ESYB2 084 - How to Choose a Great Business Name
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[00:00:00] In this video, let's talk about how to choose a good business name, and this is something you're going to say all the time. So it's really important to get right. And it's the first impression people will get when they learn about your business is your business name. So if you choose it well, That's fantastic.

If you don't choose it well, that's okay. Because there's a lot of terrible business names like pep boys. What is that Amazon? Really? What is that? But the amazing companies. So it's not the end of the world if you get it wrong, but it's much, much better if you get it right. So first let's start with clarifying some confusion.

There's a lot of confusion around what is really your business name. So there's the first name is the. business name that you officially register. If, for example, you register your business in the United States, you have to have an official name that you register with the state, your bank account states that business name, your checks go to that business name.

That is just the official business name. It can be something like XYZ. Your consumers, your customers never have to know that business really, [00:01:00] unless they're writing checks to it or something like that, but it's not your brand. It's not what everybody knows. What everybody generally knows is your main brand name and when your company grows, under one company, there can be multiple brand names.

For example, there's a candy company named Mars. Mars owns about 20 or 30 or who knows how many candy brands, like brands you would know, M&amp; M's, Snickers, Dove, and so on and so on. Now, most people just know those brand names. When I go to buy chocolate, I go, I want Dove. I don't say to myself, I want Mars.

Most people don't even know what Mars is. It's just a registered name of that company. It's a business name. It's not the brand used to interact with consumers. In your case, if you're just starting out, most likely you just have the one brand name. And that's what we're going to talk about in this video, we'll discuss that your main brand name and long term you can have multiple brands, but in [00:02:00] the beginning is just.

So, let's go over how to choose that good brand name. The first thing you want to do, and this is something you do during planning, is you check existing trademarks so that you don't violate any. Otherwise, if you create a website with a trademark and all kinds of logos and everything else, then that company can easily have all your work taken down and you'll have to restart all over.

That's just something prudent. And that's it. Make sure you're not encroaching on any existing trademarks and it's not too difficult to check without a lawyer. You can just Google around how to do that. Then here's a checklist for what your brand name should contain. It should be memorable, short, easy to say and spell so that people don't forget how to spell it and it should roll off the tongue easily.

If it's a multiple word name, it's common to name businesses as alliterations, which basically means that every word will start with the same Letter which makes it kind of [00:03:00] catchy to say for example, Dunkin Donuts. That's a fun name Donuts is by itself fun, but Dunkin Donut in coffee. That's how I picture it That's even more fun and also just that alliteration with both D D D D D like Dunkin Donut Duh duh duh duh duh kind of makes it a little bit catchy to say and easier to remember and more repeatable Because it's actually kind of fun to say sometimes.

So that's something you do if you have multiple words in your name. Also, after all these check out, make sure that there is an available dot com domain name and all your social handles that you'd be registering like on Twitter, everywhere else. The handle at whatever your business name is should be available everywhere so that your social media accounts can stay consistent.

And your business name should vaguely echo the core of your business. If your business name is too specific, like Bob's Gardening, it's okay if it's Bob's Gardening, but what if Bob starts doing home [00:04:00] repair? Well, it doesn't make sense. Why is the business name gardening and people will get confused and when clients get confused, they go away.

But if you're Bob and you know that you're going to be doing home repair forever, then it might not be so bad because it's your branding yourself, Bob. And that home repair is actually something that you're going to put into your URL. And that's something that's actually going to have keywords in the URL, which is actually going to help you rank in Google a little bit.

So with that, let's talk about how it all relates to the web. Well, keywords in the domain used to be very important for SEO. So if you have a business like Bob's lawn care, well, if somebody is searching for lawn care and having the words lawn care. In your URL, like bobslongcare. com, used to help you a lot in ranking higher in search.

Now, it helps you less. It's still important, but it helps you less. But if you have very specific names, it's [00:05:00] not all good because It also makes you less flexible long term, so you do want to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves to use keywords in your name, sure, but sparingly. You don't want to overdo it because at the same time you want to err on the side of having a good brand long term.

is more important than having a keyword in the domain. It used to be that having keywords in the domain was more important. Now it helps you less. So now the focus is more on just having a good business name that is going to serve you well long term. And the only caveat to all this is that if you have a self branded business like a coaching business or or you're an influencer, you can just name your URL, your business name.

That's you. Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC.

