How To Choose The Right Domain Name For Your Business
We attend a lot of networking events, and one of the top questions we get asked from new entrepreneurs is how to choose a domain name. Create a One-note account https://www.onenote.com/ or Evernote account https://evernote.com/ and just jot down all the name ideas you have, good ideas, bad ideas, whatever you have just type them in because eventually one of those names you jotted down, may spark an idea for a fantastic name. Write down all the words associated to your business, if your business is digital marketing agency, some words associated to your name could include design, conversion, optimize, lead, market, reach, network, etc. jot down everything that comes to mind. Take a break, look back at all of the words you came up with and see if you can combine some of them to create new words. For example one of our favorite YouTube channels is called Valuetainment , combined words are value and entertainment. Maybe by looking at your world list, you might see an opportunity to combine two words to create something unique.
If You Can't Come Up With A Name
This is a cool website you can use to check out domain name inspirations. Designers all over the world can create names and upload to this website and have business names ready to purchase. The purchase price includes the domain name and the logo they designed. This website has all of the major categories of business names organized so you can look through and see which names you like best. https://www.brandbucket.com/ If you can’t afford to buy a ready-made name from this website , still look through the website because it might inspire you to come up with a name for your business just by looking at what other people have come up with.
Choose An Abstract Name If Possible
Try not to name the business after yourself especially if you are a small local business because eventually, you will want to have a team of people that manage and run your business. For example, if you call your photography business, John’s photography. Let’s say your photography studio is called “john’s photography,” when customers come in, and they see someone else taking care of them; they may feel uncomfortable knowing that they came to see John, but someone else is taking care of them. It gives them the impression that you didn’t have time for them. Do yourself a favor and name the company something other than your own name. With a name like “john’s Photography” people will want to deal with you only and not your staff members, they may think that you are only reserved for an elite clientele. As a result, it might make it harder for you to book contracts for your team members to handle.
Your name could become an obstacle in the future if you decide to scale the business and expand into other cities or countries. You may even want to sell the company in the future. If the company is named after you, people are less likely to want to buy it, or even franchise it.
Try to go for a name that is more abstract, so that it doesn't relate specifically to one of your products; the reason being is that in the future if you decide to expand your business into other product lines or offer more services, you don’t want to have a name that is limiting. For example, if you are an event planner don’t use the name “Sarah's wedding planning,” one day you might get into corporate events, and your name could become an obstacle for you. If you are certain that you will stay in this niche forever, just go for something broader like “something events.” This way your business can work well for any type of event. Another great example is Apple. It is an abstract name, and as the company expanded into many different industries and markets, the name easily serves different purposes. Apple Music, Apple Pay, etc.
Does Someone Already Use The Name You Want
If you have a list of names, quickly do a Google search and see if there is another website out there with the same name or similar. If you find a website that has the same name, avoid using the name at all costs. Even if you can get one of the domain extensions, let's say they have .com, and you can buy .ca, avoid using the name because what happens is both of your websites will rank for the same keyword, and it will cause tremendous brand confusion. If nothing comes up in Google of a business already using the name, you can move on to the next step.
Make sure the name is not famous or used by someone famous, for example, if you come up with a name that is associated with someone famous, you could risk competing your website with Wikipedia results or their LinkedIn profiles or Facebook pages. Choose a name that only you will show up for. I know it's hard, but it’s better to do it right from the beginning than to fix or change it later.
Avoid Exact Match Domain Names
If you sell flowers, don’t name your business “Toronto Flowers.” This strategy may have worked ten years ago, but nowadays search engines won’t rank exact match domains and they released an algorithm to help remove websites that use them.
Where To Buy Your Domain Name
Name Cheap
https://www.namecheap.com/
GoDaddy
https://ca.godaddy.com/
These two websites are a really popular place to buy your domain name. If you are in Canada, make sure you buy the .com and .ca versions of your domain name. If only one of these versions is available, consider choosing another name. If you plan on expanding internationally, consider buying the appropriate extension for each country you want to be in so that others don’t take it. Here is a great website we found that shows you the domain extension for each country in the world.
https://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/topleveldomains/countrycodeA-E.asp
Use This Amazing Tool
https://namechk.com/
Name check is a tool that allows you to enter your business name idea and the tool will check and see if the domains are available, if the social media names are available and it will do a quick search and let you know if the name has been trademarked. We highly recommend you use this tool before you decide on a name for your business.
One other important thing to keep in mind is, make sure the name is easy to spell and easy to pronounce over the phone. Make sure the name you choose sounds nice, because you will be saying the name a lot, your customers will say it to their friends as well. Don’t choose a name that has many different spelling variations because you might have to buy all of those domains to avoid having someone else buy them. Also, if people go to Google and type your business name, if they misspell it, they may end up on someone else's website.
We hope this article was useful to you, if you have any questions or need any advice, feel free to reach out to us. We love meeting new business owners.