Chances are when you started your business, you didn’t give a lot of thought to your business name. You just needed something for the legal documents and chose something that would work.
That’s exactly how my good friend named his web development agency. He simply picked one from a list of available names.
I’m pretty sure it went like this…
Asyliiam
Attella
Axius
“Let’s go with Axius. That will work.”
And he’s changed the name twice since in search of a better name. He’s finally got a good one. Easy to spell. Easy to remember. But it took him nine years to get there. (No I won’t tell you the name, I don’t want to embarrass him.)
But we can all learn from his mistake.
You already know how critical your online presence is. It’s the way most customers start their search for the products they buy (even if they buy them in the store). And with millions of businesses online, getting customers to find you is not easy.
A bad business name can hurt.
A bad website name (URL) can hurt even more.
If you’re lucky, your business name is your URL.
Like McDonald’s is mcdonalds.com.
But for many small businesses (and practically all new businesses) that’s just not possible. Someone’s already got the name you want.
So you’ve settled for something else (probably not as good).
Like Brandstoryonline.com. When I tried to buy brandstory.com the owner asked for more than $125,000.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
So I added the online, which is less than optimal.
So is your website name good or bad? Here’s the quiz:
1. Does your name include words that are hard to spell?
Words like to, two, or too and four, for, or fore and threw and through have multiple spellings and may make it hard for your customers to know what letters to type. Names like Hough (or is it Huff?) or Erin (Aaron, Eryn) are also asking for trouble.
Y / N
2. Does your name include meaningless or made up words like Accelon, Alibis, Affini, Cartesis, Tekrati, Zweig? Meaningless words are hard to remember and spell. Yes there are successful companies using made up words for names (most of the above are real). But they’re the exception.
Y / N
3. Are you currently using a long, ugly domain name, something like thompsonandgaleadvertisinganddesign.com? Shorter names tend to rank higher in Google and, are much easier to read, remember and retype without making mistakes.
Y / N
4. Does your name not reflect what you do? I own a small do-it-yourself design company called Logomaker. You can find it online at logomaker.com. Which is great. But if we wanted to offer business cards, website design, or consulting that name would be all wrong. Your name should reflect your most important product.
Y / N
5. Does your company’s name create odd or unfortunate words when written as a URL? A day care called Kids Exchange has a decent name. But when typed as a web address: www.kidsexchange.com things don’t look so good. (By the way, this is a real company name. Whoops.)
Y / N
Add up your score. Did you circle Y three times or more? Then your name might be bad for your business. Actually, if you circled Y even once, you may want to think about it.
Fortunately there is an easy fix that doesn’t require moving your entire site to a new domain (which can be expensive and time consuming). Most web registers offer a service called “domain forwarding”. That means you can purchase a different URL to use to promote your business and simply redirect that traffic to your existing site. It’s easy to set up and inexpensive.
If you need help coming up with a new name for your business, website, or an upcoming product, let me know. I’d love to help.
Photo credit: Doug Hay.
The post A simple three minute quiz to see if your web site name is good or bad. appeared first on BrandStory.