Most people probably think that naming a new business is a pretty easy and straight-forward thing to do. In reality though, it could be one of the most important decisions you will make as a business owner. In an ideal world, your business will be successful and thrive for many years, so ending up with a name that you might eventually regret and be stuck with is definitely something to be avoided!
With this in mind, it’s worth taking your time to make the right choice as there are many things that you should consider before making your final decision. Firstly, you’ll ideally want it to be creative, timeless, recognisable and most importantly memorable. You’ll also want to pick a name whose Domain is available, as having a website to showcase what you do is a must!
It’s well worth checking to see how many other companies have the same or similar names, that way you’ll not only avoid confusion but will also face less competition on search engines. There are many cases of companies being sued by larger or longer-established companies after choosing a name that is the same or too close to something that is already existing, so do your research to ensure that you won’t be treading on anybody’s toes.
Another SEO consideration may be that your company, and hence domain name, relates to or contains the name of the product or service you offer, as this could save you plenty of money and resources when it comes to optimising your SEO in the future.
If you’re stuck for ideas, you could try a service such as crowdsourcing. As well as generating funding, crowdsourcing can also help with names, logos and many other things. Another option that might be worth considering is NamingForce.com. In exchange for as little as £200, you get up to 800 business name suggestions in return, which are not machine-generated but submitted by creatives who apparently love to name businesses and are pretty good at it.
All you need to do is create a detailed brief that explains what your business does and what it is all about. The better your summary, the more relevant submitted suggestions will be. Namingforce then runs a competition with the winner being the name that you choose. Whoever wins will get the bulk of the fee, so it’s in everyone’s interests to come up with great names.
Once you get the initial brainstorming ideas you can give feedback that goes directly to the name’s creator. If you take advantage of that feature you can fine-tune the creative submissions, and improve the likelihood of ending up with the best possible name for your business, product or service.
Once you have selected some names that interest you, NamingForce carries out some market research to find out which ones are the most popular and will also create a list of your results which includes basic stats on UK and US trademark availability and domain name availability. So, all in all, £200 well spent!
