Your new business doesn’t only revolve around manufacturing the best product or finding the best marketing campaign. It also needs the right name to boost its success.
However, finding the perfect company name can be daunting. Choosing the wrong name can lead to miscommunication about what your brand wants to convey. Even worse, it can get you snared in legal issues.
Without further ado, let’s see the seven tips for naming your startup.
1. Check the Business Name’s Availability
This is the most vital yet often overlooked part of getting the perfect business name. As you want to keep your company name distinctive, you should ensure no one has claimed it.
Always conduct a thorough web search on your chosen business name. Chances are, someone has used it for their business.
Therefore, not checking if your chosen name is still available and using it anyway can lead to trademark infringements.
If searching the name on Google takes too much of your time, check this tool. By typing your desired name onto its browser, you’ll find out if you can own it. The software also gives you alternatives if someone else has taken your chosen business name.
2. Keep the Name Short and Easy to Spell
You don’t want to confuse your prospective customers with a long and hard-to-spell business name. Such names can increase users’ possibilities of ending up on the wrong website or getting the 404 error page.
For better memorability, keep your business name around 6-12 characters. Additionally, as your business name will also become your domain name, avoid having numbers and symbols in it.
When you have numbers in your company name, people will question how they should spell it. As for symbols, they result in low readability scores.
On top of that, 45% of millennial shoppers use voice-assistance to reach an eCommerce website. Therefore, keeping your business name easy to spell is the holy grail for your business’ growth.
3. Make It Industry-Relevant
Your business name should reflect the industry it’s in. To achieve this goal, you need to use relevant keywords in your company name. However, avoid keyword stuffing to allow your business to stand out from the competitor’s crowd.
The easiest way to avoid having a generic brand name is by playfully combining your product name with other words, like a noun or a verb in the -ing form.
Burger King is one of the best examples we have. Not only catchy, but the name also describes what the company offers directly.
You can also mix it with an adjective showcasing your brand’s quality or evoking the feelings you want your prospective customers to feel regarding your brand.
4. Avoid Trends
Using trending words or phrases at the time you’re establishing your company can diminish its shine over time. Further, you risk losing customers when you decide to rebrand your business.
After all, one trend doesn’t always fit all business niches. What you need to do is choose trends wisely and utilize them to maximize your marketing campaign instead.
5. Get the .com Extension if Possible
When it comes to getting a Top Level Domain (TLD) for your company’s website, try to get the .com extension. Not only is .com the most popular TLD, but it’s also the extension that people often associate with professionalism and reliability.
Suppose your desired domain isn’t available with .com. In this case, you can try the new domain extensions. Apart from its ability to describe your company’s service better, using one of the new TLDs also shows your company’s innovativeness.
Let’s say you run a tech company. In this case, you can choose the .io or .tech extension. Additionally, the .store extension, as seen on wonder.store, is an excellent .com alternative for retail and eCommerce websites.
6. Give Your Business Some Space to Grow
As you don’t want to limit your business’ growth, you should stay away from being too specific. Therefore, give your business a name that remains relevant as your business expands or pivots in a slightly different direction.
If you’re going to call your business“Curated Vintage Lamps,” think again. It will cause your customer confusion when you start selling more varied vintage goods.
On top of that, using city or country names also contributes to business growth restrictions. So, you better avoid using it as well.
7. Trademark Your Brand and Domain
You’ve learned that using another person’s company name will lead you to litigation. Therefore, as soon as you get the perfect company name for your startup, get it trademark-protected. Also, do it for your domain as well.
In 2016, Louis Vuitton filed a suit against a South Korean fast-food retailer called Louis Vuitton Dak. As the restaurant’s name is too similar to that of the high-end fashion company, it dilutes the infamous Louis Vuitton reputation and makes it less unique.
The court then held the restaurant accountable for trademark infringements and got it to pay the $1250 bill.
Considering this case, we can see that trademarks can also keep a company name unrepeated, safeguard brand reputation, and prevent customer confusion.
