
This website is amazing because any name idea that you haveyou can just type it into this tool and it will check and see if the domain isavailable and if the matching social media profile names are available as wellfor example Instagram, YouTube Facebook etc
Make Sure The .com and .ca Is Available For Your Domain
The reason you want to make sure that your business name isavailable in both the .ca and .com is that once your website is launched andyou only have the .ca version of the domain. If later on another company startsoff with the same name as yours and they register the .com version, chances areyour websites are going to compete with each other on the first page of Google becauseGoogle won't be able to distinguish which website is the true option for thatspecific term. So to avoid this in the future make sure you have both domainsvariations if you do business in the US & Canada.
Don’t Use Exact Match Domains As Your Business Name
Let’s say you just started a flower shop store in Toronto, don’t go and register the name flower shop toronto.com thinking that you are going to get a ton of visitors to your site simply because your website is the name of high traffic keywords on Google. This strategy did in fact work to some degree several years ago but now if you choose an exact match domain your website is going to have a very hard time ranking for your own search term.