How to Pick a Name for Your Business - Business Name Ideas

Let's face it, picking a name for your business is one of the most important tasks you will have as you go about setting up your business. Picking the right name can help your business grow and thrive, while the wrong name can actually cost you customers. The name your choose for your business is the face your are presenting to your potential customers, so it is worth putting some thought and time into it.

There is no right or wrong way to pick a name for your business, but there are some general guidelines you should keep in mind while brainstorming ideas:

1. Your business name should reflect the type of product or service you offer. For example, if you are making products for teens, you may want to go with a trendy, fun name. On the other hand, if, for instance, your products are geared more toward rich, upper-class women you would do better to go with a name that came across as classy and upscale.

2. A good business name is often catchy and easy to remember. This is especially true if you are selling your product or service online since often times people won't buy the first time they visit your website. If your name is catchy, they will be more likely to remember it and visit your website again. On the other hand, if your name isn't very memorable, they may not be able to find your site again and you'll have lost a sale.

Try using words that rhyme, words that start with the same letter, or a made-up word that has a "sticky" factor to it.

3. Try to see into the future and plan for the growth of your business. For instance, if you choose a name like "Sandy's Necklaces" (made up) it will be harder for you to expand in the future to include bracelets and earrings in your product line.

Also, depending on how much you plan to grow, it may be a good idea not to use a geographic reference or city name in your business name. An example of this would be "Sandy's Seattle Jewelry Supply" (again, made up) In this case, if your business grows very large it will be harder for you to expand it outside of Seattle without changing your business name.

4. You can make up a word or phrase for your business name rather than using dictionary words. The biggest downside to this is that made up words can be difficult to remember and may require a larger advertising budget to get people to recognize your name. The more your name can say about what your business does or sells, the less money you will have to spend on advertising. Unless you have a very large advertising budget or a brilliant made-up name, it might be a good idea to go with a name that tells people exactly what they can expect to buy from you.

5. Brainstorm like crazy. Even if a name sounds stupid when you first think of it, write it down. The bigger the list of names you have to choose from the more likely you are to come up with a name you love. Even the names you thought were stupid when you first jotted them down may spark an idea for you at a later time.

6. Make your business name easy to pronounce. Word of mouth advertising is invaluable, but if people don't know how to say your name they won't talk about you. If you plan to do a lot of selling online, it's also important that your name is easy to spell. Many people will just search for your business name in the search engines or type a web address directly into their browser. If they can't spell your name they won't be able to find you. Also, be sure to avoid weird spellings like using "k" where there should be a "c" (ie. kandy instead of candy) Weird spellings can make it a lot harder for people to find your site online.
 
9.    Typically you will register your domain name to match your business name.  This may sound a bit strange, but you want to be sure that when all of the words of your business name are put together they don't spell something different that could be misinterpreted by your customers.  For example, let's look at Experts Exchange, which is a well known website.  Their domain name is expertsexchange.com, which can easily be read as "Expert Sex Change". It's just something you might want to take a glance at before settling on a final name to make sure you aren't scaring away customers with your domain name!

10. This is a biggie. Whether you are planning on selling your products or service online or not, you will definitely want to have a website for your business. The ideal situation is to have your domain name match your business name since many people will just type it straight into their browsers when they are searching for you. Before you become too attached to any one business name, it is a good idea to see if the matching domain name is available. When registering a domain name for your business, you should always try to get a .com name since that is what people will try first.

If you just need a domain name and plan to spend money on a web designer to set up a website for you, you can check domains at GoDaddy.com . They are a great, reliable source for inexpensive domain names, and if the exact domain that you want is not available they can either help you get it or will make suggestions on alternate domains that you can try. Here's a link to see if the name you want is available:

If, on the other hand, you want an inexpensive option that you can do yourself so you don't have to rely on a web designer to update your website for you any time you want to make a change or add a new product or service, Yahoo! is an excellent way to go. They give you absolutely everything you need to get a business set up online including your domain name, web hosting, e-commerce (meaning you can take payments online) and more. The best part is that you can manage every aspect of your website yourself right through your browser without having to know anything about making a web page.

This is an excellent option to get up and running with your new business quickly. You can check and see if your domain name of choice is available and learn more about the varous merchant options available at Yahoo here (and get 35% off by using this link!):

Interested in starting an online store? Yahoo! makes it easy - 35% off for a limited time!

I hope this lens helped you with coming up with a name for your business! Thanks for stopping by.