Picking a name for your Business

November 28, 2021 by Michael Diez

Qualities of a good business name

  • Memorable
  • Stands out

Take the following as guidelines. Sometimes you may need to ignore some of these guidelines to make your business stand out.

Consider how your target Audience will perceive your business name

Watch out for words that sound like other words when put together

Source: Worst Business Names

  • Pho King
  • Analtech
  • Morning Wood Company
  • Bunghole Liquors
  • Poopsie’s
  • Sam & Ella’s Chicken Palace
  • Passmore Gas
  • Chew-N-Butts
  • Master Bait and Tackle
  • Dumass Taco
  • Knobs ‘n Knockers

Make sure it is easy to pronounce and spell in different targeted languages, unless you want to sound fancy

The spelling of some words may be difficult to remember for speakers of other languages. For example “Beautification” may be OK in English, but hard to remember for Spanish speakers.

Some words may sound the same in other languages, but are spelt significantly differently. For example, “Connection” in English, and “Conexión” in Spanish.

Make sure your company name is not similar to others in your state.

If you are starting a business in Florida, follow this link for the Ultimate Guide to Naming an LLC in Florida.

Digital Considerations

Type your domain name all in lower-case letters

When people type your domain name, they most likely type it all in lower-case letters.

Some issues like repeated letters and unintended words become more obvious when you spell your domain name all in lower-case letters.

Make it easy to type in the browser

Try typing the name on a mobile phone.

Make it easy to generate email addresses

Try a few email addresses:

Domain name character length

The first thing someone needs to do to open your website or send you an email is type your domain name.

So if your business name is long, consider using an abbreviated form as a domain name.

Here is a list to help you pick a name based on character length:

  • Short - Between 6 to 14 characters
  • Medium - At most three syllables
  • Long - Less than four words

SEO Considerations

Don’t put too much emphasis on SEO when it comes to picking a business name. An over reliance on SEO can make your business seem spammy.

Using Keywords in the Business Name

Don’t think too hard about this, but if you are considering using keywords in your business name for SEO purposes, make sure the keywords have very few competitors.

For example, if you are a pizza restaurant:

  • Miami’s Best Pizza (too much competition)
  • Joe the Baker (Better, but Joe is a common name)
  • Zack’s Pizza (This would work in many places)
  • Seneca’s Pizza (OK, this has very few competitors)

Avoid hyphens

The main reason I would avoid hyphens in a domain name is because there are very few cases where I would use hyphens in a logo (wordmark), so having the logo without a hyphen but the domain with a hyphen could confuse people.

Check out this article to read more about the Pros and Cons of using Hyphens in your domain name.

That being said, overall, keywords and hyphens are not really going to make much of a difference when it comes to SEO.

Read this article to learn what Google’s John Mueller says about keywords in domain names, or this article about what he says about hyphens in domain names.

Naming the business after yourself

If you want your business related to a Personal brand or Family business, it makes sense to name it after yourself or the family.

Using your personal name is also common with professional service firms like lawyers and accountants.

However, when it comes to a corporation, you may want to consider what would happen if you leave the company or the cost of rebranding after an acquisition.

Research Tools

  • GoDaddy
  • City Division of Corporations
  • YP.com
  • Yelp.com
  • Thumbtackeatmywords.com