How To Choose a Perfect Name For Your Business [Ultimate Guide]
If you are thinking of starting a business, this guide on how to name a business is required reading. Before opening a business, there are some points that you need to review to ensure your success in the market, especially your brand name. At grind success, We’ve put together a full guide to naming your business. It’s comprehensive and easy to understand.
The name of a business represents its identity and essence, which is why many entrepreneurs often have problems when choosing one. According to Hubspot, the naming, or process of naming a company, must result in an alternative that strategically contributes to the brand’s competitiveness.
By making your business name memorable, your business is more likely to gain public acceptance, which is essential to staying relevant in the long run.
To help you with this process, in today’s note, we will teach you how to name your business in a few steps so that you do not delay in finding the ideal option. Also, in the last section, you will find a bonus with a list of online business name generators that you can use to simplify this task.
Here I share some suggestions to define a creative name that “hooks”, So that you can come up with some cool name ideas for your upcoming business. This guide will help you no matter what kind of business you want to start.
Let’s get started!
When Google started it was called “BackRub”. Possibly with that name they never got as much attention as when they changed it. A creative name is important because it helps you bring potential listeners to your value proposition. Names are terms of reference when we communicate.
When they are clear and well defined they are much easier to remember than the confusing ones. The essential thing is that they are easy to pronounce, write and remember. If you say it out loud you need to repeat it twice for them to understand, it’s not a good name.
Why Is Your Business Name Important?
Firstly, The name of your business will be the business card that will give the first impression to your clients, a factor that makes it extremely important for its success.
Second, The name of your company will transcend over time as it is built and grows into a large corporation.
When you select a name, it becomes the business card of your brand.
That is the name which you are going to introduce yourself in the market. And with that name, your customers will identify you and buy from you.
Therefore, if that name has an advertising complement, such as a good logo and a successful slogan, surely your next potential customers will be your loyal consumers, forever and ever.
A name is not a brand. There is an important difference. A name is what you decide to call your business. That is not your brand. A name is simply a short unique and protected identifier to describe your brand promise. A brand is more than the slogan or logo or color scheme you use. Your brand is what people feel about your business. A name is simply the piece that your audience associates with that feeling. A brand is a promise of an experience. It takes more than a name for people to change their feelings, or more importantly, their behavior. That’s why when choosing a name for a podcast you should think about how you want to be perceived.
Characteristics of the best business names
After having defined the most important aspects of your brand, you must know what the essential characteristics of a successful business name are.
According to me, there are 7 attributes that every entrepreneur can’t ignore when naming their business. Next, we explain what each of them are:
- Descriptive: the business name must provide us with information or give indications about the product, service, or activity carried out by the company.
- Short: if the name of your business is very long, few will have it in mind.
- Memorable: this attribute is key because if the name of your business is not significant, the client will not be able to retain it and will forget about it.
- Pronounceable: Regardless of the language you choose for your business name, it should be easy to say.
- Evocative: this attribute refers to the emotions generated by the name of our business to the client, which must always be positive.
- Original: try to create a different name from those commonly heard, without causing surprise in the client.
- Unique: do not use the name of other companies to name your business, it is important that you stand out for yourself.
Although our expert tells us that it is impossible to define the name of a business with these 7 characteristics, at the very least, the name should be evocative and unique. By ensuring these two attributes in the name of your brand, you can ensure an important level of recall.
LegalZoom, an online legal technology company, insists that names similar to those of other companies should be discarded, otherwise you may face legal charges for plagiarism. In addition, they state that your brand would be at risk of losing its identity since the public will naturally associate it with the other organization in question.
Consider SEO When Naming Your Business
If you don’t show up on google, you’re going to make it that much more challenging for customers to find you.
Today it is essential that our customers can easily find us through a google search.
I recommend you avoid using the letters zsc, y-ll-i, vb; as well as the use of numbers and hyphens.
Also, I advise you to make the name of your business easy to pronounce and dictate to someone who has to type it into a web browser. As well as, facilitating intuitive searches on google.
Consider the three “Don’ts”
- Don’t put two words that end and start with the same letter together.
- Do not have “ñ”, numbers, or hyphens in the name of the podcast.
- Do not include a trademark registered by another company. For example, if you use the word Samsung or Apple you run the risk of receiving a letter from lawyers. Worse still, Apple is very sensitive to the use of their trademarks and they could block you from their Apple Podcasts directory that feeds many important applications.
Think about the tone that will set your brand
The tone of a brand can be:
- Funny
- Cozy
- Practical
- Modern and innovative
- Emotional
- Intriguing
Don’t rush into choosing quickly because you don’t want to spend a lot of time. Follow my advice and you won’t regret it.
How to come up with creative business names ideas?
To start defining the name of a business, you need to clearly state what its objectives of this will be before starting. To do this, you should specify
What the topic of your business will be,
The tone with which you want to address your audience, and
What audience do you think your business will target.
Once you have this basic information ready, we can start choosing the name of your business.
Define your brand identity
The first step in our guide on how to name a business is to define what your brand stands for. To do this, we recommend knowing every aspect of it, such as the mission, values, personality, and emotions that you hope to convey to your customers.
Once you are clear about the identity of your brand, it will be easier for you to determine the differential value it has compared to the competition. In this way, you will be aware of what you should highlight in the name of your business.
Start with brainstorming your business name
One of the most well-known millennial techniques to activate your creative side and start generating the best business name ideas is brainstorming. But how do you brainstorm business names?
Create a list of words related to your niche. Search Google.com which will help you discover even more words and ideas for a great name. Now think of some fun words related to your niche. Add your name to the words. Create a list of words and start exploring. The list may contain adjectives that describe your target audience.
Explore a synonym
Look in a dictionary-like wordreference.com or Synonyms.com that can provide you with new interesting words online. This can be helpful in figuring out how to say something slightly different.
Generate some ideas with words related to the topic of your business
Use a name generator. One tool for exploring fun word combinations is Wordoid.com. This creative name generator allows you to set your own limits with the words you want to use.
All you need to do is press “Submit” and browse through the suggestions. Wordoid not only suggests some interesting names but also tells you if the .com of that name has been registered by someone.
Look for inspiration in books related to your subject
There are millions of books full of wonderful words, in the title, subtitle, or in name of chapters. Get inspired… of course respecting intellectual property laws. Chances are you’ll find something to help you come up with the name of your new business.
Compare to other business names
Observe and analyze the names of other businesses that have similar themes to yours, to know who your competitors will be and take inspiration from their ideas.
Compare these business names to the proposals you generated in the previous step and try to refine them based on your research. Make sure you don’t have duplicate or very similar names to other businesses.
Play with words to come up with a perfect name
Look at Panabee.com. This tool helps you keep your idea original by providing suggestions closely tied to your choice.
Use compound words
Try using compound words and unusual combinations to come up with unique and creative business names. Like Podcannabis, a podcast about cannabis culture produced that combined the word cannabis with the word podcast to create its name.
Keep on narrowing the list down
Once you’ve tried these different methods to generate various business name proposals, all you have to do is refine them to choose the best one.
Reduce your ideas to a name that represents the essence of your brand and select the one whose domain is free. As you narrow your focus, stick with a name that better identifies with the value proposition your business will offer.
Start by choosing the 5-10 business names that you liked the most from all the ideas that you collected and, taking into the tips that we have given you, choose the 3 options that best fit and represent the theme and tone that you have in mind for your business.
Domain availability
Before moving on to the next step, be sure to search for each of your most liked business names on Google to check the availability of your new business name.
Domain availability is often the key to deciding on a name. But the reality is that most good names TLD have already occurred to other people who registered them.
There are people whose business is to buy popular domains with the intention of reselling them for thousands of dollars. Instead of buying a TLD from a reseller, I prefer to look for another name or register a “.net” “.co” “.org” There are more available than one “.com.” On the other hand, there is an increase in “.co” names.
In podcasting, many of us have selected the “.fm” domain extension, but this costs much more than the traditional ones.
Find the domain for your business name idea
You can complete this step of naming your business guide by checking sites like GoDaddy, Namecheap, and NameChekr to see if your business domain is available for use.
Feedback
Finally, you must choose a winner. put your 3 business name options to the test by presenting them to a small group of people and among all the members of the team. Although you can do it yourself too.
Ask them to vote for the option that seems most appropriate to them, taking into account the objectives you set for the project.
It is advisable to have different points of view so that the final choice is more accurate.
Good luck!
The registration of your trademarks
When you have very well selected names for your brands, you should investigate if they are commercially free.
I repeat this to you because it is very important that if nobody uses them, you register them as soon as possible.
But for your brands to be commercially projected, you must have a company that is legally constituted.
What tools or generators can I use to search for name ideas?
BizNameWiz This is a website created by brand name specialists to help you generate names for a business. Enter the random words you want to keep in the name of your podcast. The website will generate suggestions.
Business Name Generator This is a website that helps in generating business names and they have developed a tool to provide you with podcast names and check domain availability.
Dot-o-Mator This website combines keywords and presents you with two columns. In each one, you enter the keywords related to your topic. The service combines them and shows you a list of possible names and domains.
Bustaname Combines different terms and keywords.
NameMesh Suggests domains in different categories: SEO, Fun (fun), Mix, and others.
Expired or Abandoned Domain Site: Bull Ranking | ExpireDomains.Co
Congratulations! You’ve finished our guide on how to name a business. Now, it’s time to take the first step and create a successful business. With the steps that we have mentioned, rest assured that the name of your company will be able to stay in the minds of your consumers for a long time.
Conclusion
Select an easy-to-write name and read it out loud. That is the litmus test. If you have difficulty reading it, it is not a good name. If when you tell your friends and family they tell you, can you repeat it? …. It means you should look for another name.
Sometimes a name looks great on paper, but when you say it out loud, it feels ambiguous. It is preferable that the name is relevant to your content. A fresh, short, easy-to-remember name takes time to find, but it will go a long way to making your business successful.
Defining a good brand for your business is one of the most important things when starting out because that name will stay with you. Everything you do is going to be related to the name of your podcast. The name must be a permanent decision. Think about the possible consequences you would face if you later decide to change it. Do not rush to choose it.